Tuesday, December 27, 2016

It’s no miracle Christmas survives in the post-Christian west


 

And so this doleful year ends and Christmas is upon us, with an atrocity at a seasonal market in Berlin, with police foiling an ­alleged plan to attack St Paul’s ­Cathedral in Melbourne on Christmas Day, with the Canberra headquarters of the Australian Christian Lobby, Eternity House, being car-bombed, even though police say there was no religious motive, and against the background of a continuing religious and ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East.
Christianity’s long ability to ­inspire both the love and the hatred of human beings ­continues.
 
In many parts of the world Christianity is thriving. It is on fire in Africa, expanding through the global south and there are many more Christians in China than there are members of the Communist Party.
But much of the West, with the partial exception of the US, is heading towards a predominantly post-Christian iden­tity. The main way Christianity is treated in public culture ranges from contempt and ridicule, to ­calumny and vilification, through to just being ignored and whitewashed from the public square, unless, very occasionally, it can be recruited to serve a fashionable cause.
Yet Christmas survives, even in the post-Christian West, as the most popular Christian festival, a symbol truly of universal appeal.
We all have our childhood memories of Christmas. For me it was midnight mass, black-and-white TV, presents at the foot of the bed, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, the roster of movies we seemed to watch every year — It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Going My Way — all long gone now.
It would take a fantastic curmudgeon to deny the happy sentimentality of Christmas, for much that is good is wrapped up in that sentimentality.
But as our society leaves Christianity behind, it is a pitiful fact the content of Christianity, and especially the content of Christmas, has all but passed out of collective consciousness.
Given that for most of the past 2000 years, until about five minutes ago, Christianity shaped Western civilisation, this sheer and wilful ignorance, entirely separate from the question of belief, is an extreme version of a perverse kind of intellectual self-harm. And to deny students especially any real knowledge of their own ­inheritance seems to mount perversity on perversity.
For Christmas, as traditionally understood in Western culture, is the most radical event in human history. The claims of the Christian religion, which centre on Christmas, are the most stupendous that have ever been made.
Consider just four of the most astonishing claims of Jesus, and of Christianity, arising out of Christmas: that Jesus is God and that God for a time was a child, that God alone is the principle of all goodness, that the devil is a real character always about and that Jesus can work miracles.
One common post-Christian way of understanding Jesus is to think of him as a good and kindly man who provided great moral teaching, a kind of early Mahatma Gandhi, and that others, ­especially the historical church, have attributed divinity to him that he never claimed.
The problem is this doesn’t ­accord with the facts at all. Jesus himself, and the Gospels generally, constantly claim that Jesus is God, not a messenger of God, not a teacher inspired by God, not an angel, still less the leader of a social movement, but actually God.
No other historical figure who founded a significant religion has ever made this claim. Therefore, as Christians used to point out, there are only three possibilities for Jesus. Either he was a deluded fantasist, a profoundly brilliant charlatan or indeed he was and is God.
One of the best ways to try to understand the cultural and historical import of Christianity is ­actually to read the Gospels. There are mysteries in them but overall they are abundantly clear on all the big points.
Did Jesus claim divinity? In St John’s Gospel, Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am.”
John’s Gospel, by the way, is one of the greatest works of literature in human history. Read it just for the literary experience, preferably in an older translation. Modern translators have tried to render the Bible in all the soaring prose of a telephone directory but even they cannot disguise the majesty and drama and sweep of John’s language.
In many passages, John refers to Jesus as “the word” and begins his Gospel thus: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.”
In Mark’s Gospel, when asked if he is the Christ, the son of God, Jesus replies: “I am.” Not much equivocation there.
Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus declares: “I am the resur­rection and the life. Whoever ­believes in me will live, even though he dies.”
Later, Jesus returns to the same theme: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
The point of these quotations, and there are many others to the same effect, is not to convince anyone that Christianity is true but just to make clear the uncompromising nature of the claims Jesus made.
Jesus proclaimed that he is God and that, incidentally, God created all the universe.
These are the most radical and paradigm-shattering claims ever made in human history. They may be wrong but it is surely worth knowing something about them.
The other claim entailed there is that salvation, eternal life, is available only through Jesus. This leads traditional critics of Christianity to describe a jealous God, as though God were just one person among many but demanding all the attention.
Catholic Cardinal George Pell addressed this in his justly famous debate with the atheist Richard Dawkins. Asked if non-Christians could expect salvation and eternal life, Pell answered yes, anyone who sought the good and moves ­towards God might find salvation. Pell outraged some Christians and surprised some atheists, but this is the official position in the Catholic catechism. It shows that while the basic messages of the Gospel are clear enough, there is still a need for ­interpretation. The ­inclusive view of salvation rests on the sovereignty and authority of Jesus. He alone decides who ­approaches the father so it’s not up to anyone else to judge.
But there is a much deeper point. As Jesus frequently ­declares in his teaching, everything that is good comes from God. It takes only the smallest extrapolation to realise that when being asked to worship God, it is not just to choose one person, God, among others, but to choose the very principle of goodness. Since God is the principle of goodness, the jealous god is jealous that people should choose good over evil.
That is not everything that a Christian believes but it illustrates that the message of Jesus, at least as claimed by Jesus, is universal, it is for Christians and non-Christians alike.
Which leads to another ­piquant question: why do Christians believe in and practise Christianity if they also believe that non-Christians can find salvation? The answer is simple: ­because they believe Christianity is actually true, which is the only reasonable basis for any serious commitment to Christianity at all.
Two smaller but hardly less revolutionary, to modern sensibilities, features of the Gospels are the presence of the devil and the near ubiquity in the Gospels of miracles.
A little over 40 years ago, the devil made a big comeback in Hollywood through The Exorcist. Hollywood has never quite wanted to dispense with him as he’s such an arresting character. But now he’s right out of fashion. The recent Marvel Comics’ Doctor Strange movie felt obliged by the zeitgeist to give an entirely materialist explanation of the hero’s powers, which in the original had much to do with the ­occult.
But you cannot really believe anything of Jesus without believing in the real existence of the devil, for Jesus frequently talked about him and the devil is central to key Gospel episodes.
Pope Francis is immensely popular, in part because of his ­social justice messages. He is an Argentinian Pope who seems to ­interpret all economic matters through the very distinctive Argen­tinian experience. But of course, as the Pope himself often acknowledges, the Pope has no special authority on economics.
The media tends, however, to more or less ignore what the Pope says about religion, and he ­frequently talks about the devil.
Miracles are equally unfashionable. But in the Gospels, Jesus performs nearly 40 separate miracles. He spends a great deal of his time performing miracles. Intellectually, it is perfectly sensible to try to interpret the Gospels and not just read them without any ­interpretation at all. But as with all great works of literature, inter­pretation is entirely secondary to actually reading the work in the first place.
It’s pretty clear that unless the Gospels are absolutely full of lies, in which case the only reason for reading them is historical curiosity, miracles are a central part of the deal of the teachings of Jesus.
Of course, logically it’s hard to believe in God at all and not ­believe in miracles. Otherwise the proposition is God cannot do anything that we can’t do ourselves, in which case there is ­almost no meaning in the word God.
This is the quiet position of ­almost all believing Christians. Peter Costello, in his memoirs, ­attributes the recovery of his wife from a grave illness in part to the miraculous. Kevin Rudd, who I think quite nobly disclosed his Christian faith, was once asked point-blank whether he believed in miracles and answered point-blank that he did.
Yet in most circles, to assert a belief in miracles today would be to court instant ridicule.
The neglect of the wellsprings of Western civilisation in our education, and in our culture more generally, is one of the drolly miraculous elements of our own time. To desire not just to reject Christianity but to determine not to know anything much at all about it is weird and would be incomprehensible in any other field.
Though it is available to all cultures, Christianity built Western civilisation which, presumably, we still have some use for. Imagine wanting to continue to use a bridge but being determined to suppress the knowledge of how the bridge was built.
The wonders of Christmas are endless.
….
 

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Dynasty of Hammurabi a Non-Indigenous One?

The Code of Hammurabi Audiobook 

 
by
 
 Damien F. Mackey
 
 
 
 
“ASSYRIOLOGISTS have for some years past come to the conclusion that the dynasty to which Hammurabi belonged was not indigenous …”.
 
Stanley A. Cook weighs up the arguments for the dynasty of King Hammurabi to have been either Northern Semitic or Arabian (The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi): https://archive.org/stream/lawsofmosescodeo00cookrich/lawsofmosescodeo00cookrich_djvu.txt :
 
… the question of the origin of the dynasty of Hammurabi becomes one of peculiar importance for the study of the Code. If it could be proved that the dynasty was North Semitic, and therefore of the same stock as the later [sic] Phoenicians, Moabites, and Israelites, might it not be plausible to suppose that the Code was based upon legal institutions which were familiar to those peoples?
But the question in the present state of knowledge cannot be placed beyond dispute, and there are Assyriologists, whose opinion must carry great weight, who have argued in favour of an Arabian; origin. This, in like manner, if it could be conclusively maintained, would be of the utmost interest for our study. If the kings of the first Babylonian dynasty came from Arabia, would it not be reasonable to infer that the legal elements in the Code were specifically Arabian? one immediately recalls the important part played by (North) Arabia in the early history of the Israelites, the traditions of the wanderings in the wilderness, and the influence of the Midianite Jethro on Moses' work, which is described in the most explicit manner by the Elohist in Exod. 18. Apart from these questions, it will be necessary to inquire also whether Israel was as susceptible to outside influence as is frequently assumed, and we must also bear in mind that Jewish law was the result, not of a single promulgation like the Code of Hammurabi [sic], but of a gradual development. The preliminary problems therefore, are intimately connected not only with the Code itself, but with the whole question of the relation of the Code to Israelite law.
 
CHAPTER II
 
BABYLONIA AND ISRAEL
 
….
 
ASSYRIOLOGISTS have for some years past come to the conclusion that the dynasty to which Hammurabi belonged was not indigenous, 1 and have associated it with one of those waves of immigration which have recurred from time to time in the history of the Semites. Although the evidence is linguistic and linguistic arguments, taken by them-
selves, are extremely precarious it is striking enough to deserve attention, and may be briefly recapitulated here. The evidence in question is chiefly derived from a number of proper names which, it is agreed, are not of the pure Babylonian type. Thus, even the Babylonian scribes regarded the name Hammurabi as foreign, and glossed it by Kimta-rapastum, "wide-extended family," obviously regarding the name (which is sometimes written Ammurabi) as a compound, not of ham, "father-in-law," but of amm, with the meaning "family"; an interpretation which may be claimed also for the Hebrew and Arabic am(m). …. In like manner, they find it necessary to explain the name Ammi-saduga, one of Hammurabi's successors, by Kimtum-kettum, "just or righteous family."
 
Further, in names of this dynasty, s is used where the older Babylonian employs s, notably in [text her lacks proper ‘s’ variations]; Samsu-iluna as contrasted with Samsu. The termination -na in the above name, which is interpreted "Samas our god," is quite distinct from the ordinary Babylonian -ni. The imperfect, which usually takes the form imlik, appears as iamlik in lamlik-ilu, larbi-ilu, etc. There are, besides, a number of minor details, for an account of which reference may be made to the recent discussion by Ranke … who is on the side of Hommel, Sayce, and A. Jeremias, in favouring the Arabian origin of the dynasty. But Winckler and Delitzsch, who are equally convinced that it was not indigenous, have arrived at a different conclusion. "Linguistic and historical considerations," says the latter, "combine to make it more than probable that these immigrant Semites belonged to the Northern Semites, more precisely to the linguistically so-called 'Canaanites' (i.e. the Phoenicians, Moabites, Hebrews, etc.)." …. And whilst Hommel points out that Ammi-saduga is identical with the old Arabian Ammi-saduka (Halevy, 535), Delitzsch remarks that zadug (another form of the second element) "may point to a … ‘Canaanite' dialect, both lexically . . . and phonetically." …. The suffix -na to which reference has already been made, is no proof of Arabian origin,
since not only is it also Aramaic (-no), but Delitzsch points out that "it is at least equally probable that iluna represents an adjective."
 
Arguments founded upon hypothetical interpretations of proper names can scarcely pass muster, and it is therefore unsafe to find traces of Arabic either in the second element in Ammi-satana, which is explained from the Arabic sadd, "mountain," … or in the particle pa in Pa-la-samas, which, according to Hommel, … means "Is it not then Samas ?" Even if the interpretation were correct, pa is by no means necessarily the Arabic fa, since it is well known that it appears several times in the old Aramaic inscriptions from Zinjirli in North Syria. The nominal form maful in the names Maknubi-ilu, Makhnuzu,
is certainly common in Arabic, but though rare in Hebrew, it is not unfamiliar in Aramaic. Arabian influence has also been claimed for the name Akbaru (afal form), but it lies close at hand to compare the Hebrew 'akbor, "mouse." Passing over the isolated examples of mimmation which are claimed by Ranke, … we may note that the imperfect form iamlik, though it certainly presupposes a Semitic race distinct from the Babylonian, is not necessarily Arabic, since the earliest form of the preformative in North Semitic was originally ya-, and probably did not pass over into j/e- until a comparatively late period. …. Finally, the element Sumu in Sumu-abi, etc., although explained to mean "his name" (sum-kit), can scarcely be claimed as specifically Arabic, since in the oldest Arabian inscriptions the Minean the form would be Sum-su, and Hommel himself, who recognises this difficulty, is forced to suppose that the Minean form of the suffix, with su as contrasted with hu in the later (Sabean) inscriptions and in Arabic, was in its turn due to Babylonian influence. …. The discussion is further complicated by the fact that the linguistic phenomena which characterise the names of the dynasty are also to be found upon a number of the Assyrian contract-tablets from Cappadocia, which, though of extremely uncertain age and origin, are necessarily assigned by Hommel to the age of Hammurabi. ….
 
The truth is, we know too little of the earlier A history of the languages of Canaan and Arabia in … the time of Hammurabi. At that remote period (about 2250 B.C.) [sic], to quote Bevan, "Semitic languages may have been spoken of which we know nothing. Words and forms which we are accustomed to regard as characteristically Arabic may then have existed in no Semitic language, or may have been common to all Semites. Even with regard to a much later period, our linguistic information is extremely imperfect; whether, for instance, the language of the Midianites, the Edomites, or the Amalekites, in the time of David, was more nearly akin to Hebrew or to Arabic is a matter of pure conjecture.
[End of quote]
 
‘Information will be extremely less imperfect’ when it is recognised that Hammurabi belongs to the approximate time of David, as a contemporary of his son, Solomon. Then, as with a revised El Amarna, linguistic difficulties will far more easily explained.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

This isn’t racist, Islamophobia or cruel. It’s commonsense

Warren Mundine is chair of the Prime Minister’s indigenous Advisory Council and a former ALP national president. (Pic: News Corp)


Donald Trump’s victory demonstrates the media and commentariat are disconnected from voters. Almost without exception they failed to anticipate the presidential election outcome — and had little influence on it. Their message that Trump was unfit for presidency largely ignored.
Australia’s political media and commentariat are also out of touch. Listening to them you’d think Australians are preoccupied with gay marriage, offshore detention, carbon emissions and identity politics. Most are preoccupied with their families, their homes, their jobs, the monthly bills and their kids’ education and job prospects.
They care about the economy and national debt. They want to live in a safe society where Australia’s way of life is valued and respected.
There’s a growing disconnect between the views expressed by the media and commentariat and those of many Australians, with commonsense often dismissed as extreme, ill-informed, even bigoted. Here are some examples.
Our biggest education challenge is performance declining against global benchmarks. Demanding more education funding as the solution is misconceived. It’s been happening despite substantial education funding increases. Something’s wrong. Australian schools should be the best in the world, not 28th behind Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile, the education issue dominating political news has been the Safe Schools controversy. It’s understandable why parents are concerned. Some content in Safe Schools and other school programs, frankly, beggars belief.
Teachers shouldn’t be schooling children in gender fluidity or asking them to imagine or role-play different sexual orientations, or teaching them about exotic sex acts, or criticising “heteronormativity”.
Governments should shut this nonsense down and focus on improving academic performance.
That’s not homophobic. It’s commonsense.
The world has more than 60 million refugees, around three times Australia’s population, with many others desperate to move to Western nations for economic opportunity.
Allowing people to stay in Australia if they make it to our shores Hunger-Games style (or acquiescing when they do) is cruel and irresponsible.
During the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era more than 1000 people drowned and detainee numbers skyrocketed from less than 500 to more than 10,000.
Refusing to settle asylum seekers in Australia who arrive by boat is tough and unrelenting but it saves lives.
Nations must uphold their borders to maintain their sovereignty, potentially their survival. My ancestors learned this the hard way. Border security isn’t racist or an embarrassment. It’s commonsense.
Australians have a strong record of embracing immigrants in their communities and in their families, and most immigrants embrace Australia and our way of life.
But at the moment Australians are seeing something we’ve rarely seen before.
A small minority of Muslim migrants and/or their descendants reject our way of life and instead want us to embrace aspects of theirs which go against our laws, customs and culture — women covering their faces, refusing to stand in court, Sharia law regulating divorces, polygamy and even forced child “marriages”.
A smaller minority support terrorist causes and are plotting to kill us. That’s not acceptable to most Australians, including most Arab and Muslim Australians. Yes, it’s only a tiny minority but their attitudes and actions are divisive and dangerous and must be acknowledged and confronted.
Every Australian should treat others with decency, follow our laws and institutions. This isn’t racist or Islamophobic. It’s commonsense.
President-elect Donald Trump. They didn’t think he could do it. Oh, how wrong they were. (Pic: Scott Olson/Getty/AFP)

People of all societies through the ages were expected to contribute. Families and charities supported those who couldn’t. Modern Western governments introduced welfare to help people on hard times get back on their feet, not provide an optional life pathway. Governments shouldn’t pay people who refuse to work. If there are jobs picking fruit, selling hamburgers, labouring or cleaning, unemployed people should do them or lose benefits.
I hope the federal government’s welfare reform plans go beyond tough talk and become tough action. Making people take available work isn’t cruel. Sit-down money is cruel. Welfare reform is commonsense.
Politicians who articulate these kinds of opinions are often branded heartless and bigoted by the progressive/Left, cheered on by prominent members of the political media and commentariat.
It’s rare to hear centrist politicians speak as bluntly as I just have. Centrist Labor tends to pander to the progressive/Left. Centrist Liberals tiptoe. In doing so they leave a vacuum for extremists and populists.
Trump, Brexit and One Nation’s resurgence deliver two key lessons.
First, politicians who speak directly to voters about what voters care about can prevail, regardless of the media and commentariat.
Second, if centrists are unwilling or afraid to embrace commonsense views, voters will turn to extremists and populists, however offensive.
The first centrist politician who embraces commonsense with plain-speaking, ignoring the political class and dealing honestly and firmly with issues Australians care about, will dominate the ballot box.
Warren Mundine is chair of the Prime Minister’s indigenous Advisory Council and a former ALP national president

....
Taken from: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/this-isnt-racist-islamophobia-or-cruel-its-commonsense/news-story/31f2cf932163b4e90974f459f077462f

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Magi, Gentiles or Jews?


Image result for magi matthew

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him’.

 

Matthew 2:1-2

 

 

Just because they were “from the east” does not necessarily mean that the Magi had hailed from the Far East (Persia, India, China), because Job himself, who was a Naphtalian Israelite:

 

Job's Life and Times

 


 

(hence a non-Gentile), from Transjordanian Bashan, “was the greatest man among all the people of the east” (Job 1:3).

In Part One of this series:

https://www.academia.edu/26423097/Bible_Critics_Can_Overstate_Idea_of_Enlightened_Pagan I tentatively listed the Magi amongst various biblical candidates generally considered to have been Gentiles, writing as follows:  

 

Here it will be argued that - contrary to what is often believed about the following biblical characters - none of these can really accurately be designated as an ‘enlightened pagan’:

 

1.      MELCHIZEDEK

2.      RAHAB (in genealogy of David and Jesus)

3.      RUTH

4.      ACHIOR (in my Catholic Bible, Book of Judith)

5.      JOB

6.      (Probably also) the Magi.

 

And later I noted briefly:

 

6.      THE MAGI. There is some tradition that has them descending from the family of Job. I would suspect that the “east” in which the Magi dwelt was, not Persia by any means, but the same approximate “east” wherein Job dwelt, in the land of Uz, in Transjordanian Bashan. …. 

 

Now, I have come across an article by David C. Sim, entitled The magi: Gentiles or Jews? http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/viewFile/1660/2952), which opens the door to the possibility that the Magi may have been Jews.

Sim’s Abstract for his article reads as follows:

 

From the second century onwards the Christian tradition has almost without exception accepted that the magi in Matthew's infancy narrative were Gentiles, and this view also completely dominates modern Matthean studies. Yet this identification of the magi as Gentiles is built upon a number of unconvincing arguments, which fail to stand up to closer scrutiny. A re-assessment of the evidence reveals that the evangelist did not stipulate the racial origins of the magi. They may have been Gentiles, but it is equally plausible that they were Jews.

 

After proceeding through the usual “seven arguments” raised by scholars in favour of a Gentile ethnicity for the Magi, Sim concludes his article by writing:

 

The preceding discussion has attempted to show that not one of the seven arguments produced by scholars to prove that the magi of Matthew 2:1-12 were Gentiles has any validity. Much of the evidence is in fact ambiguous and can apply just as much to the Jews as to the Gentiles. Despite scholarly claims to the contrary, there were Jewish magi and/or Jewish astrologers who lived to the east of the Jewish homeland, and there were Jews who used the expression "the King of the Jews". The fact that the magi appear not to have known the prophecies concerning the birth-place of the messiah need not necessarily identify them as Gentiles. As the Treatise of Shem demonstrates, it is quite unreasonable to expect Jews who devoted themselves to astrology and other esoteric arts to be experts as well in scriptural exegesis. The arguments concerning the fulfilment of certain Old Testament prophecies, the star of Balaam in Numbers 24: 17 and the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion in Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72, simply cannot be sustained in view of the absence of formula quotations. Moreover, the claim that Matthew has modelled the magi on the Gentile Balaam is rather incredible, given the universal condemnation of this figure in both Jewish and Christian sources. The final argument, that in this narrative the evangelist establishes a dichotomy between believing Gentiles and unbelieving Jews that is reflected throughout the Gospel, is based upon an incorrect assessment of Matthew's view of both the Gentiles and the Jews.

What conclusions should we draw from this discussion? The first thing to be said is that it would exceed the evidence to suggest that Matthew did not intend the magi to be taken as Gentiles. While none of the seven arguments usually offered in support of this hypothesis is convincing, it must be said that there is no definitive evidence which proves

that they could not be Gentiles. This a small and insignificant victory, however. Precisely

the same can be said of the alternative hypothesis that the evangelist depicted the magi as

Jews. The information Matthew provides about these figures is completely consistent with the thesis that they were Jewish astrologers, but nothing in the story explicitly identifies them as Jews and not as Gentiles. The reality of the situation is that the evangelist did not make clear the racial origins of the magi. We have to presume that Matthew assumed this knowledge on the part of his readers. Unfortunately we modern readers are not privy to this information, so we are faced with a choice between the two alternatives.

The very uncertainty of the evidence does, however, have an important consequence. As noted above, scholars make considerable use of the (Gentile) magi in developing an argument for Matthew's positive view of the Gentile world and for substantiating the  evangelist's universalistic perspective; it is in fact one of the main pillars on which these

theses are built. If, however, the certainty is removed and the Gentile nature of the magi

becomes a possibility to be considered alongside the equally plausible possibility that they were Jews, then these hypotheses are dealt a significant blow. From now on scholars must attempt to build their case without any reference to the magi in the Matthean infancy

narrative.

 

 

Image result for magi bible