The book of Jonah is a short work,1 only four chapters, which tells an adventure story of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in eighth century before Christ. Jonah is mentioned in Second Book of Kings.
In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher. (II Kings 14:23-25 NIV)
King Jeroboam II (c. 786-746 B.C.) was heavily criticized by Amos, a prophet of Judah, who lived during this era of divided kingdoms (Judah – southern kingdom, Israel or Samaria – northern kingdom), even though Jeroboam II “presided over one of the most prosperous periods in the history of the northern kingdom.”2
The high places of Isaac shall be laid waste, and the sanctuaries of Israel made desolate; and I will attack the house of Jeroboam with the sword. (Amos 7:9 NABRE)
So Jonah supported Jeroboam II in expanding Israel’s territory, but Amos condemned the northern kingdom for economic crime and idolatry.3 This doesn’t mean the two prophets were opposed, for we don’t have the actual words of Jonah concerning Jeroboam II and Israel, rather, God blessed Israel in enlarging its land and resource control and the people who profited from wealth increase did not act with justice in economic matters nor worship properly. Yet Jonah’s prophecy about his country is exposed as “nationalistic preaching.”4 Jonah was a patriot and his partisan feeling lies beneath the surface of the book with his name.
Jonah and the Whale
Though Jonah was an eighth century prophet, the book of Jonah dates to the post-exilic period, after Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, allowed Jews living in exile in Babylon or elsewhere in his kingdom, to return to Jerusalem in 538 B.C (see Ezra chapter 1).5 The heart of the book is the lyric poem found in chapter two.
“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.
“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’” (2:2-9 NIV)
This poem, similar to Thanksgiving Chants of the Psalter (e.g., Ps 30 or 116), constructs a bridge between the first episode of the story, wherein Jonah attempts escape from the divine command to prophesy against Nineveh, and the second episode, wherein Jonah obeys YHWH and travels to Nineveh, announcing divine judgment and coming destruction of the city. The poem is an insertion of older material into the narrative showing the theological basis for the writing. In whole or part, the poem may go back to the eighth century and Jonah himself.6
No whale or “big fish” is acknowledged in the poem/psalm, a fact which shows its authorship by another hand than the writer of the book. The big fish or whale is mentioned in Jonah 1:17, 2:1 and 2:10, before and after the lyric. Imagery of drowning appears in the psalm, which is consonant with miraculous rescue by a whale.
Jonah’s adventure on a storm-tossed ship occurs because of his disobedience. Jonah tried to run away from YHWH, heading west to Tarshish,7 a locale in the land now called Spain, instead of heading east to Nineveh (1:3). The Lord sent such a powerful wind upon the sea that the ship was in danger of sinking and the sailors forced to take drastic action, including casting Jonah overboard. In the belly of the whale, Jonah has a change of heart and upon his deliverance, accedes to God’s repetition of the command to go to Nineveh.
Jonah: Prophet of Doom
Chapter three recounts Jonah at Nineveh. Upon a day’s walk through the city, Jonah imparts the message from God.
“Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed!” (3:4 CEV)
The Ninevites acccept Jonah’s proclamation, repenting of their wicked ways. The Ninevites fast and put on sackcloth and God reverses judgment to smite the city.
The Lord: Gracious and Merciful, Abundant in Lovingkindness (Heb. Chesed)
Chapter four tells of Jonah’s anger with God for deciding not to carry out the message of doom upon Nineveh. Jonah encamps outside the city to see what would happen. A gourd-vine grows up, providing shade for Jonah, but is eaten away the following day. A hot east wind and blazing sun make Jonah faint. The Lord is teaching Jonah a lesson, but Jonah will not accept it. Jonah says to God three times he wants to die. The last verses –
But the Lord said:
You are concerned about a vine that you did not plant or take care of, a vine that grew up in one night and died the next. In that city of Nineveh there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell right from wrong, and many cattle are also there. Don’t you think I should be concerned about that big city? (4:10-11 CEV)
Jonah the prophet knew God’s kindness, mercy, patience and love (4:2), but refused recognition that these could be extended to Nineveh, an enemy of Israel. Jonah’s patriotism deprived him from understanding the universal aspect of God’s being and love. Historically, archaeological digging has revealed Nineveh was sacked in 612 B.C., so if eighth century prophet Jonah of Israel indeed preached there, eliciting a moral change in residents, God withheld punishment of the city for some two-hundred years.
“God must be interpreted anew in each age, and yet remains the same.” “God’s being is suffused with concern, with what A.J. Heschel called ‘the Divine pathos’.”8 God’s got the whole world in his hands.
Jonah gazing at Nineveh from under the gourd-vine
Notes
“. . . the complete text measures 689 (or 688) words . . .”; Jack Sasson, Jonah [Anchor Bible 24B] (NY: Doubleday, 1990), p. xi; Sasson is speaking of the Hebrew/MasoreticText
Siegfried Horn and P. Kyle McCarter, ‘The Divided Monarchy: The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel’ in Hershel Shanks (ed.), Ancient Israel (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1999), p. 160
Jack Lundbom, The Hebrew Prophets: An Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), p. 121
A date near 400 B.C. seems likely. A good summary of reasons for such a date is given by Jean McGowan; “the satirical tone in which the author writes about the Prophet in the third person suggests that he was not writing about himself,” “the lack of significant details . . . such as the name of the king of Nineveh, suggests that the author was not writing about contemporary events,” “the language of the book is not that of the 8th-cent.”, “the mentality of the author is more like the mentality of the mid-5th cent. Other OT books, such as Ezr, Neh, and Ru, bear witness to the fact that in post-exilic Israel there was a strong current of interest in the question of Israel’s relations to the nations, which would form a natural background for the theme of Jon.”; in ‘Jonah’ in Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy, eds., The Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 633; also, Samuel Sandmel, The Hebrew Scriptures (NY: Oxford, 1978), p. 495f, “The Book of Jonah is considered by modern scholars to come from the latter part of the Persian period (about 375, or possibly even later).”; Buckner Trawick, The Bible as Literature (NY: Barnes and Noble, 1970), p. 301, Jonah had “a strong religious message for the fourth-century rebuilders of Jerusalem”
That the poem is an insertion or interpolation is held by McGowan, ibid., pp. 633f, 635f and Trawick, ibid., p. 302 (“Chapter 2 is thought to be an editor’s insertion, because it scarcely fits an otherwise well-unified plot.”)
For different uses of Tarshish in Old Testament, see entry, ‘Tarshish’ by Roger Boraas in Paul Achtemeier, Gen. Ed., Harper’s Bible Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper, 1985), p. 1018; “the Jonah association suggests a location in the Mediterranean, and sites suggested include Tarsus and Tartessus in Spain”
Both quotes from David Wolpe, The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God (NY: Penguin, 1990), pp. 8, 72
According to Luke, John was son to Elizabeth and Zechariah; Zechariah a priest of the order of Abijah, in a line descended from Aaron, Moses’ brother (Lk 1:5; 1 Chron 24:1-19). Luke reports an angelic visitation to Zechariah while on duty in the Temple, announcing the birth of John. Said Gabriel,
he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. (Lk 1:15f)
As son in a priestly family, John was trained in the Law of Moses, particularly the ‘Holiness Code’ (Lev 17:1-27:34). Note that this section of Leviticus, ‘Holiness Code,’ contains the provision, ” You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife” (Lev 18:16). According to Mark, John the Baptist was executed by Herod Antipas because John had told Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife” (Mk 6:18).
Apparently, John was an only child,1 and would be expected to enter priesthood, but our sources do not identify John as priest, rather as preacher and prophet. The angel Gabriel’s words to Zechariah above do explain this departure from the hereditary norm among priestly families in Israel. God had a special mission for John. Luke states, “The child grew and became strong in spirit. He lived in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel” (Lk 1:80). Presumably, John was at least thirteen years of age before leaving home for the wilderness, and may have been entrusted to Essenes living in the Judean desert to continue his training.2 John the Baptist was about thirty years old at start of his ministry, since Luke indicates this was the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, that is, 28 A.D., and when John baptized Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus “was about thirty years old,” these two having been born within nine months of each other (Lk chap. 3).
Wilderness (Greek noun: erémia) or desert is a significant term in the life and mission of John the Baptist. “All four gospels locate John in the wilderness and associate his appearance in that location with a prophecy from the Jewish Scriptures: ‘A voice cries out: In the wilderness make ready the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God’ (Isa 40:3).”3 The poetic prophecy of Isaiah, chapter forty, tells of a future reckoning, when,
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isa 40:4f)
To continue with Isaiah 40,
A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” (vv. 6ff NIV)
This passage and others4 may be considered as background to John’s message.
People encounter God in the desert. Hagar, mother of Ishmael, twice was rescued by the Lord in the desert (Gen 16:1-15; 21:9-21); Moses found God on Mount Horeb [Sinai] in a burning bush (Ex 3:1-14); Elijah, running from Queen Jezebel, escaped to the wilderness and Mount Horeb and met YHWH (1 Kings 19:1-14). Entry into the wilderness in a lifestyle change involves exiting civilization, renunciation of material things, extras not needed, rejection of marriage and family and the concerns that go along with such. Life in the desert is an askesis, letting what is unneeded fall away to focus on God. This was the case for John. So we read that John the Baptist “was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey” (Mt 3:4; Mk 1:6). Food, clothing and shelter5 were the only worldly things he bothered about, although we admit there is much unknown in the life of John the Baptist.
First century historian, Josephus, and Mark agree that John the Baptist died by execution, by order of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. Here is Mark’s account.
Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias’s own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.” He even swore [many things] to her, “I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.” The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request, “I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison. He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:17-29 NABRE)
Josephus wrote of John the Baptist in context of discussing Herod’s dispute with King Aretas IV of Nabataea, who was father to Herod’s first wife, Phasa’el. She had heard of Herod’s plan to divorce her for his brother’s wife, Herodias, and complained to her father, who made war against Herod and defeated Herod’s army. Here is what Josephus says of John the Baptist.
But to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behaviour. When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed. Eloquence that had so great an effect on mankind might lead to some form of sedition, for it looked as if they would be guided by John in everything that they did. Herod decided therefore that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of him before his work led to an uprising, than to wait for an upheaval, get involved in a difficult situation and see his mistake. Though John, because of Herod’s suspicions, was brought in chains to Machaerus, the stronghold we have previously mentioned, and there put to death, yet the verdict of the Jews was that the destruction visited upon Herod’s army was a vindication of John, since God saw fit to inflict such a blow on Herod.6
John’s oratory on proper relations to God and among men led to his imprisonment and death.
Message
In New Testament times, the Jordan River flowed from Lake Hula7 (or Huleh) and Hula Valley in northern Galilee south to Sea of Galilee and continued south through the wide Jordan Valley for some sixty-five miles to the Sea of Salt (Dead Sea). The actual length of the Jordan, because of its “serpentine turns,” is “about 320 km. (200 mi.).”8 John baptized people in lower course (i.e., between Sea of Galilee and Salt Sea) of the Jordan, in the river itself or in adjacent pools or springs (such as “Aenon,” Jn 3:23). Baptism and preaching are the two actions of John’s ministry to Israel by which he tried to turn the nation back to God and prepare whoever came to him for the apocalypse, that “great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Joel 2:1, 11, 31). Two sites on the Jordan River today are claimed as places where John baptized, Al-Maghtas and Hajlah Ford.
Both traditional sites for John’s activity on the Jordan are shown on this map (from Survey of Palestine/1944), El Maghtas (upper middle) and Makhadat Hajla (“Old Baptismal Place” lower left of center)
John the Baptist, “a righteous and holy man,” according to Mark (see above), “a good man,” according to Josephus (above), affected and aroused people by his powerful public speaking. He said,
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is coming close (Mt 3:2),
and John’s word was heard and received by many of his countrymen. “It was as though a spark had fallen on dry tinder.”9 Living souls were needful and ready to accept John the Baptist’s prophetic message of God finally revealing His might in ending injustice and evil in their world.
Political Background
In fourth century before Christ, Alexander the Great, son of Philip II, king of Macedonia; a pupil of Aristotle, Greek philosopher; conquered the Near East from Egypt to India. Alexander died in 323 B.C. and his Hellenic Empire was split among his generals, the diadochoi (successors). Judea came under control of Ptolemy and his heirs in Egypt until circa 200 B.C., when the Seleucid Empire, under Antiochus III, wrested control of south Syria and Palestine from Ptolemy V. For over a hundred-fifty years, Hellenistic culture seeped into the Jewish homeland, just as previously, Babylonian and Persian influence had been felt there. The entrance and spread of Greek ideas and practices resulted in social conflict among the people of Israel in second century B.C., as recorded in First Book of Maccabees, when “a sinful offshoot, Antiochus Epiphanes” … “became king” (I Macc 1:10).
Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a son of Antiochus III, ruled Seleucid Empire from 175 to 164 B.C., and, contrary to previous Seleucid policy allowing native religious and social custom to continue, interposed his own control of Judean religion by making high priest whoever paid him the most money.10 Antiochus IV plundered the Temple on Mount Zion, by military might forced Jews to abandon sacred law in favor of Greek worship and ritual, and in 167 B.C., “the king erected the desolating abomination upon the altar of burnt offerings, and in the surrounding cities of Judah they built pagan altars” (I Macc 1:54). Those who didn’t conform to Greek mores and behavior, for example, by continuing to practice circumcision or read scrolls of the law (Moses), were killed.
Excerpt from I Maccabees on the persecutions:
Any scrolls of the law that they found they tore up and burned.
Whoever was found with a scroll of the covenant, and whoever observed the law, was condemned to death by royal decree.
So they used their power against Israel, against those who were caught, each month, in the cities.
On the twenty-fifth day of each month they sacrificed on the pagan altar that was over the altar of burnt offerings.
In keeping with the decree, they put to death women who had their children circumcised,
and they hung their babies from their necks; their families also and those who had circumcised them were killed.
But many in Israel were determined and resolved in their hearts not to eat anything unclean;
they preferred to die rather than to be defiled with food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die.
And very great wrath came upon Israel. (I Macc 1:56-64)
This hostile situation led to the uprising of Mattathias, a priest, and his sons, collectively called ‘the Maccabees’ (Hebrew, ‘hammers’) in 168-164 B.C. The Maccabees and their followers, including specially pious adherents of the law of Moses (‘Hasideans,’ see I Macc 2:42), fled their homes for the hills of the Judean desert, conducting warfare against Syrian/Greek forces and their Jewish collaborators in the land. The Maccabees won many battles and succeeded in overthrowing foreign dominion. Victory of the Maccabean Revolt resulted in purification and rededication of the Temple.11
The Maccabees and their descendants ruled Israel until 37 B.C., when Herod the Great “reconquered Jerusalem”12 with help from Rome. Roman general Pompey had captured Palestine in 63 B.C. The last heir of the Maccabees to govern was Mattathias Antigonus (40-37 B.C.), who was executed by Rome, by Mark Antony.
The Maccabees wielded political power over Israel, by virtue of their military might, and spiritual power, by attaining the office of High Priest. The first Maccabee to hold High Priestly status was Jonathan (c. 153-143 B.C.), one of the five sons of Mattathias (originator of the Maccabean Revolution), who was granted this high-holy station by king of Syria, Alexander Balas. Thus began the Hasmonean Dynasty (Hasmon was family/ancestral name of Mattathias) in Israel; High Priests holding political and military authority, which was confirmed, circa 141 B.C., by decision of “the Jewish people and their priests” (I Macc 14:41ff), when Simon, Jonathan’s brother, had succeeded to the sacred post.13
It is clear that the Pharisees and the Essenes, major sects of Second Temple Judaism (c. 515 B.C. – 70 A.D.), emerged during the Hasmonean Dynasty, though their origins are murky, many historical details unknown. The Sadducees, another major sect, also were present in the Hasmonean Era. All are discussed at various points in the writings of historian Josephus.14 These sects or schools or parties were rivals for leadership in guiding Jewish life, including counsel to the Hasmonean rulers. The things that were important to them in formulating their teachings were God and covenant, Temple and its rites, role and functions of High Priest, governance of the nation, sacred writings (Torah, Prophets), calendar (for proper determination of holy days). Through the one-hundred-twenty or so years of the Maccabee/Hasmonean family Dynasty, one or the other group was in favor. The Essenes departed the Jerusalem political scene, preferring exile over wickedness they saw in the capital city.
Essene Background
Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, each had disputes with the Hasmonean rulers at various times, but it is the Essenes who are most relevant in establishing background for John the Baptist. Like John the Baptist, Essenes lived in the Judean desert.15
And when these become members of the Community in Israel according to all these rules, they shall separate from the habitation of ungodly men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare the way of Him..16
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:”
‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ (Matt 11:7-10)
Both, Essenes and John the Baptist, knew how to survive in the desert (access to potable water is crucial), and both lived there for religious reasons (purification from worldly evils, prophecy).
Two main areas of life and thought shared by the Essenes and John the Baptist are fundamental concern for moral matters and an apocalyptic view of the future. Both themes are expressed in first sentence of The Damascus Rule (c. 100 B.C.), a foundational text of Essene teaching.
Hear now, all you who know righteousness, and consider the works of God; for He has a dispute with all flesh and will condemn all those who despise Him.17
Essenes considered their group a “remnant to Israel” and God “did not deliver it up to be destroyed” (CD 1:2). “They perceived their iniquity and recognized that they were guilty men” (CD 1:2) and God “raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart” (CD 1:3). The “wicked” are “those who depart from the way and abhor the Precept” (CD 2:1,2). “Satan shall be unleashed against Israel, as He spoke by the hand of Isaiah, son of Amoz, saying, ‘Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the land’ (Isa 24:17). Interpreted, these are the three nets of Satan with which Levi son of Jacob said that he catches Israel by setting them up as three kinds of righteousness. The first is fornication, the second is riches, and the third is profanation of the Temple. Whoever escapes the first is caught in the second, and whoever saves himself from the second is caught in the third (Isa 2:18)” (CD 3:7 or Vermes translation ch. IV). Damascus Rule goes on to promulgate rules or statutes for Essene members. The same or similar rules are given in another Essene writing, The Manual of Discipline or The Community Rule (c. 100 B.C.). Here is its first sentence,
[The Master shall teach the sai]nts to live [according to] the Book of the Community Rule, that they may seek God with a whole heart and soul, and do what is good and right before Him as he commanded by the hand of Moses and all His servants the Prophets; that they may love all that He has chosen and hate all that He has rejected; that they may abstain from all evil and hold fast to all good; that they may practice truth, righteousness, and justice upon earth and no longer stubbornly follow a sinful heart and lustful eyes committing all manner of evil.18
Here are a few rules specified for judgment in a “Community Inquiry” –
“If one of them has lied deliberately in matters of property, he shall be excluded from the pure meal of the Congregation for one year and shall do penance with respect to one quarter of his food” (1QS 5:1, in Vermes trans., ch. VI) [“1Q” refers to cave 1 where the scroll was discovered in the Qumran area and “S” is for Hebrew term ‘sarekh’ meaning rule].
“If any man has uttered the [most] Venerable Name even though frivolously, or as a result of shock or for any other reason whatever, while reading the Book or praying, he shall be dismissed and shall return to the Council of the Community no more” (1QS 5:3, in Vermes, ch. VII [p. 70f]).
“Whoever has lain down to sleep during an Assembly of the Congregation: thirty days” (1QS 5:12; in Vermes, ch. VII [p.71])
“Whoever has spat in an Assembly of the Congregation shall do penance for thirty days” (1QS 5:14; Vermes, VII [p.71])
Here is a rule “which the men of perfect holiness shall follow in their commerce with one another” – “As for the property of the men of holiness who walk in perfection, it shall not be merged with that of the men of falsehood who have not purified their life by separating themselves from iniquity and walking in the way of perfection. They shall depart from none of the counsels of the Law to walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, but shall be ruled by the primitive precepts in which the men of the Community were first instructed until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 7a, 3; in Vermes, chs. VIII, IX [p. 73f]).
Messianic expectation and anticipation of the end-times were high among the Essenes, as we find eschatological teaching in many of the scrolls discovered near the Dead Sea. Some Essenes hoped for two messiahs, as in the text cited above, a priestly messiah (“Aaron”) and a political messiah (“Israel”), a division of power that points to the sect’s origin as a protest movement against Hasmonean takeover of both high-priestly function and government rule.19 Another Qumran text mentions a single messiah, who
“will heal the wounded, and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor.”20
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke have similar phrasing in Jesus’ response to disciples of John the Baptist, who were sent by John (while in prison) to ask the Nazarene prophet, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Mt 11:3) Said Jesus,
“Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. (Lk 7:22)
Twofold Message of John the Baptist
As in Essene background above sketched, John the Baptist’s preaching has two large themes, (1) imminence of apocalypse, (2) repentance.
Apocalypse
The end is near, it is coming (Greek verb, eggizó), said the Baptist, as in Matthew 3, verse 2,
Repent–for the kingdom of heaven is fast approaching.21
Also said John (to “Pharisees and Sadducees” in Matthew or “the multitudes” in Luke),
Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Lk 3:7//Mt 3:7)
All mankind is naturally ‘brood of vipers’ (see, Gen 3:1-7) without repentance. The ‘wrath to come’ is the Creator’s execution of judgment and punishment upon disobedient humanity (see, Hab 2:2-5).
John the Baptist was asked, “who are you?” He replied,
I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’ (Jn 1:22f)22
The Baptist was readying people for apocalypse, the coming of the Lord almighty. Part of his mission was to recognize and reveal a ‘coming one’ who would accomplish God’s purpose.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Matt 3:11f; also Lk 3:16f)
After me goes a man who comes to be in front of me, because he was to be ahead of me. (Jn 1:30)23
This coming and going one, John the Baptist identified with Jesus of Nazareth, whom he called “lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” an extension of John’s own mission to purify Israel.24 This ‘lamb of God’ oracle presents an insight of John the Baptist based on mystical experience of Jesus’ baptism, retold in all four gospels.25
Repentance
Repentance is psycho-spiritual turning from evil and sin to the good. Repentance is an interior realization and change of heart and mind resulting in behavioral reform. John the Baptist preached repentance, as seen in gospel passages cited above. His message bears repeating,
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mt 3:2),
and was repeated often by Jesus of Nazareth,
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk 1:15)
This recurrence between John the Baptist and Jesus shows alignment in mission of these two and importance of repentance.
Said John the Baptist “to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him,
You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance; and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Lk 3:7-9 NAB)
Isn’t John’s message clear? It’s akin to words from the ‘Song of Moses:’
‘See now that I, even I, am he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
For I lift up my hand to heaven
and swear, As I live forever,
if I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and will repay those who hate me. (Deut 32:39-41)
Some examples of correct conduct from John the Baptist:
“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (Lk 3:10-14 NIV)
Not all disciples of John the Baptist became followers of Jesus of Nazareth, as shown by their questioning of Jesus and Jesus’ response,
And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. (Lk 7:23)
The Baptist movement spread around Asia and into the East. St. Paul encountered followers of the Baptist at Ephesus and converted twelve of them.
And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism.Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 19:3-5 KJV)
Mandaean religion, still practiced in parts of Iraq and Iran, preserves teachings of John the Baptist, holding him in high regard.26 Said the Nazarene of John the Baptist,
Amen I say to you, there has not arisen among those born of women, one greater than John the Baptist.(Mt 11:11)
‘Head of Saint John the Baptist on a Charger’ by Aelbert Bouts, c. 1500 A.D., Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) [Bouts created a similar painting of John the Baptist some five years later.]
Notes
Implied by Elizabeth’s words at Luke 1:25, “The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
Thirteen is the age of religious maturity for Jewish males, viz., bar mitzvah. The Essene sect produced the Dead Sea Scrolls and had been dwelling in the desert since their Teacher of Righteousness fled Jerusalem in second century B.C. See, Geza Vermes, An Introduction to the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), pp. 132-137; also, Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 63-69
Catherine Murphy, Johnthe Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003), p. 7; see, Mk 1:1-6; Mt 3:1-6; Lk 3:1-6; Jn 1:19-23
Our sources do not mention John’s living arrangements. He probably lived in a cave, maybe the cave discovered in 1999 by Gibson and Tabor that has features of human use going back to Iron Age (1200-550 B.C.), through the Roman period and later centuries; see, Shimon Gibson and James D. Tabor, “John the Baptist’s Cave,” Biblical Archaeology Review 31.3 (2005): 37–41, 58; this cave had water and was apparently used in baptismal ritual in Roman times
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities tr. Louis Feldman in Loeb Classical Library vol. IX (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981), XVIII.116-119; entirety of Antiquities of the Jews is online in translation by William Whiston [1737], but with different numeration than LCL, including this passage (18.5.2) on John the Baptist
Streams descending from Mt. Hermon in south Lebanon form the source of Jordan River, north of Hula Valley. Today, Hula Lake is very small, owing to drainage for agricultural purposes.
E.K. Vogel, ‘Jordan’ in G.W. Bromiley, Gen. Ed., The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1987), p. 1122; 1939 edition of International Standard Bible Encyclopedia is online with articles on Jordan River by G.F. Wright and Jordan Valley, also by Wright
F.B. Meyer, John the Baptist (Fort Washington: Christian Literature Crusade, 1975), p. 47
Celebrated in eight-day Hanukkah festival; see I Macc 4:36-61
Shaye Cohen and Michael Satlow, ‘Roman Domination: The Jewish Revolt and the Destruction of the Second Temple’ in Hershel Shanks, Ed., Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple Revised (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1999), p. 267
See Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1992), pp. 131-143; Mason gives references to the Jewish sects or parties in Josephus’ works and offers his interpretations. Mason’s book is available online at Internet Archive.
Essene headquarters had been built at Wadi Qumran (see first map above) around 150 B.C., and Essene settlements at Ein Feshka and Ein el-Ghuweir, south of Qumran, along western shore of Dead Sea, have also been discovered. See, Philip Davies, Qumran (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 40, 66-68, 69. Essene colonies also existed in towns and villages across Israel; see, Josephus, The Jewish WarII.124, “They occupy no one city, but settle in large numbers in every town.”
The Community Rule (1QS)VIII.12-13 in Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin, 1988), p. 73
The Damascus Rule (CD) [“CD” stands for Cairo Damascus, for the document was first discovered in 1896 by Solomon Schechter in a book repository of a Cairo, Egypt, synagogue; many fragments were later discovered in caves near Qumran.] I.1 in Vermes, ibid., p. 82; “Damascus” appears throughout the document as a symbol of the sect’s exile, as in Amos 5:27, “therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts,” cited in CD at 3:16 or chap. VII in Vermes edition (p. 88)
See Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (NY: Penguin Press, 1997), pp. 86-87, for brief analysis of messianism in the Dead Sea Scrolls; some Essene messianic titles or figures include, ‘Branch of David,’ ‘Prince of the Congregation,’ ‘Scepter.’ Essenes believed an apocalyptic battle between ‘Sons of Light’ and ‘Sons of Darkness’ was coming; see War Rule
This text is designated 4Q521 and titled ‘Messianic Apocalypse;’ see Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, p. 391f; it’s dated c. 100 B.C. Cf., Michael Wise and James Tabor, “The Messiah at Qumran,” Biblical Archaeology Review 18.6 (1992): 60–61, 65
Translation by W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann, Matthew [Anchor Bible 26] (NY: Doubleday, 1981), p. 24; “our translation attempts to capture the urgency of the Gr. eggiken” (p. 25)
Johannine analog to Q, ‘after me comes one stronger than me’ (Mt 3:11//Lk 3:16); its difficult syntax and semantics lends probability to it being actual word of the Baptist; it first appears at 1:15
Another written work reflecting John the Baptist’s ethical and religious instruction is Sibylline Oracle 4.152-172 (c. 80 A.D.), “But when faith in piety perishes from among men, and justice is hidden in the world, untrustworthy men, living for unholy deeds, will commit outrage, wicked and evil deeds. No one will take account of the pious, but they will even destroy them all, by foolishness, very infantile people, rejoicing in outrages and applying their hands to blood. Even then know that God is no longer benign but gnashing his teeth in wrath and destroying the entire race of men at once by a great conflagration. Ah, wretched mortals, change these things, and do not lead the great God to all sorts of anger, but abandon daggers and groanings, murders and outrages, and wash your whole bodies in perennial rivers. Stretch out your hands to heaven and ask forgiveness for your previous deeds and make propitiation for bitter impiety with words of praise; God will grant repentance and will not destroy. He will stop his wrath again if you all practice honorable piety in your hearts. But if you do not obey me, evil-minded ones, but love impiety, and receive all these things with evil ears, there will be fire throughout the whole world ..” ; ‘Sibylline Oracles’ tr. by J.J. Collins in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha ed. by James Charlesworth (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983), vol. 1, p.388
One stack of books among an arrangement of seven on a table in basement. I have many more books down there and throughout the house. Here are titles from bottom to top.
Steven Heine, Dale Wright, eds., The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000)
Eugene d’Aquili & Andrew Newberg, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999)
Robert Short, The Gospel According to Peanuts (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2000)
Tim Riley, Hard Rain: a Dylan Commentary (NY: Da Capo Press, 1999)
Joel Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001)
Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Stuart Taylor, St. Francis and the Foolishness of God (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997)
S.E. Gillingham, The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994)
Stuart Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999)
Colin McGinn, The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (NY: Basic Books, 1999)
Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998)
John Polkinghorne, Faith, Science & Understanding (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2000)
Eric Matthews, Twentieth-Century French Philosophy (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996)
William Chittick, Sufism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2000)
Albert Low, Zen and the Sutras (Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2000)
John Davenport and Anthony Rudd, eds., Kierkegaard After MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom, Narrative and Virtue (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2001)
Jo Marceau, ed., van Gogh: A Profound and Tormented Genius – His Life in Paintings (London: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 1999)
Richard Geldard, Remembering Heraclitus (Lindisfarne Books, 2000)
John Dart, Ray Riegert, The Gospel of Thomas: Unearthing the Lost Words of Jesus (Berkeley: Seastone, 2000)
Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth McCandless, Buddhism and Zen (NY: North Point Press, 1987)
Jean Smith, The Beginner’s Guide to Zen Buddhism (NY: Bell Tower, 2000)
Marshall Johnson, Making Sense of the Bible: Literary Type as an Approach to Understanding (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2002)
Marvin Meyer, Secret Gospels: Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2003)
David Brazier, The New Buddhism (NY: Palgrave, 2002)
Nicholas Fearn, Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher (NY: Grove Press, 2001)
Stephen Batchelor, Alone With Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism (NY: Grove Press, 1983)
Martin Marty, Martin Luther (NY: Viking, 2004)
John Gager, Reinventing Paul (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000)
Gerard Sloyan, Why Jesus Died (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004)
What is the meaning of this? Get wisdom! Find truth!
If you ask me, did I read all these books, my answer is yes, but not completely. Their effect on me has been varied, learning many small details about religions and philosophy, and acquiring, enhancing respect for writers of non-fiction in different areas. Maybe someday I’ll publish a listing of a stack of fiction I’ve read, for I do enjoy made-up stories too, like The Hobbit by Tolkien. A book, actually a book of many books, I have read in total, is the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, many times. The Bible is a book I keep returning to every day. In the Bible, it is said “of making many books there is no end” (Eccl 12:12). Why this is so is because the kingdom of God is infinite. There is a time and place for rest and sleep.
Horror is a real thing, a reaction in feeling and thought to looming doom for oneself or another, in an ugly, painful fashion. Horror includes a recognition of no escape, no way out from dire threat. An example:
“While violence in the nation’s largest transit system is rare, being shoved from a subway station’s narrow platform onto the track has long loomed large in riders’ fears.”
This sentence is part of an Associated Press article, dated March 26, 2024, about a death in the NYC subway. One person was shoved onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train by another person. The person pushed may have experienced horror seeing the train coming at him, and the train operator also, seeing the victim and realizing there was no time to stop. A witness to this killing said “he was unable to sleep” after seeing the attack.1
The reality of horror is not fully understood except by people who’ve felt it in action, for example, in wartime or natural disaster. Horror film and entertainment can prompt a lesser emotion, involving imagination.
Halloween
Halloween is a popular holiday happening on October 31 each year, before All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2). These last two are Christian holy days started in eighth century. Halloween combines Christian elements, such as angels and devils, and traditions developed from Celtic culture, such as ghosts and masks and costumes to fend them off.2
Socially and economically, halloween is a celebration of horror and terror (for fun and money). Preparation for the Day and the rite of trick or treat requires purchase of candy and goodies, costumes and decorations. The entertainment industry provides horror movies and serial shows throughout October, focusing on the genre. In literature and reading, horror novels and short stories are promoted. The purpose here is to scare or induce horror.
A psychological and religious explanation of halloween is that it is practice for actual horror in the face of death. It has to do with fear of death.
The origin of Halloween in Celtic ritual intended to protect harvest and people from ghosts and the proximity to All Saints Day (saints are dead people) and All Souls (souls are the invisible, immortal essence of people)3 are indicators of death as the secret stimulus for this social to-do every October. Death is explicit in Mexican festival, Day of the Dead, on same days as Christian feast-days and Halloween. Death also is clear in horror fiction or horror stories based on fact, but an audience member or reader likely doesn’t make personal connection to the threat of death. As one reads a Stephen King novel or H.P. Lovecraft story or views one of the ‘Alien’ films, one does not feel endangered.
Hell
In Christian scripture4 and Muslim scripture,5 hell is the final place of punishment for the damned. Fire and brimstone, worms or maggots, are the main types of torment associated with hell. The ‘Inferno,’ the first part of the Divine Comedy by medieval poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), describes nine circles of hell, each with a kind of torture designed for certain sinners and their sins. Whether one takes these woes literally or not, “it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”6 As Dante begins his imaginary tour of hell, he is confronted by the infernal portal topped with a sign –
“All hope abandon ye who enter here.”7
Hell is horror.
The End
Notes
M. Rivera, N. Hicks, J. Fitz-Gibbon, ‘Witness to fatal NYC subway shove says deranged career criminal ‘timed it perfectly’ and pushed ‘with all his might’’ (New York Post: March 26, 2024); available online
The Church of the Middle Ages changed All Saints Day from the earlier date of May 13 to November 1 “for unexplained reasons (it was not a pagan festival)” says J.C.J. Metford in The Christian Year (Thames and Hudson, 1991), p. 115f and All Souls Day was logically placed a day later to accomodate the dead who had to go through purgatory, see p.116ff
E.g., Mk 9:42-50; Mt 18:6-9; Mt 7:13; Rev 20:10,14f; cf. ‘Heaven and Hell’ by A.T. Hanson in Alan Richardson (ed.), A Dictionary of Christian Theology (Phila.: Westminster, 1976), p. 151f, “Most modern theologians would say that hell means simply separation from God. It is not a punishment which God arbitrarily inflicts; it is what we do to ourselves.” (p. 151)
E.g., Sura 38:55-61; Sura 2:24; see ‘Jahannam’ by H.B. Partin in Keith Crim (ed.), Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), p. 368f, “Islamic name for hell, the place of punishment of the unrighteous . . . The Islamic term is derived from the biblical Gehenna or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem believed to be the entrance to the underworld”
Human beings have a long-standing custom of burying their dead. Around one-hundred-thousand years ago, human individuals were buried in a cave, Qafzeh Cave in Israel, with coloring tools left in-situ. The stone tools, including lumps of ochre, indicate primitive artistry, a form of burial ritual. What shapes or marks were rubbed onto the corpses is unknown, a matter of guesswork for archaeologists and anthropologists, but the mere fact of funeral art indicates some significance attached to the dead bodies and their burial in-ground. Perhaps the simplest meaning of the art associated with primitive burial was ‘we the living, who survive, do not forget you, our dead.’ That memory was important in burying the dead in the old stone age (paleolithic era) is shown by the proximity of the grave(s) to the living community: “people used caves a lot during the Middle Paleolithic — living, eating and socializing in them.”1 Rather than place graves away from the group, graves were located nearby, where they could be seen and referenced any time. In some sense, with memory and closeness of the dead in the grave-pit, the deceased were still part of the living community.
A Right to Burial
Legal right to burial stems from common law in English-speaking countries, traditions and reports of court orders concerning interment going back to the Middle Ages. In American society, next of kin has the right to bury their dead. If there is no surviving family or if indigence is apparent, the state, usually the local county, will bury or cremate the deceased.
A Moral Duty to Bury the Dead
Beyond any law concerning burial is the ordinary repugnance toward unburied bodies and exposure to scavenging animals.2 Seeing and smelling a decomposing body is not pleasant; burial hides this natural process and so laws for burial are unneeded, though laws do provide social order in this matter. Aversion to rotting corpses and human bodies becoming carrion is why crucifixion and similar execution methods were used in olden times; they served as deterrence for crimes such as treason or rebellion.3
Here are three fictional cases of people insisting on burying the dead, even when circumstance makes it a perilous proposition.
Star Trek: ‘The Galileo Seven’
‘The Galileo Seven’ (1967) is an episode of TV series Star Trek, written by Oliver Crawford. ‘Galileo’ is the name of a shuttlecraft which launches from the ‘Enterprise’ with a seven-person crew to investigate an unusual space phenomenon. ‘Galileo’ crash-lands on a planet inhabited by giants who attack the ‘Galileo’ crew with spears. Two crew-members, Latimer and Gaetano, are killed. The crew is commanded by Mr. Spock, a Vulcan, who emphasizes logic and disdains emotion. Latimer had been killed first, separately from Gaetano, and was buried by crewman Boma. When the burial is done, Boma, entering the ship, approaches Spock, saying, “Mr. Spock, we’re ready.” Replies Spock, “For what?” Boma: “The services for Latimer.” Spock: “Mr. Boma, we’re working against time.” Boma: “The man’s dead. He deserves a decent burial. You’re the captain, a few words.” Spock, turning to look at Dr. McCoy: “Doctor, perhaps you know the correct words for such an occasion.” McCoy: “Mr. Spock, that’s your place.” Spock: “My place is here (assisting engineer Scott with repairs). If you please, doctor.” McCoy: “Now look! We may all die here! At least let us die like men, not machines!” Spock: “By dealing with first things first, I hope to increase our chances of staying alive.” [Dr. McCoy’s face shows angry disgust.] Spock: “Well Mr. Scott.” Scott: “If you’ll give me a hand with this conduit.” [Boma sadly exits ‘Galileo’ closing the hatch behind him.] (Note: Mr. Boma buried Latimer and then left the ship again presumably to pronounce some final words over the grave alone, at risk of attack by the native giants.) Later, when repairs to ‘Galileo’ were completed, another dialog takes place concerning the burial of Gaetano. Spock: “Meanwhile, please check the aft compartment. See if there’s anything else you can unload to lighten the ship.” Boma: “Mr. Gaetano’s body is back there.” Spock: “It will of course have to be left behind.” (Irreparable damage to ‘Galileo’ had imposed weight restrictions for liftoff.) Boma: “Not without a burial.” Spock: “I wouldn’t recommend it. The creatures won’t be far away.” Boma: “Not without a burial, Mr. Spock.” Spock: “It would expose members of this crew to unnecessary peril.” Boma: “I’ll take that chance. You see, Mr. Spock, I would insist upon a decent burial even if your body was back there.” McCoy: “Mr. Boma!” Boma: “Well I’m sick and tired of this machine!” Scott: “That’s enough!” Spock: “Gentlemen, alright Mr. Boma, you’ll have your burial, provided the creatures will permit it. (Gaetano is buried by Spock, McCoy and Boma in a grave next to that of Latimer. They are attacked, but make it back to the ship. ‘Galileo’ achieves orbit and its crew is rescued by Kirk and ‘Enterprise.’)
Survivors of Galileo mission. Boma (actor Don Marshall) is in the middle.
Book of Tobit
Written around 200 B.C., the Book of Tobit is a short story about pious Jew Tobit and his family living in exile in Nineveh, great city of the Assyrian Empire. It is Tobit’s custom to bury fellow Israelites who had been killed and their corpses discarded outside the city wall. This dangerous habit, Tobit felt was part of his religious obligation to perform “charitable deeds for my kindred, members of my people” (1:16). Says Tobit, “I would give my bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked” (1:17). The Assyrian ruler was Sennacherib and “in his rage he killed many Israelites, but I used to take their bodies away by stealth and bury them. So when Sennacherib looked for them, he could not find them” (1:18). “But a certain Ninevite went and informed the king about me, that I was burying them, and I went into hiding. When I realized that the king knew about me and that I was being hunted to be put to death, I became afraid and took flight. All my property was confiscated; I was left with nothing. All that I had was taken to the king’s palace, except for my wife Anna and my son Tobiah” (1:19-20). Tobit undergoes tribulations, but eventually his good fortune is restored by God and he is buried in dignity by his son. The book relates many teachings akin to those of Jesus, such as a form of Jesus’ golden rule, “do to no one what you yourself hate” (4:15).
It is a command of God that bodies be buried.
If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hanging from a tree, you are not to leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that day, for anyone who is hung from a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you as an inheritance. (Deut 21:22-23)
Tobit carries a wisdom teaching in burying the dead.
We may have a hundred children and live a long time, but no matter how long we live, if we do not get our share of happiness and do not receive a decent burial, then I say that a baby born dead is better off. (Eccl 6:3)
Tobit and son carry away a slain Israelite for burial. (seventeenth century oil painting by David Teniers)
‘Antigone’
‘Antigone‘ is a tragic drama by Greek playwright, Sophocles (5th cent. B.C.). The play is set in the city of Thebes, after its King, Oedipus, has died, and a terrible battle had just been fought between Oedipus’ two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices and their forces, for rule of the city. The brothers killed each other during the battle and their uncle, Creon, becomes King of Thebes.
Creon declares that Eteocles “shall be buried and honored with all the proper rites that are due when one of our best men has fallen” since he died “fighting for this city” (lines 194-197), while Polyneices shall not be mourned nor given “a proper burial. He should be left for all to see, unburied, his body ripped to shreds by vultures and wild dogs” (line 205f) because Polyneices “was exiled from this city, but returned to burn the land of his father and the gods of his family line to the ground” (lines 199ff).
Antigone, heroine of the play, is sister to Eteocles and Polyneices, and proposes to defy Creon’s order and bury her brother Polyneices. Antigone has a private meeting with her sister, Ismene, outside the palace gates, and tells Ismene that “good Creon has denied you and me – even me – this rite” (i.e., of laying their brother in a grave; line 31f). She says to Ismene, “consider whether you’ll help me.” Responds Ismene, “help you with what? What are you thinking?” Antigone: “Will you lend this hand to bury his corpse?” Ismene: “Do you really mean to bury him, even though it’s against the law? Antigone: “I will do my part—and yours, too, if you won’t— to bury our brother. I won’t be caught betraying him.” Ismene: “How can you be so stubborn? Creon forbids it” (lines 41-47). So Ismene commiserates with her sister, but refuses to help bury Polyneices. Says Antigone,
Do what you think is right; I will bury him. It’s a beautiful thing, to die in this act. With him I will rest, beloved with beloved, And I will be a god-fearing criminal. I need to please The gods of death more than the men on Earth .. (lines 71-75)
Here is the central conflict of the drama – a contest between civic duty and religious duty. Antigone chooses to serve divine justice, as she understands it, and bury her brother. She is willing to pay the penalty of death for disobedience to the King in performing the burial rite.
[Summary of dramatic action: Antigone buries her brother, is caught and brought to Creon, who condemns her to imprisonment in a cave with a supply of food, to live or die as the gods may will. When the guards discover the burial, the body is removed from the ground, again exposed. Creon argues with his son Haemon, who is betrothed to Antigone and defends her, but is unable to persuade his father to reverse his sentence. The blind seer Teiresias arrives at the palace to convince Creon that he’s in the wrong leaving Polyneices exposed and dooming Antigone to a “shameful grave” (line 1069). Creon is disrepectful to Teiresias. Teiresias predicts deaths for Creon’s family. Creon is shaken by Teiresias’ words and consults the city council (i.e., the chorus) on what he should do. The chorus answers, “free the buried girl and bury the unburied” (line 1100f). Creon relents and proceeds to the plain of battle where Polyneices’ corpse lies. Finding the wretched body, Creon and his servants pray and wash the corpse, then set it aflame and bury the ashes. Creon advances to the rocky vault and discovers his grieving son embracing the dead Antigone, who had hung herself. Haemon attacks his father with sword but in futility as Creon runs out of the chamber; then Haemon plunges the sword into his own side, ending his life. When Creon’s wife, Eurydice, hears news of her son’s death, she too commits suicide. Creon is filled with woe and guilt. Final verses: “Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise.”]
a student representation
Funeral Rites
Funeral ritual takes many forms, tied to culture and religion according to the family’s wishes. Two foremost goals of a funeral are respectful disposition of the dead body and mourning.
Here is a sample of a Christian burial service, called a ‘committal,’ from a Methodist liturgy.
Into your hands, merciful God, we commend the soul of Jane Doe, as we commit Jane’s body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of life in the world to come; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall fashion anew our earthly body that it may be like unto his own glorious body, according to his mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.4
Notes
Patrick Pester, ‘When did humans start burying their dead?‘ (livescience.com, 10/23/2023), quotation comes from Dr. Mary Stiner, anthropologist at Univ. of Arizona, Tuscon.
Some cultures in the ancient world honored the dead by actually exposing carcasses to vultures and carnivorous animals, believing that the birds carried the soul to heaven. A list of classical writings on such practices, with translation, is assembled by Antonio Marco Martinez, ‘Exposure of corpses‘ at antiquitatem.com.
See, Rebecca Denova, Crucifixion (worldhistory.org, 05/12/2022); “The purpose of this excruciating punishment was to emphasize the cruelty and terror of what awaited prisoners and rebels.”
A Service of Death and Resurrection (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), p. 89
Last week in Haiti, on Thursday, May 23, three Christian mission workers were murdered in Port-au-Prince, the capital city. Associated Press has a report on this happening and its context. Two of the victims were Americans, working for Missions in Haiti Inc., the third was a local Haitian, director of the mission. The Americans were a young married couple, ages 21 and 23, the Haitian was the father of two children. This event is a tragedy, of course. The killings are also a fulfillment of Jesus’ teaching, “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20). May the Holy Spirit comfort the grieving families.
The young husband killed was son to the American founders of Missions in Haiti Inc. and apparently had grown up in Haiti. He had met his wife in the U.S. when he returned to attend Bible college. The two were killed by armed gangs which are the de facto rulers of Port-au-Prince. Port-au-Prince is a very violent city.
Anti-Christian Sentiment
The gangs across Haiti are operating in a political vacuum caused by the corruption and weakening of national government, a phenomenon going on for years and years. The gangs seek power for themselves so they can extend their rule and utilize arms-trafficking and violence to this end. Recent gang-violence is aimed at all types of authority, including police stations, hospitals, airports, seaports and is not particularly anti-Christian. The motive(s) of the gang attack on the missionaries may have been economic, to steal money and vehicles, as well as political, to stamp-out any semblance of foreign control. The attack on the three missionaries, as they were leaving a church service, was complicated, as two distinct gangs were involved at different times, and the unfolding events were chaotic.
In any case, anti-Christian sentiment is found in the U.S.A. and worldwide, just as there is animus directed at other religions and also there is general anti-religious feeling based on atheism or other reasons. The world is perplexing and full of danger.
A recent article in ScienceNews magazine (March 23, 2024) offers biographical highlights of this man’s life and career. As a youngster, Mtingwa thought he was “the second coming of Jesus Christ,” but learned in Sunday School that he was unwilling to die for others.1 His name at that time was Michael von Sawyer and he was teased by early schoolmates as “a mad German scientist.”2 From there, he began reading science books, eventually earning his PhD from Princeton University in “high-energy particle physics.”3
Though Mtingwa is a dedicated scientist, he is a spiritual man, a religious person. He said in 2020, “I had a very religious family; I go to church even today; I’m religious even today.”4 Mtingwa also says, “I realized I wasn’t Jesus Christ, but I was put on Earth to serve mankind.”5 Mtingwa has proved his service by helping others find their vocation in science.6 Sekazi Mtingwa is an individual who combines religion and science in his outlook, proving that conflict between science and religion doesn’t have to be.
Notes
Elise Cutts, ‘Apostle of Science: Accelerator Physicist Sekazi Mtingwa is a Mentor, Activist, Policy Expert and Humanitarian’ ScienceNews [Vol. 205 | No. 6], p. 18; read online, ScienceNewswebsite
Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was a French writer, a well-respected philosopher and novelist, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1964), which he declined. In philosophy, Sartre is known as an existentialist, one who theorizes about the meaning of being. In 1944, Sartre authored a play, No Exit, about three people or characters, a man (Garcin) and two women (Inez and Estelle), who are situated together in a room in Hell (after they’ve died) and carry on a conversation. The entire drama is comprised of their three-way talk, together with a valet now and then providing information about their circumstance. There are no flames in this literary hell, no maggots or worms, no boiling lava; only a comfortably furnished salon and three human beings forever ensconced with each other. Here’s a sampling of their colloquy.
INEZ: Yes, I see. Look here! What’ s the point of play-acting, trying to throw dust in each other’s eyes? We’re all tarred with the same brush.
ESTELLE: How dare you!
INEZ: Yes, we are criminals– murderers– all three of us. We’re in hell, my pets; they never make mistakes, and people aren’t damned for nothing.
ESTELLE: Stop! For heaven’s sake–
INEZ: In hell! Damned souls– that’s us, all three!
ESTELLE: Keep quiet! I forbid you to use such disgusting words.
INEZ: A damned soul– that’s you, my little plaster saint. And ditto our friend there, the noble pacifist. We’ve had our hour of pleasure, haven’t we? There have been people who burned their lives out for our sakes– and we chuckled over it. So now we have to pay the reckoning.
GARCIN: Will you keep your mouth shut, damn it!
INEZ: Well, well! Ah, I understand now. I know why they’ve put us three together.
GARCIN: I advise you to– to think twice before you say any more.
INEZ: Wait! You’ll see how simple it is. Childishly simple. Obviously there aren’t any physical torments– you agree, don’t you? And yet we’re in hell. And no one else will come here. We’ll stay in this room together, the three of us, for ever and ever…In short, there’s someone absent here, the official torturer.
GARCIN: I’d noticed that.
INEZ: It’s obvious what they’re after– an economy of man-power– or devil-power, if you prefer. The same idea as in the cafeteria, where customers serve themselves.
ESTELLE: Whatever do you mean?
INEZ: I mean that each of us will act as torturer of the two others.1
The three are condemned to permanent dialogue with each other and have no way out of their prison. Toward the end of the one-act play, Garcin declaims that Hell has no need for “brimstone” or “red-hot pokers,” “Hell is — other people!”2
Sartre also penned a novel, Nausea (1938), wherein the main character, a research writer named Antoine Roquentin, experiences a change in outlook3 and gradually becomes sickened with himself and everything around him because he perceives the meaningless contingency of existence.4
In Sartre’s magnum opus of philosophy, Being and Nothingness (1943), he expounds his idea of bad faith. Sartre says, “in bad faith human reality is constituted as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is.”5 In other words, bad faith is self-deception or a basic falsity in human being. Opposite to bad faith would be sincerity, but Sartre’s analysis of sincerity is that “the goal of sincerity and the goal of bad faith are not so different.”6 “Thus in order for bad faith to be possible, sincerity itself must be in bad faith. The condition of the possibility for bad faith is that human reality, in its most immediate being … must be what it is not and not be what it is.”7
For philosopher Sartre, there is a problem at the heart of human existence, a conflict (he calls it “disintegration”8), which impels us to flee from ourselves. This flight results in projects in which we try to reconstruct a unified self. Whether in bad faith or sincere, all human projects depart “immediate, non-cognitive relation of the self to itself.”9 An interpreter of Sartre has said, “both good and bad faith reveal consciousness as lacking identity with itself ” and “everything in consciousness must be in question.”10 Human living is like a ballerina on a tightrope stretched across a chasm, difficult to stay upright; a picturesque way of describing Sartre’s viewpoint.
The above is vector one of an argument, heading toward a point.
Vector Two
Jesus of Nazareth died about two-thousand years ago, around year 30 of the historical division called A.D. or C.E. Jesus preached and taught a message about God and man.
After the arrest of John, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God; and saying the time is perfect and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the gospel. (Mk 1:14f)
To repent and to believe are actions that Jesus required of his fellows. To repent is to stand above self and examine yourself. To repent is to look inside human self and realize fault. Following this recognition is correction or attempt to rectify self. To believe is beginning faith in God and building faith in God. The semantic relation between repentance and faith in the message of Jesus is that people are not able to heal self. God alone can save us.
Reading the gospels, it is fair to say that just about everywhere Jesus looked, with whomever he had contact, faith was absent or weak. “O ye of little faith” (Mt 8:26; Lk 12:28) is a well-known response of Jesus to his own disciples, from King James Version. There are a few exceptions to usual lack of faith Jesus observed in his contemporaries. Here are three, women and a man, who exhibited faith in God and elicited Jesus’ approval.11
…. a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. … Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” (Lk 8:43-48 NIV)
He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” (Mk 12:41-44 NAB)
As he entered Caper′na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching himand saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment. (Mt 8:5-13 RSV)
Here are some passages showing Jesus’ dissatisfaction with others’ lack of faith or understanding.
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. . . . After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers . . . His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:41-52)
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” . . . “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? (Jn 3:1-12)
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside the house and sent in a message, asking for him. A crowd was sitting around Jesus, and they said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, and they want you.” Jesus answered, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” He looked at the people sitting around him and said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does what God wants is my brother, my sister, my mother.” (Mk 3:31-34)
He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. (Mk 6:1-6)
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me.” (Mt 11:2-6)
Then he began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chora′zin! woe to you, Beth-sa′ida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” (Mt 11:20f)
As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. . . . The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now something greater than Jonah is here. (Lk 11:29-32)
“Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil . . . If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?” (Jn 8:39-47)
Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Mt 17:17-21)
There are many, many more gospel passages that show Jesus at odds with his countrymen over issues of understanding, faith, repentance. The most secure historical-critical fact of Jesus’ life is that he was crucified. What is the crux of the matter in Jesus’ disagreement with other people? It is his understanding of human nature, his distaste for human nature.
Right away Jesus knew what they were thinking. So he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? (Mk 2:8)
For his part, Jesus did not trust himself to them, since he knew all about men. Also, he had no need for anyone to tell him about man. He himself knew what was in man. (Jn 2:24f)
In humankind, Jesus saw lack of faith in God or weak faith in God. [Yet when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Lk 18:8b)] This is vector two, heading to a point.
The point, to which Sartre and Jesus bear witness, each in their own way, is that there is nothing in the center of man. Human being contains a lack, a void, an absence which needs to be filled.
Two vectors, philosopher Sartre and preacher Jesus, take a hard look at humanity.
Notes
Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays (NY: Vintage, 1976), p. 17f
Ibid., p. 47
Roquentin says, in his diary, “..a change has taken place during these last few weeks. . . But where? It is an abstract change . . . Am I the one who has changed?” “I think I’m the one who has changed.” .. “I am subject to these sudden tranformations. The thing is that I rarely think; a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place.” J.-P. Sartre, Nausea tr. Lloyd Alexander (NY: New Directions, 1969), pp. 4-5
See Ibid., pp. 126-135; Roquentin has a strange experience while sitting on a park bench which causes him to write, “The Nausea has not left me and I don’t believe it will leave me so soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no longer an illness or a passing fit: it is I.” On the park bench, Roquentin’s mind is emptied. … “words had vanished and with them the signifiance of things . . . which frightened me.” . . . “existence hides itself ” and “this root (of a chestnut tree), on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it. Knotty, inert, nameless, it fascinated me, filled my eyes, brought me back unceasingly to its own existence.” “I was the root of the chestnut tree. Or rather I was entirely conscious of its existence.” “I knew it was the World, the naked World suddenly revealing itself, and I choked with rage at this gross, absurd being.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness tr. Hazel Barnes (NY: Washington Square Press, 1966), p. 107
Ibid., p. 110
Ibid., p. 112
Ibid., p. 116
Ibid., p. 12; This phrase refers to instant self-awareness (or auto-awareness) of existing in human reality, which is wordless and prior to awareness of anything else. Sartre also calls it “pre-reflective cogito” (pp. 9, 13, 114, 119-121), “non-thetic” self-consciousness (pp. 13f, 114, 120, 141, etc.), “consciousness of consciousness” (pp. 11-14). To be human, for Sartre, is to be conscious and consciousness, firstly, is conscious of itself existing. Once consciousness looks outward, “bad faith is possible . . . it is an immediate, permanent threat to every project of the human being . . . consciousness conceals in its being a permanent risk of bad faith.” (p. 116)
Joseph Catalano, A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 88
Another example of a person getting Jesus’ blessing was the publican Zaccheus, who repented from greed and fraud; see, Lk 19:1-10
Science fiction is a genre within literature and film; since writing is thousands of years older than film-making, origin of this category is to be found there, in novels and short stories. In the western world, classic science fiction authors include Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Jules Verne (1828-1905) and H.G. Wells (1866-1946). Frankenstein and The Last Man by Shelley, Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, The Time Machine and The Invisible Man by Wells, are among the novels and other writings that show the impact of science research and discovery upon human imagination. Science and technology, in actuality or potential, are or should be intrinsic themes of any creative art labelled science fiction. The term fiction, in its Latin root, means shaping or molding something by verbal action, that is, words. Science is acquisition of knowledge by experiment. So science fiction extends the scientific quest to imaginary and fantastic ends.
Stacker is an online publisher of analysis and commentary on diverse topics, including science fiction. Numerous lists and rankings of science fiction movies and books are available there. Upon reading this material, one may come upon titles that don’t seem to have much to do with science, even in possible future developments, but just seem to be based on ideas of supernatural abilties or miraculous happenings. [Maybe this is the latent, unspoken, goal of all science, to turn men into gods.] Rather than exclude these titles from science fiction because they don’t fit within a basic definition, a question arises. What is all this creative effort and production trying to do? Is there a purpose, beside entertainment, to science fiction? One answer is that authors are attempting to place science, in its various branches, into moral context, whether it is or might be, good or bad. With scientific method, cures are found for disease; through science, more powerful weapons are invented.
Further Reading
Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels, 1985-2010, by Damien Broderick & Paul DiFilippo, New York, Nonstop Press, 2012. ”But here’s a necessary caution: most science fiction, our favorite kind of story-telling and reading, has about as much to do with real science as chick lit has to do with poultry.” (p. 8)
Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed by Sherryl Vint, London, Bloomsbury Pub., 2014. ”Thinking of sf as the literature of technologically saturated societies, then, encourages us to see the genre as a cultural and aesthetic response to how technoscience changes not only our material world but also our cultural values and practices.” (p. 34)
Is there such a thing as artificial intelligence? No, there is not. The current AI star, ChatGPT, arranges and rearranges information to answer human-posed questions that may or may not be true. Here is its response when I asked it, “what do you think about yourself (?).”
I don’t have personal opinions or feelings as I am just a computer program created by OpenAI called GPT-3.5. I don’t have self-awareness or consciousness. My purpose is to assist and provide information to the best of my ability based on the input I receive. If you have any questions or if there’s something specific you’d like assistance with, feel free to let me know!
Here is ChatGPT response to “so, you may provide an answer that is false.”
While I aim to provide accurate and reliable information, I can’t guarantee that every response is free from errors. My responses are generated based on patterns learned from a diverse range of sources, and I may not have access to the most recent information or developments. Furthermore, I don’t have the ability to independently verify the accuracy of the data I’ve been trained on.
A computer that provides answers to human queries that might be false and does not know whether they are true or false is not intelligent. This is unremarkable and everyone in the field ought understand that.
Science News (vol. 204 | no. 10) December 16, 2023
Year-end issues of Science News provide summaries of big topics or happenings in the world of science from past annum. This year’s magazine section, ‘2023: Year in Review,’ includes a one-page report on man-made intelligence, called ‘Generative AI enters daily life.’ It features a brief interview with Melanie Mitchell of Santa Fe Institute, who is “one of the world’s leading AI experts.” Some of Mitchell’s feedback is troubling or at least questionable, considering the history of robots, computers, artificial intelligence in science fiction. Books and movies explore artificial intelligence, showing it can be good or bad. The bad is scary, as films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Terminator depict people violently killed by thinking machines. A Star Trek episode, ‘What are Little Girls Made Of (1966),’ illustrates this dismal theme. An archaeologist comes upon a sole surviving android tending the machinery of a dead civilization on planet Exo-III and discovers that human brain content can be transferred into androids, realizing the dream of immortality. Captain Kirk arrives to rescue the archaeologist and his team and finds that they all are androids, no longer human. The sole surviving android, named Ruk, in conversation with Kirk, reveals that the dead civilization of Exo-III was destroyed by a conflict between androids and “the old ones” (the people who programmed the androids). Ruk remembers the “equation” which led to achievement of sentience by the androids, and then the destruction of their creators,
“existence, survival, must cancel out programming.”
Ruk and Kirk
Melanie Mitchell’s Gloomy Remarks on AI
“.. people were just amazed at how humanlike they seemed.” This is true, but amazement can obscure reality and dangers of AI.
“These systems have been trained on human language, and human society has a lot of biases that get reflected in the language these systems have absorbed..” Are we duly warned?
“There are a lot of claims about these systems having certain capabilities in reasoning, like being able to solve math problems or pass standardized tests.. We don’t really have a sense of how they are doing this reasoning, whether that reasoning is robust. It’s unclear whether these systems can generalize beyond what they have been trained on.. That’s a big debate.” This debate and lack of clarity on AI, at formative stage of its training or programming, intimates future confusion about its ability or status and possible loss of control over its actions.
“These are not humans. Even though they seem humanlike, they are different in many ways. People should see them as a tool to augment our human intelligence, not replace it – and make sure there’s a human in the loop rather than giving them too much autonomy.” Machines that add to human mind may potentially damage human mind, or worse.
Zionism is a political ideology and movement, started in the nineteenth century in Europe, advocating for establishment of a Jewish national homeland. Its founder is TheodorHerzl (1860-1904). It is partly a reaction to European anti-semitism and also based on Judaism, a religion which goes back to Biblical times. In Judaism, as in Hebrew Bible, ‘Zion’ refers to the hills upon which Jerusalem is built or Jerusalem itself or the entire Jewish nation. Jerusalem had been a Canaanite (Jebusite) stronghold, until capture by King David1 around 1000 B.C., who turned it into the capital of Israel. In Jerusalem, David’s son, King Solomon (reigned c. 970-931 B.C.), built the Temple of YHWH, God of Israel, and so ‘Zion’ is a sacred word throughout the Hebrew Bible,2 with special significance in Jewish thought. Since the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D., return and restoration of Zion has been a focus of Jewish prayer and ritual.
Israel: Ancient and Modern
Modern-day Israel became an independent Jewish state in 1948, when British rule ended. Land of Palestine had been part of Ottoman Empire for centuries which ended after World War I, when The League of Nations assigned government of the land to Great Britain. Successor to League of Nations, United Nations, approved a partition plan for Palestine in 1947 which resulted in war between Jews and Arabs in the land. A 1949 armistice between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, ended that conflict and established boundaries of Israel with the West Bank of Jordan River and Gaza Strip in Arab hands, namely, Jordan and Egypt. Since 1949, numerous military conflicts (especially in 1967 and 1973) involving Israel and surrounding countries have occurred and various treaties and accords have been signed. The 1948 declaration of Israel nationhood and independence was led by David Ben-Gurion, head of World Zionist Organization, who became first Prime Minister of Israel. National Anthem of Israel, ‘The Hope,’ makes mention of two-thousand years of Jewish hoping for return to “Zion,” “to be a free people in our land.” The Flag of Israel, featuring Star of David in blue in its center was adopted from that of World Zionist Organization.
There is spiritual continuity between modern Israel and ancient Israel, a confederation of twelve tribes with various judges, who eventually chose kings to rule over them; but many in today’s world (2023 A.D.) do not grant Jews any natural right to Palestine.
For/Against Israel
Zionists today support Israel in many ways. Zionist agendas are embraced by some Israeli political parties, particularly Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Many Christians, especially in the western world, support Israel, since the Old Testament coincides with Hebrew Bible.3 Both contain God’s promise to Israel, its ancestors, such as Abraham, and the tribes who followed Moses out of Egypt, of Canaan, “a land flowing with milk and honey.”4 Of course, there are variations in Christian support. Understanding a divine right in Israel’s statehood, does not entail agreement with all its policies and actions.
There is much unrest and protest in U.S. over Israeli military incursion into Palestinian territories, Gaza and West Bank. The United States Constitution recognizes a right to free speech, so criticism of Israel is certainly allowed, but there are different motives for such protests which presents a problem for understanding and agreement or disagreement. Some is fueled by antisemitism, which is akin to racism and should not be accepted. Some is motivated by total anti-Israel sentiment, not recognizing Israel’s right to exist; it should be conquered and the land returned to Palestinian residents.5 Some protest comes from humanitarian reason; too many civilians, not members of Hamas,6 are being killed and basic supplies for civilian life are dwindling. Some protest against Israel war on Hamas comes from Jewish groups backing Palestinian rights on the bases of progressive principles of human dignity and justice.7 Some has its source in Arab-Jew rivalry based on religious teachings of Muhammad and Quran and Jewish reaction.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is an intractable problem in world-politics. So many leaders, nations and groups have tried to solve it. When the longer history of ‘Zion’ is considered, going back to Moses’ aide, Joshua (Joshua chap. 1), a violent record of killing and battle upon battle presses on human consciousness. It is no wonder that the Book of Revelation, final writing of Christian Bible, says “the kings of the whole world” will assemble for “battle on the great day of God the Almighty” “at the place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon” (Rev 16:14-16), that is, Megiddo, a fortified city of Palestine going back some three-thousand years before Christ. At that future battle, “the seventh angel poured his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!”’ (Rev 16:17)
This view may be reasonable for Palestinians themselves and their families who were driven from their land and non-Palestinian supporters who consider Israel a usurper. See online article, ‘What are the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict?‘
Hamas (Arabic acronym for ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’) is a long-standing organization (founded 1987) of Palestinians committed to “the destruction of Israel.” See, ‘What is Hamas?‘ This group attacked Israel on October 7, precipitating the current war.
Hannah Arendt, The Jew as Pariah [ed. Ron Feldman] (NY: Grove Press, 1978) – “Peace in the Near East is essential to the State of Israel, to the Arab people and to the Western world. Peace, as distinguished from an armistice, cannot be imposed from the outside, it can only be the result of negotiations, of mutual compromise and eventual agreement between Jews and Arabs.” (p. 193)
Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976) – “Nations must learn from their life experience. The June 1967 war and the October 1973 war, as well as the years in between, have clearly proved that the Arabs cannot destroy Israel and Israel cannot impose peace on the Arabs by force. Two alternatives face these two peoples: either to recognize each other’s legitimate rights and aspirations, or to perpetuate endless struggle, resulting in death and destruction on both sides.” (p. 391)
Matthew Clancy, The Promised Land (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1978) – “… the Bible recounts the great events of the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Davidic periods. It traces the history of God’s chosen people, the Hebrews, from the days of the Patriarchs through the Egyptian captivity and the exodus. It then follows that nation through the conquest of the Promised Land and the disorganization that ensued there. In time we encounter David and witness the formation of his kingdom. Finally, we arrive at the beginning of the reign of Solomon. The pervading theme of these centuries is that of persevering faith, faith in the ever-present patronage of God and in his promises.” (p. xii)
Latest issue of HealthU, a free quarterly magazine published by Hackensack Meridian Health, has a one-page article on self-improvement about the benefits of weight training. I have some weights at home which I use in exercise Monday through Friday. I have a brief routine (10 minutes or less) which I’ve been doing since I went to work for UPS in 2004, a job which requires heavy lifting. I’m 67 years old now and retired from UPS, but I continue with this routine. The HealthU piece caught my eye because it helps to explain why I do strength training. Here, briefly, are five benefits of strength training according to the magazine.
1. Increased muscle mass
2. Improved metabolism
3. Improved bone health
4. Decreased injury risk
5. Reduced symptoms
Knowing these pluses of weight or strength training aids self-understanding for anyone so engaged. Also, I remind readers that strength training may be done without weights. One can use his or her body, your own weight, to get stronger, in workouts with push-ups or pull-ups.
In closing, remember this advice from apostle Paul. “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Tim 4:8, NIV). The human body is a temple for the Spirit of God, so stay in shape.
The movie, ‘Lion,’ was released in 2016 and was successful financially and in popularity and was nominated for numerous Academy Awards in U.S. The movie is based on fact. A little boy, maybe five years old, is separated (by accident) from his older brother, about fourteen, at a train station in their native India and becomes lost. Little boy, named Saru,1 boards a train, looking for elder brother (named Guddu) and ends up almost a thousand miles away from his home village (Ganesh Talai) in city of Calcutta, where he is sent to an orphanage and adopted by an Australian couple, after attempts to find Saru’s natural family failed.
Saru grew to be a man in Australia, in island state Tasmania, but never forgot his native land or his first family, his mother and siblings, especially older brother, Guddu. They had been a very poor family, but had much love between them.
Saru became Saroo Brierley in Australia, where he was raised in a loving family, parents Sue and John, and another Indian boy they adopted, Mantosh. At age of thirty, with the help of his Mum, friends, wall-maps and internet resources over the years, Saroo identified his home village as part of Indian city Khandwa and made plans to return there to find his birth-mother, Kamla and brothers and sister. In 2012, Saroo traveled to India and found Kamla and siblings. In 2013, Saroo authored a book about his experiences, A Long Way Home (title changed to Lion). Saroo’s birth-mother, Kamla, said, “she was ‘surprised with thunder’ that her boy had come back, and that the happiness in her heart was ‘as deep as the sea’.”2
Death, Loss and Mourning
Amidst the joy and accompanying emotions of reuniting with his original family after twenty-five years, Saroo received “the hardest news I’d ever hear. When I asked my mother about [Guddu], she replied sadly, ‘he is no longer’.”3 In the movie, a man nearby translates, “Guddu is no more. He is with . . . God.”
“Guddu had also never returned that night I was lost. My mother found out a few weeks later that he had died in a train accident at age fourteen. She had lost two sons on the same night. I couldn’t imagine how she had borne it.”4
“A few weeks, possibly a month, after our disappearance, a policeman came to the house. He said that Guddu had died in a railway accident and showed her a photo of his body. Guddu was found by the tracks about a kilometer outside Burhanpur (this was the station where the brothers were separated), and the policeman was there to ask her to formally identify him. Half of one of his arms had been severed and he had lost one of his eyes–an unimaginably horrific thing for a mother to have to look at.”5
“I wanted to visit Guddu’s grave, but my family told me that wasn’t possible–houses had been built over the graveyard he was in.. We didn’t even have any photographs of Guddu, as we could never afford family portraits. He had been part of us as we had been part of him, and now all that remained of Guddu were our memories.”6
“I wasn’t sure if my family entirely understood why I was so upset.. For them, Guddu’s death was long in the past, but for me his death happened suddenly that very day. Not being able to properly grieve for my departed brother was a deep-seated loss that I felt strongly long after I returned to Australia. The last thing he said to me on that platform in Burhanpur was that he would be back. Perhaps he’d never returned; perhaps he’d come back to find me gone. Either way, I’d hoped to be able to be reunited with him. Now I’ll never know what happened that night–some of our mysteries will never be solved.”7
Mysteries incapable of solution are profound things, things to ponder, and death is one of them.
Conclusion
The film goes surreal in its penultimate scene showing the Saroo character walking on the local train tracks with changing expressions on his face looking ahead, until forthwith his fourteen year old brother, Guddu, appears. Guddu looks at Saroo seriously for some moments, then smiles and tells him “come on.” Next, you see the two brothers, Guddu and Saru (now five years old again) walking and playing along the tracks. This is memory and it is surreal. It can’t be real, can it?
When a loved one dies, is lost, the interchange of memory and present sadness makes up what is called mourning. A person recalls experiences, times together with the dead one, when that one was living. In spirit, the memory transforms the mourner back into past times in an effort toward understanding and some happiness.
Mourning is a special state to be in. Memories of the past with the dead one are tinged with emotion.
According to Jesus of Nazareth, “blessed are they that mourn” (Mt. 5:4), which means the living and the dead are included together in a specially good way or connection.
Saroo’s book is dedicated “for Guddu.”
Actors playing parts of Guddu and Saru
Real Saru
Notes
‘Saru’ was the young boy’s mispronunciation of his actual name, ‘Sheru,’ meaning, ‘lion.’ See, Saroo Brierley (with Larry Buttrose), Lion (NY: NAL, 2013), p. 201
I said to the Lord, “haven’t I borne this cross long enough?” The Lord replied, “no, you’re not dead yet.” [Wisdom is with God and he hath imparted a little to me. Someone might say, ‘very little.’]
The Lord giveth strength for perseverance, thanks be unto our Lord (1 Chron 16:11).
Politics is the way persons and groups relate to each other intentionally to affect government. Voters voting is political behavior; citizens not voting is political non-action; a mayor talking to a fire-chief over the phone is politics. Political activism by individuals not officially part of government has been going on since cities, states and nations arose in ancient times. It isn’t unusual for politics to mix with religion in the history of political activism and this was the case for Malcolm X, a Muslim family man (wife and six children), who made more speeches than can be counted for his cause of “complete freedom, complete justice, complete equality”1 for black people in America. These three aspects of Malcolm X’s objective were to be accomplished “by any means necessary,”2 a phrase and moral principle found here and there in his speeches and interviews. Malcolm X was willing to plan and direct extreme measures in organizing the black community, if necessary. This radicalism was part of his understanding of the situation of black folk in America in the 50s and 60s and also part of his grasp of Islam.
1963, Malcolm X leads prayer in a Chicago mosque
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, stressing unity between Africa and blacks across the world, an end to foreign rule in Africa and one government for the entire African continent. Garvey advocated return to Africa for black people living outside that land.
Both of Malcolm X’s parents, Earl Little (a Baptist preacher) and Louise (from West Indies) were members of Garvey’s Association and avid volunteers spreading Garvey’s message through Nebraska (where Malcolm X was born, 1925), Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, as the family moved from place to place. Earl Little and his family were harassed by whites (KuKluxKlan or similar groups) and Earl died under suspicious circumstance, run over by a streetcar in 1931.3 Louise Little, widow, had difficulty caring for her children, suffered a mental breakdown in 1938 and spent over twenty years in a state mental facility. The children were sent to foster homes.
Charlestown State Prison/Norfolk Prison
In 1941, Malcolm X moved to his older sister Ella’s home in Boston and in 1946 was convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to ten years of jail. In prison, Malcolm X discovered the Nation of Islam and reformed his ways, following the strict moral code promulgated by Elijah Muhammad. In Charlestown and then Norfolk prison (transferred in 1948), Malcolm X became a consummate reader, even before his religious conversion, delving into dictionaries and language, history, religion, philosophy. He corresponded with Elijah Muhammad, absorbing the principles of Nation of Islam. Malcolm X joined the Norfolk debate team. Malcolm X is an exemplar of a self-educated and reformed man, with the help of Allah, who became one of the finest orators of United States of America.
Separation from the White Devil
Malcolm X was paroled in 1952 and quickly went to Detroit, living with his brother Wilfred while both attended Nation of Islam (NOI) Temple No. 1 there. Malcolm X became a Temple leader, its membership increasing under his influence. Soon he was given more authority and responsibility by Elijah Muhammad and sent to Boston and big cities along the east coast to draw new members to NOI temples, eventually being appointed chief minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem (in 1954). NOI rolls increased by thousands upon thousands with Malcolm X’s rhetorical skill and impetus (e.g., he helped start NOI newspaper Muhammad Speaks). His speeches were full of NOI doctrine.
Says Elijah Muhammad, “Read and study the above chapter of John 8:42, all of you, who are Christians, believers in the Bible and Jesus, as you say. If you understand it right, you will agree with me that the whole Caucasian race is a race of devils. They have proved to be devils in the garden of Paradise and were condemned 4,000 years later by Jesus. Likewise, they are condemned today, by the Great Mahdi Muhammad, as being nothing but devils in the plainest language. The so-called American Negroes have been deceived and blinded by their unlikeness, soft-smooth buttered words, eye-winking, back-patting, a false show of friendship and handshaking.”4
Elijah Muhammad spoke to some ten-thousand black Muslims at Uline Arena, Washington D.C., in 1959 and was introduced by Malcolm X. Said Malcolm X, “everyone who is here today realizes that we are now living in the fulfillment of prophecy. We have come to hear and to see the greatest and the wisest and most fearless black man in America today. In the church we used to sing the song ‘good news, the chariot is coming’ – is that right or wrong – but what we must bear in mind that what’s good news to one person is bad news to another. While you sit here today knowing that you have come to hear good news, you must realize in advance that what’s good news for you might be bad news for somebody else. What’s good news for the sheep might be bad news for the wolf.”5
A 1959 interview with Malcolm X by reporter, Louis Lomax, begins with Lomax asking Malcolm X to clarify Elijah Muhammad’s teaching about the snake in the garden of Eden. Malcolm X said, “well, number one, he teaches us that that never was a real serpent that went into the garden. As you know, the Bible was written in symbols and parables and this serpent or snake is a symbol that’s used to hide the real identity of the one whom that actually was – the white man.”6
Understanding that whites are bad, members of NOI separated themselves from the larger society as much as possible and separation and segregation were taught by Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. Says Elijah Muhammad, “What we must understand today is the importance of acquiring land of our own. We are no longer a mere handful of people. We are a little better than 22 million in population and still increasing.”7 “We cannot be successful in the house of our enemies; we should be in our own house.”8 “Integration means self-destruction..”9 “In order to build a nation you must first have some land. From our first generation of slaves to the present generation of our people, we have been unable to unite and acquire some land of our own due to the mental poisoning of our former slave-masters, who destroyed in us the desire to think and do for self and kind.”10
Elijah Muhammad
Here are a few quotations from Malcolm X.11
Speech at Harlem Freedom Rally, 1960
Again I repeat, we are not gathered here today because we are Muslims or Christians, Protestants or Catholics, Baptists or Methodists, Democrats or Republicans, Masons or Elks…but because as a collective mass of black people we have been colonized, enslaved, lynched, exploited, deceived and abused. As a collective mass of black people we have been deprived, not only of civil rights, but even our human rights, the right to human dignity…the right to be a human being!
Speech at Queens College, 1960
The Creator of the Universe, whom many of you call God or Jehovah, is known to the Muslims by the name Allah. Since the Muslims believe all prophets came from that one God and therefore all taught one and the same religion, rightly called Islam, which means the complete submission and obedience to Allah. One who practices this Divine Obedience is called a Muslim..
Mr. Elijah Muhammad is our Divine Leader and Teacher here in America. He believes in and obeys God 100 per cent and is teaching and working among us to fulfill God’s Divine Purpose. What is this purpose? God’s purpose today, just as it was in biblical days, is the complete separation of the so-called Negroes from their slave master… as the bible says concerning today: “Let every man be under his own vine and fig tree.”
Debate with Bayard Rustin, 1960
Any religion that does not take into consideration the freedom and the rights of the black man is the wrong religion. But politics as such is not the solution. But the divine solution would have to have that ingredient in it. You can call it politics if you want, but the overall problem of the so-called Negro in America is not a political problem as such, it is an economic problem, a social problem, a mental problem, and a spiritual problem. Only God can solve the whole problem.
Speech at Yale Law School, 1962
Let us take the advice Paul gave in the Bible; let us toss our emotions aside and reason together. Let us look closely at this chaotic world picture before us, and in the light of the facts let us then determine if Mr. Muhammad’s divine solution fits the picture before us.
Never before has America made so many crucial blunders, one after another, and suffered such great loss of prestige in the eyes of the world, despite the advice of her expert advisors.
The U-2 spy plane incident caused the President of the strongest country on earth to be tricked, trapped and exposed before the whole world as a liar…despite the advice of expert advisors.
At the Paris Summit Conference, the same President was cursed, ridiculed, and humiliated again before the eyes of the entire world…despite the advice of his expert advisors.
In Korea, students, mere children, toppled the government of Syngman Rhee, the best friend America had in the Far East, despite the advice of her expert advisors.
In Turkey, children toppled the government of Menderes, America’s best friend in the Middle East…despite the advice of expert advisors.
In Tokyo, students, mere children again, defied the President to come to Japan, and blocked him from entering after he had traveled thousands of miles from home and had arrived at their back door…a most humiliating insult…despite the advice of his expert advisors.
And Cuba, a little midget island government in the Caribbean, is challenging Giant America, accusing her of economic aggression, confiscating all of her investments, and getting unexpected support from Mexico and other strategically located Latin American countries…and all of this, despite the advice of her expert advisors.
My friends, if the expert politicians, the expert theologians, the expert diplomats and other scientists, professors and scholars have failed to devise a solution to these grave world problems, surely you will agree that it is now time for God to send us someone with a solution from Himself.
Is Mr. Muhammad from God? Is he on time? Does his divine solution fit the events of today?
Chickens Come Home to Roost
In November 1963, U.S. President John Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas (r.i.p. JFK). This was a shock to the country and caused much grief and sorrow as Kennedy was well-liked. Elijah Muhammad ordered his ministers not to comment on Kennedy’s assassination, but Malcolm X did so at a public meeting he addressed at Manhattan Center, NYC on Dec. 1, 1963. After his speech, entitled ‘God’s Judgment of White America,’ Malcolm X took questions from reporters and replied to a query about the President’s assassination that it was a case of “chickens coming home to roost,” meaning something like ‘he got what he deserved.’ This disobedience was relayed to Elijah Muhammad who suspended Malcolm X from public speaking for three months.
During the next three months, through back and forth between himself and Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X learned that his suspension might be prolonged and he might be removed from leadership in NOI altogether.12 On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X announced he was exiting NOI. March 12, he held a press conference, giving a short talk on his split from NOI and that he was starting his own mosque, ‘Muslim Mosque, Inc.’ This move by Malcolm X involved significant changes in his approach to black liberation. His mosque would make room for “all Negroes in our political, economic, and social programs, despite their religious or non-religious beliefs;” his mosque will enter electoral politics, “we will organize, and sweep out of office all Negro politicians who are puppets of the outside forces;” his mosque will allow help from whites, “whites can help us, but they can’t join us;” he is willing to work with “other Negro leaders or organizations . . . we must find a common approach, a common solution, to a common problem.” These ideas are quite different from teachings and practices of NOI.
Malcolm X Becomes an International Muslim
In April 1964, Malcolm X delivered a speech, ‘The Ballot or the Bullet,’ twice, each slightly different from the other, at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland (April 3) and King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit (April 12). On April 13, Malcolm X left U.S. for a trip abroad to Saudi Arabia and African nations, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar), Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria. This journey was a life-changing experience for Malcolm X in that he joined Sunni13 Muslim world community and discovered firsthand in talks with African leaders how an African revolution was taking place discarding the shackles of western colonialism.
Lessons Learned
Two lessons learned by Malcolm X were that white people were not devils per se and that the civil rights struggle of Afro-Americans should be connected to the worldwide movement of oppressed peoples for freedom. He founded Organization of Afro-American Unity in June, 1964 and embarked on a five-month trip to Arabia and Africa in July, participating in the second conference of the OAU, Organization of African Unity, in Cairo. Malcolm X’s trips abroad had a profound effect on his heart and mind, confirming and pushing him further along the path he had already begun in the split from NOI. Here are some words from Malcolm X, all coming after his sacred pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca.
Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this Ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.
I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca. I have made my seven circuits around the Ka’ba, led by a young Mutawaf named Muhammad. I drank water from the well of the Zam Zam. I ran seven times back and forth between the hills of Mt. Al-Safa and Al-Marwah. I have prayed in the ancient city of Mina, and I have prayed on Mt. Arafat.
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.
America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered ‘white’–but the ‘white’ attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.
You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to re-arrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.
During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)–while praying to the same God–with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions in the deeds of the ‘white’ Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.
We were truly all the same (brothers)–because their belief in one God had removed the white from their minds, the white from their behavior, and the white from their attitude.
I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man–and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their ‘differences’ in color.
So we have formed an organization known as the Organization of Afro-American Unity which has the same aim and objective to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary.
That’s our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don’t feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don’t think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D.C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don’t think anybody should have it.
Many of you probably read last week I made an effort to go to Paris and was turned away. And Paris doesn’t turn anybody away. You know anybody is supposed to be able to go to France, it’s supposed to be a very liberal place. But France is having problems today that haven’t been highly publicized. And England is also having problems that haven’t been highly publicized, because America’s problems have been so highly publicized. But all of these three partners, or allies, have troubles in common today that the Black American, or Afro-American, isn’t well enough up on.
And in order for you and me to know the nature of the struggle that you and I are involved in, we have to know not only the various ingredients involved at the local level and national level, but also the ingredients that are involved at the international level. And the problems of the Black man here in this country today have ceased to be a problem of just the American Negro or an American problem. It has become a problem that is so complex, and has so many implications in it, that you have to study it in its entire world, in the world context or in its international context, to really see it as it actually is. Otherwise you can’t even follow the local issue, unless you know what part it plays in the entire international context. And when you look at it in that context, you see it in a different light, but you see it with more clarity.
And you should ask yourself why should a country like France be so concerned with a little insignificant American Negro that they would prohibit him from going there, when almost anybody else can go to that country whenever they desire. And it’s primarily because the three countries have the same problems. And the problem is this: That in the Western Hemisphere, you and I haven’t realized it, but we aren’t exactly a minority on this earth. In the Western Hemisphere there are — there’s the people in Brazil, two thirds of the people in Brazil are dark-skinned people, the same as you and I. They are people of African origin, African ancestry — African background. And not only in Brazil, but throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada, you have people here who are of African origin.
Many of us fool ourselves into thinking of Afro-Americans as those only who are here in the United States. America is North America, Central America, and South America. Anybody of African ancestry in South America is an Afro-American. Anybody in Central America of African blood is an Afro-American. Anybody here in North America, including Canada, is an Afro-American if he has African ancestry — even down in the Caribbean, he’s an Afro-American. So when I speak of the Afro-American, I’m not speaking of just the 22 million of us who are here in the United States. But the Afro-American is that large number of people in the Western Hemisphere, from the southernmost tip of South America to the northernmost tip of North America, all of whom have a common heritage and have a common origin when you go back to the roots of these people.
February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was shot down at the podium and lectern at Audubon Ballroom (NYC) as he was beginning his address for an OAAU meeting. His wife and children were present in the audience. A bodyguard tried to resuscitate him, his wife Betty Shabazz, knelt to resuscitate him, but it was too late.
Bullet holes at crime scene marked with circles
Malcolm X was pronounced dead at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, 3:30pm.
Then and Now
A white person seeking understanding of Malcolm X in 2023 might have a different approach and perspective than that same person in 1965. In 1965, a white man or woman likely would have been afraid of Malcolm X and his milieu. Fear would lead one to avoid whatever is its cause, but if “fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Prv 9:10), then danger ought be recognized as a thing worth knowing. Then, on the basis of wisdom or understanding, one can decide whether the danger is to be pushed away or kept near. Malcolm X was a dangerous man and a man of courage.
Notes
[Malcolm X, ‘The Power of Africa‘] in Joanne Grant (ed.), Black Protest (NY: Fawcett, 1989), “Malcolm X at the Audubon” [speech 12/20/64] p. 449
Ibid.
This happened in Lansing, where the Little family was then living. Earl Little’s death was officially ruled accidental, but Malcolm X mentions rumors in town that his father was attacked by white racists. See, The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley (NY: Ballantine, 1973/1999), pp. 19, 22
Elijah Muhammad, Message to the BlackMan in America (USA, 1973), chap. 13, 1-2
In 632 A.D., when prophet Muhammad died, there was a division over who was to succeed him as leader (caliph). Some said the successor should be Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s friend and advisor, others that the leader should be someone from the prophet’s family, his cousin Ali. Thus was produced the two major parties or groups, Sunni and Shia, that still make up Islam today. See the article, ‘Key Differences Between Shia and Sunni Muslims‘ or ‘What is the Difference between Sunni and Shia Islam?‘ Sunnis make up a far greater percentage of world Islam population, including Arabia, where most sacred sites are located.
Resources
There is much material on Malcolm X on the internet, some unreliable. A valid research method is to find independent sources to confirm facts such as dates and events or what was actually said. A lot of his speeches, etc., were filmed or recorded and may be accessed on YouTube. Columbia University Malcolm X Project may be helpful, though it seems the site has languished since the death of its leader, Prof. Manning Marable in 2011. Another website, no longer active, but which contains a wealth of primary sources on Malcolm X, letters, interviews, etc., is malcolm-x.org.
Three Books
George Breitman, The Last Year of Malcolm X (NY: Pathfinder, 1992)
Michael Dyson, Making Malcolm (NY: Oxford, 1995)
Bruce Perry, Malcolm (Barrytown: Station Hill, 1991)
Definition: “a concise statement of a principle; a terse formulation of a truth or sentiment” (Merriam-Webster)
Book: James Geary, Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007)
Geary’s book (437pp.) is a compendium of famous speakers and writers who have authored sentences containing information worth knowing or pondering. Each author is introduced with their dates and a brief biography and then a listing of their “essential aphorisms.” The book has eight chapters which classify the authors according to subject matter or area of expertise. These are “Comics, Critics and Satirists” (59pp.), “Icons and Iconoclasts” (41pp.), “Moralists, Major and Minor” (72pp.), “Novelists and Playwrights” (37pp.), “Old Souls and Oracles” (41pp.), “Painters and Poets” (56pp.), “Philosophers and Theorists” (41pp.), “Strange Beasts” (35pp.). The book ends with two indices, an “Index of Aphorists” and an “Index of Themes.”
“Strange Beasts”
“Some aphorists resist easy categorization,” says Geary (p.356). Nineteen authors are included in this chapter.1 Here we look at three of these writers and comment upon only two each of their aphorisms.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Bierce was a U.S. citizen who had fought in the Civil War. “In 1880, Bierce began writing a column for the Wasp newspaper called ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’.”
Aphorism, n. Predigested wisdom.
It seems there are two ways Bierce’s definition of aphorism may be taken or understood. One is that an aphorism represents raw knowledge/information that someone has analyzed and put forth to guide others. Another is that an aphorism imparts potential wisdom dependent on the hearer’s (or reader’s) own interpretation. Either way, it’s clear that Bierce associates aphorism with wisdom.
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
One finds humor in this definition by Bierce, but also truth. There is something wrong or out of order in much human action. Why? One might think of the Christian doctrine of original sin, or the number one Noble Truth of Buddhism that ‘life is suffering.’ Also, there are psychological explanations of human misbehavior, explored in depth by Freud and Jung. A question needs to be asked: how much evil is too much?
Diogenes (404-323 B.C.)
Diogenes was a Greek philosopher who “was captured at sea and sold into slavery.” “The only worthwhile philosophy, he believed, was one that helped people live a good life in the here and now.”
Practice makes perfect.
Perfection is a concept of a future state that is to be attained. If one cannot reach perfect status, one at least wants to come as close to perfect as possible. Practice, trying out the particular action requisite for the desired goal, doing it over and over, will lead to perfection, said Diogenes.
To own nothing is the beginning of happiness.
Diogenes herein captures an ideal of much philosophy, political thought and religious teaching. Privately owned property is a practical fact throughout the world, but philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and David Hume reasoned that property rights were not part of the natural, original state of humankind, but arose in conjunction with the origin of cities and states. In the realm of political theory, Karl Marx’s writings criticizing capitalism led to communism in some countries, wherein the state, rather than individuals, owns and distributes goods. In primitive Christianity, community property was favored over personal property, a practice which is maintained somewhat among the clergy in churches, but especially in monasteries. The founder of Buddhism himself cast away all attachment to things and counselled non-attachment to followers. It does seem that ownership entails responsibility, which carries along many problems. The planet’s population needs the planet’s resources which involves issues of justice and equity. A person who owns nothing would need others to provide for him or her and to be happy would first, be meek and humble.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Kafka was a citizen of Austria and Czechoslovakia and wrote short stories, novels, diaries, letters and essays in the German language. Kafka’s writings, for the most part, were not published until after his death. He worked for a state insurance institute until illness prevented this. “Many of Kafka’s afflictions–migraines, insomnia, boils–seem to have been brought on by anxiety.” He contracted tuberculosis in 1917.
The true way leads along a tightrope, which is not stretched aloft but just above the ground. It seems designed more to trip one than to be walked along.
That existence takes place on a tightrope is a truism. Death and lesser hurts occur in young and old. This aphorism reflects the harshness of Kafka’s life. There is also a spiritual dimension to the saying which suggests moral rightness, endurance and passing tests or obstacles. One is reminded of a saying of Jesus – “enter by the narrow gate . . . because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life” (Matt 7:13f NKJV).
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.
Prima facie, one objects to this aphorism because reaching a point where you can’t turn around seems dangerous and certainly limiting with respect to one’s options. Yet Kafka says one must get there. What does his aphorism mean? It’s a way of saying there are crises in life and decisions to be made and sustained. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”2 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”3 Upon deeper inspection, Kafka is here advising – ‘make a commitment.’
Notes
The other sixteen authors in Geary’s chapter, “Strange Beasts” are Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Malcom De Chazal, E.M. Cioran, Charles Cales Colton, Emily Dickinson, Vilhelm Ekelund, Paul Eluard (& Benjamin Peret), Ramon Gomez De La Serna, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, Antonio Porchia, Ezra Pound, Kozma Prutkov, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Patience Worth.
Yogi Berra, The Yogi Book (NY: Workman, 1998), p. 48
From Saints Paul and Barnabas, comes the following saying/teaching:
Through many troubles must we enter the kingdom of God.
(Acts 14:22)
The Greek word for “troubles” may also be translated, ‘afflictions,’ ‘persecutions,’ or ‘distress.’ A person travelling the road to heaven should expect to be tested with all manner of hardship.
It’s funny that believers are told in Scripture (e.g., Lk 18:25; Mt 7:14) to lookout for difficulties because difficulties are necessary and this is considered encouraging, promising. What?! [Wouldn’t it be better to find a religion or philosophy that leads one onto a path with less problems?] Jesus of Nazareth was on a quest for disciples, but taught those who accepted his challenge – “follow me” – to presume bad things will come. [A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. (Jn 15:20 NCB)] Yes, this is a basic truth of the Christian way.
Saul/Paul and Barnabas came together in Antioch to begin a Christian mission (see Acts of the Apostles chap. 13f) and made converts to the new faith, but also experienced interference and persecution, yet they persevered. Said Paul,
24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. (1 Cor 11:24ff NIV)
Epistle of Barnabas states,
For these are evil days, with the Worker of Evil himself in the ascendant..1
Time of trouble gives way to perpetual peace and joy in Christian faith and thought. This is salvation.
Note
1. Epistle of Barnabas 2:1, tr. Maxwell Staniforth in Early Christian Writings (NY: Penguin, 1987), p. 159
If only people would tell the truth always, as a matter of principle, the world would be much closer to perfect. Truth is, firstly, a divine qualtiy, a character-trait of God. Truth arises in intelligent consciousness in association with some sense-perception of an object firm and undeniable. Truth is a presence. [Truth is a mental object.]
What a person knows to be true should never be denied. This is so even in circumstance where a person thinks a lie will save another person’s life. Let’s reduce such a situation to its basic elements. These are life, falsehood, truth. What do you suppose is most important or valuable among the three? If your answer is life, that would mean you let yourself and others live falsely, in dishonesty, fallacy, deceit. This is not good, it’s evil and this is the current, past and ongoing state of humankind.
Jesus of Nazareth stood in the tribunal of Pontius Pilate and said, “I have come into the world that I may bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). Pontius Pilate responded, “what is truth(?)” (Jn 18:38). Pilate’s response is shame on humanity. We have lost truth in ourselves.
Paul's Place for Writing 