Month: August 2017

The Bible in a Year – 31 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

31 August. Daniel chapters 7-8

The two apocalyptic visions that are recounted here are dated in the first and third years of Belshazzar, therefore before the “writing on the wall” incident in yesterday’s reading.  They use slightly different symbols, but otherwise are much the same, with horned beasts representing countries, empires and their rulers, with one defeating another, persecution of God’s people and their eventual triumph.

Much apocalyptic writing is like this.  In the second vision, an archangel identifies two of the beasts as the Median-Persian and Greek empires; but otherwise it is pointless trying to identify particular nations and rulers in later centuries.  The principle is clear: there will often be persecution of religious groups by power-hungry men and their regimes, but (as the similar Book of Revelation puts it) those who endure to the end will be saved.

There is one verse in here which is regarded by Christians as pointing to Jesus: “I saw one like a human being [or ‘Son of Man’] coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him” (7:13). Jesus used the term Son of Man for himself, and here such a person is shown as being brought before the Creator, to be given (in the following verses) everlasting rule over the earth and the worship of its peoples.  That is how the Church has understood Jesus after his resurrection and ascension – he has become for ever the manifestation of God among people, and worthy of worship alongside the one he called Father.

These visions, terrible as they are, serve to remind us that worshipping God – directly or through Jesus – is risky in terms of the persecution that we might face, but ultimately we are on the side of the victor.

 

The Bible in a Year – 30 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

30 August. Daniel chapters 5-6

We see in these two chapters several patterns repeated elsewhere in the Bible, from both before and after the time of Daniel.

Firstly, in the relations between Daniel and the various kings he serves during his time in Babylon, we see a pattern like that of the judges and kings of earlier centuries, and the way that various prophets engaged with them.  ‘Good’ kings or judges (those who honour God and his laws) tended to alternate with ‘bad’ ones who went their own way and committed idolatry. So it is with these kings.  Yesterday we read of Nebuchadnezzar, a despot who paid God no attention until he was rewarded with madness for seven years until he came to his senses and worshipped the true God.  But his son Belshazzar takes no heed of this, and desecrates the holy vessels from the Jerusalem temple by using them in a debauched banquet to toast false gods.  So the writing appears on the wall, God’s own hand apparently writing his own judgement and condemnation.  Although Daniel interprets it for him, it is too late, and he is killed that night, Daniel having been give once again a high office in the land.

Belshazzar’s successor Darius (probably not of the same family) starts off as a good king who  includes Daniel the Jew in his government, until Daniel’s rivals plot against him in exactly the same way as they did in the days of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel is literally thrown to the lions.  Once again, he miraculously survives, giving credit to God, the king repents, converts (apparently), pardons Daniel (conveniently setting aside the doctrine of his own infallibility) and it is the plotters and their innocent wives and children who become lion fodder.

These stories – of the writing on the wall, and the lions’ den – are among the best known in the Bible, and not only by regular worshippers. Add the many similar stories in the Bible and it should be abundantly clear that taunting God by desecrating places where he is worshipped, banning worship of him, or persecuting his followers, will always lead to trouble. But it seems that rulers of nations never learn this lesson. The quiet-living, law-abiding, God-fearing citizen (be they Jew, Muslim, Christian or any other religion) is always an easy target when political expediency demands a scapegoat.

Another pattern, perhaps not so obvious, is seen in the story of the lions’ den.  Note this: Daniel is charged falsely by his enemies; the ruler tries to get out of what the law demands , knowing that he is actually innocent of any crime; the crowd prevails and he is reluctantly condemned to death; he is cast into a pit and a sealed stone put over it; at dawn the king comes fearing the worst, but hears Daniel alive, and is persuaded of the truth of the Jewish faith.  This story was written probably at least a couple of hundred years before Jesus, yet we see much the same pattern at the end of his earthly life.  His enemies persuade a reluctant Pilate to condemn Jesus on what he knows are trumped-up charges, Jesus (after his death in this case) is laid in a tomb with a sealed stone, at dawn his disciples come and some see him alive, and all (eventually) come to believe in the resurrection.

Again this is a basic principle of the way God works with people – the more those who believe are falsely persecuted, the more will their persecutors be confounded. For the law of God, as Nebuchadnezzar and Darius eventually came to acknowledge, is greater than the laws of man.

The Bible in a Year – 29 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

29 August. Daniel chapters 3-4

In chapter 3, three of the four Jewish exiles – but not Daniel himself – are thrown into the furnace for having refused to worship the golden statue that the king set up, and also refused the opportunity to recant.  They are saved by an angel (or maybe the incarnation of God himself, for the one “like a son of man” is a title Jesus took for himself). Nebuchadnezzar, in a fashion typical of this style of writing, immediately changes from persecuting the Jews to proclaiming theirs the official religion of his empire (as we saw in Esther).

 

Miracles aside, this is a story of true witness. We are not told whether the golden statue is of Nebuchadnezzar himself – though it might have been, since dictators are prone to having statues of themselves erected in their lifetimes – but whether it was that, or the image of a Babylonian god, to worship it (or the king himself) would for the Jews have been to break the greatest commandments.  These men passed the ultimate test of faith, which led to what should have been their martyrdom.  In every age there have been people of any religion whose faith has been strong enough to lead them down this path, and they are rightly honoured. But true martyrdom is always about suffering for peacefully holding to one’s principles in the face of violence and intolerance; those who claim as martyrs people who have killed others “in the name of God” fail to understand what a martyr really is – a peaceful witness to truth.

 

In our liberal society, we agonise over whether followers of one religion should be allowed to display symbols of their religion (be it crosses, turbans, painted faces or veils) or to be ‘witnesses’ in the sense of proselytising (explaining their faith to others with a view to conversion).  Sometimes the decision is reached that such symbols or witnessing should not be allowed in public places in order not to offend others.  This is regrettable, but it is a long way from state-sponsored torture.

 

In chapter 4, which is probably not to be seen as chronologically following the earlier one, Nebuchadnezzar sends another edict around his empire telling how he had another apocalyptic dream, that Daniel interpreted as predicting his downfall and madness (eating grass like oxen) until he should honour God’s authority. Again, this comes to pass (not immediately, but a year later) until after seven years of such exile and madness the king repents and ends up worshipping God.

 

This is harder to understand. Perhaps the lesson is that megalomania such as that displayed by Nebuchadnezzar and many other dictators and emperors over the centuries is itself a form of madness, and needs to be treated by an opposite extreme – an addiction to excessive power being removed only by the “withdrawal symptoms” of excessive humility. From a theological perspective, any action or attitude that causes us to rebel against God’s will might be seen as a form of insanity, and an appropriate form of penitence is the antidote to it.

 

These two chapters together – telling of martyrdom and witness, of rebellion against God and humble penitence – point us to spiritual principles that apply to every believer, to some degree. The challenge facing you if you are a person of faith is hopefully less life-threatening than that facing the three young men, but you may still find there are times when you are put on the spot to justify your faith-inspired actions (or refusal to act as instructed). Your ‘insanity’ or mine is hopefully much milder than that of Nebuchadnezzar or other despots, but nevertheless we need to be willing to confront it, and accept whatever form of penitence God considers necessary to bring us back to our senses.

The Bible in a Year. 28 August.

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

28 August. Daniel chapters 1-2

The book of Daniel is placed immediately after Esther in the Hebrew scriptures (unlike the Christian Bible where Daniel is reckoned as a prophet). The exaggerated style of the telling of his story is not dissimilar to that of Esther, with the threat of murder being suddenly reversed and him being made provincial governor instead. But it seems that unlike Esther, Daniel was probably a real person, since he is referred to in the prophecies of Ezekiel.

What distinguishes Daniel from other books of the Old Testament, including the other prophets, is that God speaks to him through dreams – either his own or those of other people – and that the interpretation of those dreams clearly points to the future, rather than to present circumstances.  In this, and in the nature of the dreams, it has much in common with the Book of Revelation, and both are classed as ‘apocalyptic’.

Something else that is notable about the stories of Daniel is that he is so committed to the worship of God that he lets nothing distract from that. In these two chapters he (and his companions) refuse the Babylonian food and wine, insisting on a vegetarian diet; when he is given the gift of understanding the king’s dream, his first response is to praise God; and when he presents the interpretation to the king, he insists that it is God who has given it, not Daniel himself.  “To God be the glory” should be the response of everyone who recognises his work in our lives.

The Bible in a Year – 27 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

Introductory notes to Esther

The book of Esther in the ‘standard’ Bible, i.e. the one generally read by the Protestant church, consists of ten chapters.  It is in fact an abridged version of the full story as found in the Greek (Septuagint) Bible still used by the Catholic Church and which consists of 16 chapters. However scholarship has shown that these are out of order.

 I am commenting on the fuller text as set out in the Revised Standard Version Common Bible (Collins edition, 1973), which sets these 16 chapters out in a sequence that tells the story of Esther in its natural order. This is why the chapter numbers may appear in my comments to be out of order.  I hope that makes sense.  In this version, the name of the King is Ahasuerus.  In other translations this Babylonian name is rendered Xerxes (don’t ask me why!)

27 August. Esther chapters 7 to 10

The third and final part of the book turns the fear of disaster among the Jews into salvation and celebration. In chapters 7 and 8 Esther explains Haman’s plot to the king; Haman’s attempt to plead to Esther for mercy is misinterpreted by the king as an assault on her, and he is hung immediately without trial. Esther and Mordecai are then allowed to write the text of a second royal edict, not only cancelling the first one and saving the Jews from ethnic cleansing, but permitting them to slay all their enemies without reprisal on the day when they were intended to have been the victims.

Again, the full text (in chapter 16) gives the text of this edict, which is more of a diatribe against Haman than a diplomatically worded legal text. Verse 7 seems very pertinent today with the very undemocratic actions of Presidents Putin and Trump: “What has been wickedly accomplished through the pestilent behaviour of those who exercise authority unworthily, can be seen not so much from the ancient records which we hand on, as from investigation of matters close at hand” (RSV).

The last two chapters explain how these incidents are the reason for the Jewish feast of Purim. The additional text in chapters 10 explains how God provided ‘purim’ (chances, opportunities), ‘one for the people of God and one for all the nations’ (10:10). That ties in with the later Christian idea of the Gospel of salvation through Jesus being given ‘first for the Jews and then for the gentiles’.

Esther may only be a story, rather than having any historical basis, but it reminds us of the ever-present danger of ethnic hatred and persecutions. We have seen such hatred flaring up in recent years in places such as Rwanda, Syria and parts of the former Soviet Union, as well an in Nazi Germany. In these situations, people of different religious or ethnic groups who used to live together peacefully find themselves fighting against each other, often stirred up in the first instance by a very small number of extremists.  But such events seem to have an unstoppable momentum, unless someone who is there ‘for such a time as this’ is courageous enough to step in and bring peace and justice.  For what time and purpose has God put you were you are?

The Bible in a Year – 26 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

Introductory notes to Esther

The book of Esther in the ‘standard’ Bible, i.e. the one generally read by the Protestant church, consists of ten chapters.  It is in fact an abridged version of the full story as found in the Greek (Septuagint) Bible still used by the Catholic Church and which consists of 16 chapters. However scholarship has shown that these are out of order.

 I am commenting on the fuller text as set out in the Revised Standard Version Common Bible (Collins edition, 1973), which sets these 16 chapters out in a sequence that tells the story of Esther in its natural order. This is why the chapter numbers may appear in my comments to be out of order.  I hope that makes sense.  In this version, the name of the King is Ahasuerus.  In other translations this Babylonian name is rendered Xerxes (don’t ask me why!)

26 August. Esther chapters 4-6

The story of Esther, Mordecai and Haman continues to unfold. Yesterday’s cliff-hanger left us fearing for the future of the Jewish people who were about to be exterminated throughout the Babylonian empire.  Now, Mordecai whose refusal to bow to Haman was the cause of the plot turns to fasting and prayer, and persuades Esther to do the same.

The additional chapters 13 and 14 in the full text give us the words of their prayers to God.  Chapter 15 then elaborates on the meeting between Esther and her husband King Ahasuerus in chapter 5 of the abridged version.

These additional chapters show Esther’s true character. She, the queen, is not only willing to fast for the sake of her people, but goes beyond the usual sackcloth and ashes by covering her head in dung (of which animal is not specified). She claims that wearing a royal crown is so awful that she considers it ‘like a menstrual rag’.  She also shows remarkable cunning in the way she approaches the king: she pretends to faint in fear to win his sympathy, and does not tell him at once about Haman’s plot, but invites the king and Haman to banquets on two successive nights.

In between the two banquets, Haman’s pride sets him up for a fall as he has a gallows built for Mordecai to be hung from. But before the second night, the king discovers Mordecai’s previous act of courage in foiling a plot against the king, and decides to honour Mordecai even above Haman, who then has to bear the humiliation of leading Mordecai round the city and praising him.

What is to be learnt from this? One phrase from this book that is often quoted to show the way God works through individuals is this: “who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (4:14) – in other words, God plants people in particular places or roles at particular times so that their experience and gifts may be used for the benefit of others.

Also, chapters 13 and 14 are model forms of intercession: praising God, remembering his mercies in past times, bringing the current need before him, calling on God to act, and finally explaining the benefits not only to the intercessor but the God himself if the prayer is answered. Anglican collects (public prayers for the day or for a particular circumstance) still follow the same sort of pattern, in abbreviated form.

The Bible in a Year – 25 August.

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

Introductory notes to Esther

The book of Esther in the ‘standard’ Bible, i.e. the one generally read by the Protestant church, consists of ten chapters.  It is in fact an abridged version of the full story as found in the Greek (Septuagint) Bible still used by the Catholic Church and which consists of 16 chapters. However scholarship has shown that these are out of order.

 I am commenting on the fuller text as set out in the Revised Standard Version Common Bible (Collins edition, 1973), which sets these 16 chapters out in a sequence that tells the story of Esther in its natural order. This is why the chapter numbers may appear in my comments to be out of order.  I hope that makes sense.  In this version, the name of the King is Ahasuerus.  In other translations this Babylonian name is rendered Xerxes (don’t ask me why!)

 25 August. Esther chapters 1-3

The book of Esther is notable for two things: firstly it is not a historical story.  Maybe some very conservative Christians think it must be, but it is generally accepted to be an early example of the novel genre, set in the time of the Babylonian captivity.  This is clear from the exaggerated way much of the story is told – it is a fairy tale, not a historical novel in the modern sense where authenticity is everything.  The English translation should really start “Once upon a time…”

Secondly, there is in the abridged version (see introductory notes above) no mention of the name of God.  You could read this book, taken out of its Biblical context and knowing nothing about Judaism, without realising that the Jews are people defined by belief in God, although they are clearly identified as an ethnic group facing persecution.

The complete text, however, does mention God, and in chapter 11 (a ‘prologue’ to the abridged text) Mordecai is given a dream in which a great river, and light, arise to save God’s people from persecution.  The identity of this water and light will become clear.  Chapter 12 which follows, summarises the plot of the book in a few lines. Presumably it was removed from the abridged version as  a “spoiler”!

Chapters 1 to 3 can be summarised as follows (though it is difficult to summarise such an action-packed story). The king gives a 7-day banquet, at the end of which his queen refuses the order of her drunken husband to come to him.  The king’s advisers, fearful that if this becomes known among the common people, other women could refuse to obey their husbands (what a horror in a patriarchal society!), command that she should be deposed and a new queen sought.  So the king organises a beauty contest in which he sleeps with each young woman in his harem once, to choose the new queen.  And guess what, Esther (who is in the harem, but keeping her Jewish identity secret) wins it!  A second great banquet follows. No sooner was that completed than two men plot to kill the King.  Mordecai (Esther’s cousin and guardian) hears of it, gets her to betray them to the king, and the plotters are hung. Haman then becomes the king’s chief adviser, and everyone is expected to kowtow to him. But Mordecai does not.  As a Jew he refuses to bow down to anyone but God. Haman then decides to use his power not only to kill Mordecai but to persecute all the Jews. The king is persuaded to sign a decree that they should be ‘ethnically cleansed’ as we would now say. Chapter 13 give the full text of the order, to be sent to all parts of the empire, that all Jews were to be murdered on one day, the 14th of Adar, on the charge of living in a way prejudicial to peace and tranquillity.

Now pause for breath!  Even allowing for this being a fairy tale, with the heroes and villains, the wicked deeds and heroic actions, that such stories demand, it should make us think.  Could it ever happen that all the Jews could be destroyed?  It had already nearly happened at the time of the Exile, before this story was written.  It nearly happened again when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70.  It nearly happened again under the fascists in Europe within living memory. The lies and exaggerations that the Nazis told to the German people about the Jews persuaded the majority of them to be complicit in the Holocaust, just as the decree of Ahasuerus was about to be carried out across his empire.  So, sadly, the premise of this story is no fantasy.  Praise God that he does always rescue a remnant of his people to keep his promise to them, even in the face of the wickedness of dictators. And watch out for the rise of such people in our day.

 

The Bible in a Year – 24 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

The last third of the book continues in much the same vein as the rest. It is chapter 9 of Ecclesiastes, paraphrased, that gives us the English idiom “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”, in other words there is no point denying ourselves life’s pleasures, since whether we enjoy them or not, we will all suffer the same fate of death, with our bodies returning to the earth  (12:7) and no sensations or thoughts beyond that (9:10). Yet we should not neglect to work as well as rest and play (11:6), and throughout the book there are reminders that there is still a judgement (9:1, 11:9, 12:14).

What have I learnt from reading this most unusual book of the Bible – unusual in that it appears at first sight to negate all the other ones that instruct us to live in simplicity, chastity and humility, and work hard? Maybe what matters is not that we live like that, but that doing so makes us more aware of mortality. Denying oneself the “good things” in life may make it easier to be aware of our inner being and contemplate death, but if we can manage to enjoy life’s pleasures and find satisfaction in hard work while still being aware of the death that awaits our bodies and the judgement that awaits the soul, so much the better.  Therein is wisdom, for Solomon obviously managed it.

 

So did Jesus, who seems to have had a whale of a time for the three years of his ministry in Galilee and Judea, knowing all along that a cruel death awaited him.  Beyond that, he knew, he alone would not be judged, for he himself is the judge.  But Jesus has experienced earthly life in all its pleasure and pain in order that he might judge us for our lives – not by how much we have suffered, but rather how much we have enjoyed it, while loving God and our neighbour as well.

 

The motto of the Anglican Diocese of Leeds for which I work is “Loving, Living, Learning”.  I thinks Solomon would have adopted that – he knew how to love, he enjoyed life (despite its “vanity”) and he had learnt true wisdom.

 

The Bible in a Year – 23 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

23 August. Ecclesiastes chapters 5-8

Chapter 5 starts with a warning that we should be careful in the words we use in prayer, for it is quite possible to speak foolishly to God or to make a promise (vow) to him that we cannot keep. After that the text returns to the theme of the opening chapters – that both the life of the rich and that of the poor is in vain.

 

Chapter 7 is a series of short proverbs of practical wisdom. Its conclusion is “I said, ‘I will be wise’, but it was far from me. That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?” (7:23) In other words, as Pontius Pilate famously asked, “what is truth?” – even the wisest person by human standards cannot comprehend ultimate reality.

 

It is not until near the end of chapter 8 that we begin to see an answer to the “problem of vanity” that has occupied the writer since the start of the work – why is it that even being healthy, wealthy, wise and happy is pointless since we all die?  There can only an answer to that if death is not, in fact, the end of life.  What does make sense is an understanding that the righteous life and wise behaviour will be rewarded by God in the life to come: “Though sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they stand in fear before him, but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.” (4:12-13)

The Bible in a Year – 22 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

22 August. Ecclesiastes chapters 1-4

If the book of Lamentations (the readings for the last two days) was the story of unalleviated suffering in Jerusalem at a time of disaster, Ecclesiastes is a story – or rather a reflection – on unalleviated boredom in Jerusalem in a time of peace. Traditionally identified with Solomon (like much of the other wisdom literature), it was clearly written later by someone else who either had received Solomon’s words passed down orally, or wrote what he thought Solomon might have taught.

The text is written so negatively – everything is vain, nothing brings satisfaction, everyone’s achievements will be forgotten – that it is hard to find anything positive in it.  Even when the writer sets up what seems like a way of achieving satisfaction (becoming wise in human terms in chapter 1, riches and pleasure in chapter 2, living the simple life of working and eating as any ‘ordinary’ person would in chapter 3), he then goes on to regret it as ‘vanity’.  For whatever you or I achieve in this life will be forgotten by future generations as we forget nearly all of those who went before us, and humans, like animals, will all die and be recycled by nature as the wind and water go round in their natural cycles.

Vanity, of course, is not the same as sin or error. The ‘preacher’ Ecclesiastes does not suggest that it is wrong to work hard, or to enjoy the innocent pleasures of life such as food and drink, indeed it is God’s will that we should do so (3:13). Nor is it wrong to possess wealth, or to have friends. Indeed friendship is one of the few things that are noted as being of lasting value in these chapters (4:9-10).  The most positive statement is reserved for those who “please God” (by keeping his commandments and loving their neighbours) and thereby receive “wisdom, knowledge and joy” (2:26) – yet even those God-given gifts are ultimately futile for they are earthly virtues that only last as long as we live.

What, then, can we do?  The answer must be to regard this life as but a preparation for the next, and live according to your station in life.  If you have riches, spend them wisely; if you are poor, be content with what you have; if you are intelligent, use it to enhance your appreciation of the world; if you have friends, enjoy their company.

All this sounds to us very pre-modern. Advice that might be useful to barons and serfs, monks and troubadors in a feudal society, but is it really applicable to the 21st century world of commerce, Wikipedia and social media?  It is, because these things are but new versions of the old.  What Ecclesiastes wrote is still true: that what happens now happened before, and will happen again.   So enjoy life as much as you can, please God by the way you do it, but don’t think too deeply about the future, for that is in God’s hands.