{"id":42,"date":"2018-01-10T09:56:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T14:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/?post_type=chapter&p=42"},"modified":"2018-01-10T10:45:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T15:45:43","slug":"there-is-a-voice-that-cries","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/chapter\/there-is-a-voice-that-cries\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 10: There is a voice that cries","rendered":"Chapter 10: There is a voice that cries"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\nCHAPTER TEN: THERE IS A VOICE THAT CRIES\r\n\r\nTHE PROPHETS OF OLD\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Prophet<\/td>\r\nApproximate dates B.C.E.<\/td>\r\nKings<\/td>\r\nKingdom<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Samuel<\/td>\r\n1050 - 1000<\/td>\r\nSaul, David<\/td>\r\nUnited Kingdom<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Elijah<\/td>\r\n870 - 850<\/td>\r\nAhab, Ahaziah<\/td>\r\nIsrael<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Elisha<\/td>\r\n850 - 795<\/td>\r\nJehoram-Jehoash<\/td>\r\nIsrael<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Micaiah<\/td>\r\n853<\/td>\r\nAhab<\/td>\r\nIsrael<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n\r\nProphets of the monarchs:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Amos<\/td>\r\n760<\/td>\r\nJeroboam II<\/td>\r\nIsrael<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Jonah<\/td>\r\n760<\/td>\r\nJeroboam II<\/td>\r\nIsrael<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Hosea<\/td>\r\n760 - 722<\/td>\r\nJeroboam II-Hoshea<\/td>\r\nIsrael<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Isaiah<\/td>\r\n740 - 700<\/td>\r\nUzziah-Hezekiah<\/td>\r\nJudah<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Micah<\/td>\r\n740 - 687<\/td>\r\nJotham-Hezekiah<\/td>\r\nJudah<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Zephaniah<\/td>\r\n640 - 610<\/td>\r\nJosiah<\/td>\r\nJudah<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Nahum<\/td>\r\n630 - 612<\/td>\r\nJosiah<\/td>\r\nJudah<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Jeremiah<\/td>\r\n626 - 580<\/td>\r\nJosiah-The Exile<\/td>\r\nJudah<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Habakkuk<\/td>\r\n600<\/td>\r\nJehoiakim<\/td>\r\nJudah<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n\r\nProphets from the exile and after:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Ezekiel<\/td>\r\n592 - 570<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Obadiah<\/td>\r\nexile<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Haggaai<\/td>\r\n520<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Zechariah<\/td>\r\n520 - 518<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Malachi<\/td>\r\n500 - 400<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n\r\nParts of the Book of Isaiah are assigned to this period, which is sometimes referred to as Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nElisha replaces Elijah or \"my god is Yahweh\" replaces \"my god is\u00a0salvation.\" Elisha is primarily known for his many miracles, but his task, as the\u00a0Eerdmans' Bible Dictionary[1]<\/a> puts it, \"was actually three-fold: to heal,\u00a0prophesy, and complete Elijah's assignments.\" As healer he cures Naaman,\u00a0the commander of the Syrian army, who suffered from leprosy, by having him\u00a0bathe three times in the Jordan River. As prophet he correctly predicts that\u00a0the combined forces of Jehosaphat of Judah and Jehoram of Israel will defeat\u00a0the Moabites in battle. To complete Elijah's duties he travels to Damascus to\u00a0anoint Hazael as legitimate sovereign. But in the popular mind Elisha will\u00a0always be associated with miracles. And just what is a miracle? The most\u00a0famous discussion of miracles is by David Hume in his Enquiry\u00a0Concerning Human Understanding:[2]<\/a>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and\r\n\r\nunalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against\r\n\r\na miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any\r\n\r\nargument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it\r\n\r\nmore than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of\r\n\r\nitself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is\r\n\r\nextinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found\r\n\r\nagreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of\r\n\r\nthese laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing\r\n\r\nis esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of\r\n\r\nnature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health,\r\n\r\nshould die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more\r\n\r\nunusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to\r\n\r\nhappen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life;\r\n\r\nbecause that has never been observed, in any age or country. There\r\n\r\nmust, therefore, be an uniform experience against every miraculous\r\n\r\nevent, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as\r\n\r\na uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and\r\n\r\nfull proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any\r\n\r\nmiracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered\r\n\r\ncredible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.\r\n\r\nThe plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our\r\n\r\nattention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle,\r\n\r\nunless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be\r\n\r\nmore miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish:\r\n\r\nAnd even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments,\r\n\r\nand the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree\r\n\r\nof force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When any\r\n\r\none tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately\r\n\r\nconsider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person\r\n\r\nshould either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he\r\n\r\nrelates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle\r\n\r\nagainst the other; and according to the superiority, which I\r\n\r\ndiscover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater\r\n\r\nmiracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more\r\n\r\nmiraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then,\r\n\r\ncan he pretend to command my belief or opinion.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFrom this we get a working definition, which also coincides with the way\u00a0we use the word `miracle': \"a miracle is an event of an extraordinary kind\u00a0brought about by a god and of religious significance.\"[3]<\/a> Thus, for example, the\u00a0claim in Joshua 10.13 that the sun stayed still for one day while the Israelites\u00a0defeated the Amorites, would count as an extraordinary event since it violates\u00a0Newtonian laws; the event is reported to have been brought about by Yahweh,\u00a0and was another significant exhibition of Yahweh's power and his intervention\u00a0into history on the part of his chosen people. Using Hume's criterion for\u00a0testing this claim we would weigh the probability of the sun standing still versus\u00a0the probability that the report is false. Surely such an event would have been\u00a0reported by witnesses all over the world, for it would have been of great\u00a0moment; but we have testimony of the event only from the Hebrew writer, who\u00a0wants to tell a particular story about divine intervention. It seems more likely\u00a0that the writer is proclaiming the miracle rather than describing it. Hume has\u00a0four arguments designed to show that \"there never was a miraculous event\u00a0established\" in Part II of his Section 10. Hume argues that \"there is not to be\u00a0found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of\u00a0such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against\u00a0all delusions in themselves.\" Secondly, he notes that people love to gossip\u00a0about the unusual and that religious people are not beyond using falsehood to\u00a0support what they take to be basically true. His third point is that \"it forms a\u00a0strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they\u00a0are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous people.\" These\u00a0three points turn on factual matters, and take miracles as serious claims about\u00a0matters of fact. It may well be, however, that miracles are matters of the form\u00a0of a story and not the facts of the matter. Miracles do not offer evidence for\u00a0the existence of god; miracles presuppose the existence of god. Hume's fourth\u00a0argument is logical in nature and is an important one to consider:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI may add as a fourth reason, which diminishes the authority of\r\n\r\nprodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have\r\n\r\nnot been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite\r\n\r\nnumber of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the\r\n\r\ncredit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this\r\n\r\nthe better understood, let us consider, that, in matters of religion,\r\n\r\nwhatever is different is contrary; and that it is impossible the\r\n\r\nreligions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China\r\n\r\nshould, all of them, be established on any solid foundation. Every\r\n\r\nmiracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these\r\n\r\nreligions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is\r\n\r\nto establish the particular system to which it is attributed; so has it\r\n\r\nthe same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other\r\n\r\nsystem. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit\r\n\r\nof those miracles, on which that system was established; so that all\r\n\r\nthe prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary\r\n\r\nfacts, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong,\r\n\r\nas opposite to each other.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMultiple religions, each offering miracle as evidence for its truth, act to\u00a0weaken miracle as evidence, to the extent that each religion is exclusive. One\u00a0way out of this problem is to see that miracles are literary devices used to\u00a0affirm or ground the claims of a particular official line. When a\u00a0prophet, in a story, accurately tells the future, that is a sign of authenticity, a\u00a0way of establishing the prophet as a trustworthy story teller. When one\u00a0prophet is reported as repeating a previous prophet's miracle, as when Jesus\u00a0feeds the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, while earlier Elisha had\u00a0fed one hundred with twenty barley loaves and some fresh ripe ears of corn, it\u00a0is a way of indicating that Jesus is a new and more powerful Elisha.[4]<\/a>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nConsider other than biblical miracles. We have all heard of the person\u00a0(maybe even a friend or relative) who is diagnosed as having cancer and is then\u00a0given a prognosis of \"less than a year to live.\" But the person recovers, and the\u00a0doctor says that the cancer is gone. The person's life is imperiled; against\u00a0expectation, the person is saved. Isn't that a miracle? It depends upon who is\u00a0reading the events. From the medical point of view, such examples\u00a0indicate that medical prediction, in many cases, is not particularly accurate.\u00a0And this does not mean that the doctor was an incompetent or the cancer was\u00a0never there. Part of the description of a particular case may well include\u00a0remission and even cure with no \"treatment\" at all. Since the human body is a\u00a0complex system and the state of our knowledge of the various kinds of cancers\u00a0is incomplete, it is not at all a violation of natural law that this particular\u00a0person has recovered. But now consider these same facts from the point of\u00a0view of the patient. Imagine that after the diagnosis the patient goes to see her\u00a0priest and together they pray. And several times a day she prays to her god for\u00a0assistance. From her point of view a miracle has occurred. Her petition has\u00a0been granted and no matter what others say she will continue to believe that a\u00a0miracle has occurred and that her life is the only evidence required. The\u00a0popular press is full of these sorts of stories of prayer-miracles. Another kind\u00a0of example comes from near escapes from potentially deadly accidents. In a\u00a0recent severe windstorm in British Columbia several trees were blown down in\u00a0populated areas. House after house suffered damage from large Douglas Fir\u00a0trees suddenly uprooted by the wind and thrown into the house. In one case a\u00a0couple were in bed in their water bed thinking about getting up to prepare for\u00a0the day. Since the roads were blocked and the ferry was not running it seemed\u00a0probable that going to work late was not a bad idea. The man moved across\u00a0the water bed to \"cuddle\" a bit before getting up. Crash! His side of the bed sud-\u00a0denly had an arm thick branch puncturing the very spot where he had just\u00a0been. Miracle? Or coincidence? The significance of some coincidences as\u00a0opposed to others (the cat was under the bed, say, and was impaled by the\u00a0branch) comes about because of the relation between the coincidence and a set\u00a0of human hopes, fears, and desires. The non-religious person would, as he\u00a0jumped out of the deflating bed, thank his good luck for saving him at the cost\u00a0of the cat. Coincidence-miracles depend upon the point of view of the persons\u00a0involved. What the non-religious person calls luck is called the grace of God or\u00a0a miracle of God by the religious person. When such a coincidence does occur,\u00a0and when from a particular person's point of view that coincidence is sig-\u00a0nificant, the tendency is to think of oneself as being special (Lady Luck smiles\u00a0on you). Once again we find a flawed argument at work: If I am special then\u00a0God will look after me by arranging for good things to happen to me. Good\u00a0things happen to me; therefore, I am special. Such a coincidence can be taken\u00a0by the religious person as a sign that god is at work in the universe and that\u00a0god cares about persons. But, unfortunately for this reading, bad things\u00a0happen to good people.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHume is skeptical in part because it seems that miracles always happen\u00a0long ago and far away. In those cases then we have to depend upon\u00a0\"eyewitness\" testimony, and as we all know it is less than perfect. If we think of\u00a0miracles as events that are conceptually impossible and empirically certain[5]<\/a>\u00a0then at least we get the idea of what would count as a miracle. It is\u00a0conceptually impossible to \"part the waters\" of a sea, or to stop the sun for a\u00a0period of time, or to make the sun go backwards. If one witnessed such an\u00a0event one would have good evidence that it occurred, but if one reads about it\u00a0one has not a miracle but a miracle-story. In order for us to believe the story\u00a0we will have to believe the story teller, and one way of establishing the au-\u00a0thority of the text is by privileging it, by naming it \"scripture\" instead of story.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nElisha's `violation' miracles include making an iron axe float, making\u00a0leprosy come and go on command, overhearing the King of Aram from a vast\u00a0distance, causing persons to be blind and then restoring their sight, raising a\u00a0child from the dead, and foretelling the future. All of these affirm that he is a\u00a0`man of god'. The narrative relates the fortunes of the kings of the divided\u00a0kingdom and above all provides a reading for why the chosen people are not\u00a0flourishing in the promised land. Throughout this part of Kings we are\u00a0reminded of the violation of the religious laws of Yahweh, particularly in the\u00a0use of hill shrines for sacrifice. The struggle between Yahweh and Baal is\u00a0reported here and it comes to a climax in [6]<\/a> Kings 10 when Jehu orders a\u00a0sacred ceremony for Baal to be held. \"Jehu himself sent word throughout\u00a0Israel, and all the ministers of Baal came; there was not a man left who did not\u00a0come. They went into the temple of Baal and it was filled from end to end.\"\u00a0Once he has all of the ministers of Baal in one place he orders them to be\u00a0killed by the soldiers he has stationed outside. \"So they slew them without\u00a0quarter.\" The sacred pillar of the Baal and the temple which housed it are\u00a0destroyed and made into a privy. \"Thus Jehu stamped out the worship of Baal\u00a0in Israel,\" and he is properly rewarded: \"You have done what is right in my\u00a0eyes,\" says the Lord, \"...your sons to the fourth generation shall sit on the\u00a0throne of Israel.\" (Do you remember that commandment: Thou shalt not kill?)\u00a0Jehu reigned over Israel for twenty-eight years. Elisha continues to perform his\u00a0magical rituals and during the reign of Jehoash he dies and is buried. But this\u00a0is not the last we hear of him. Even in death this prophet is presented as\u00a0having supernatural powers.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYear by year Moabite raiders used to invade the land. Once some\r\n\r\nmen were burying a dead man when they caught sight of the\r\n\r\nraiders. They threw the body into the grave of Elisha and made off;\r\n\r\nwhen the body touched the prophet's bones, the man came to life\r\n\r\nand rose to his feet. (2 Kings 13.21)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nElisha has been presented as a prophet capable of violation miracles,\u00a0including, making iron float on water, a feeding miracle, a resurrection\u00a0miracle, and the power to bring others back to life even after he has died. One\u00a0way of asserting the special status of an Old Testament hero is to tell stories\u00a0that show him as a miracle worker. The rest of 2 Kings relates the downfall of\u00a0the southern and northern kingdoms until the time that the troops of\u00a0Nebuchadnezzar besiege Jerusalem. After a prolonged siege he takes the city,\u00a0defeats the king and his army, and burns the palace, the temple, and all the\u00a0houses of the city. Jerusalem is destroyed. The chosen people are defeated and\u00a0their most holy of sites is destroyed. How could this horrible destruction and\u00a0defeat have happened? We are told, \"All this happened to the Israelites\u00a0because they had sinned against the Lord their God who brought them up\u00a0from Egypt...\" (2 Kings 17.7) Now begins the Babylonian Exile (587 - 539\u00a0B.C.E.).\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThis flourishing, chosen, and special people are completely defeated\u00a0and taken in to captivity, where their king, instead of ruling the promised land\u00a0will be a welfare case at the table of the Babylonian king, to be fed at the\u00a0pleasure of Babylon. During this exile from the land it would have been easy\u00a0for the Jews to become exiled from their religion as well. They had no formal\u00a0text - no scripture to turn to for comfort and explanation. The stories of their\u00a0past were an integral part of them but they were as scattered as were the\u00a0people. In a strange land with its strange customs and stranger gods, they must\u00a0have experienced an alienation worthy of twentieth century existential analysis.\u00a0Cut off from their poetry, their priests, and their god, they would have felt\u00a0utterly alone and abandoned. From the high point of the United Kingdom to\u00a0the low point of the diaspora the fall has been great. The first fall\u00a0(disobedience) had resulted in expulsion from the Garden of Eden; this fall\u00a0also results in expulsion from the promised land and reasons for it are sought\u00a0by the prophets. One can imagine the prophet\/poets in exile searching their\u00a0memories and whatever documents they possessed for the answers to the\u00a0burning question: what happened? What happened to the promise made in the\u00a0covenant? Why have we fallen so low? And they would have found \u00a0 the\u00a0answer: disobedience. \u00a0 One imagines them working feverishly to record the\u00a0story of the covenant and prescribing those actions required to purge the guilt\u00a0and recover the promise. The `Poetic Genius' of the prophets was historical in\u00a0the sense that, with hindsight, it revealed a story which in turn revealed a\u00a0growth and development of the human spirit, from childhood to adulthood, or,\u00a0as Blake would later put it, from innocence to experience. One aspect of the\u00a0story is its affirmation of the importance of prophets. Citing many examples\u00a0that the destruction could have been avoided had the king and people listened\u00a0to the prophets (2 Kings 17.13; 23; 20.16-18; 22.15-18; 24.2, 13) sent to them\u00a0by God, the writers attempt to reestablish the authority of the prophets as\u00a0mediators between God and the people. The new prophets must reinterpret\u00a0the text to explain the destruction of Jerusalem and to build a future city for\u00a0the chosen people.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAfter all, Amos, \"one of the sheep-farmers of Tekoa,\" had prophesied\u00a0in about 760 B.C.E. that the Lord would destroy the nation because of its\u00a0disobedience.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"For you alone have I cared\r\n\r\namong all the nations of the world;\r\n\r\ntherefore will I punish you\r\n\r\nfor all your iniquities.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd he had given a careful description of the problems that would\u00a0cause the wrath of the Lord:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYou who loll on beds inlaid with ivory\r\n\r\nand sprawl over your couches,\r\n\r\nfeasting on lambs from the flock\r\n\r\nand fatted calves,\r\n\r\nyou who pluck the strings of the lute\r\n\r\nand invent musical instruments like David,\r\n\r\nyou who drink wine by the bowlful\r\n\r\nand lard yourselves with the richest of oils,\r\n\r\nbut are not grieved at the ruin of Joseph -\r\n\r\nnow, therefore,\r\n\r\nyou shall head the column of exiles;\r\n\r\nthat will be the end of sprawling and revelry.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nGluttony, drunkenness, lack of industry - these are all a part of the\u00a0disease, but the most serious and deadly sin of all is to be \"not grieved at the\u00a0ruin of Joseph,\" which asserts one of the common themes of the Old\u00a0Testament: forget the past and die. Looking back on Amos from the period of\u00a0exile must have been an experience of discovery, for Amos had described the\u00a0illness and the result of the illness almost 200 years before. In a vision Amos\u00a0had seen a swarm of locusts devouring the land, had seen the Lord summoning\u00a0a \"flame of fire to devour all of creation,\" and had seen the Lord with a plumb\u00a0line in his hand to measure the heart of the people. But he had also sounded a\u00a0promise for the future: \"I will restore David's fallen house; I will repair its\u00a0gaping walls and restore its ruins.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJonah is a favorite prophet because of the detail of his story. \"Jonah\"\u00a0has also been a battleground for fundamentalists and skeptics who debate\u00a0whether or not a man could live inside a fish or not. One side argues that living\u00a0inside a fish would be no problem, if the fish were large enough, and there\u00a0were air to breathe, and the man didn't get crushed on the way in. The other\u00a0side argues that the man would never get by the throat, would be digested if he\u00a0did get by, and if he were not digested or crushed he would be suffocated.\u00a0`Therefore, the Bible is true,' says the fundamentalist. `No, therefore, the Bible\u00a0is false,' says the skeptic. Both readings depend upon taking the story as\u00a0composed of propositions which are either true or false. But this story is not\u00a0description; it is prescription. And it is a powerful and necessary prescription\u00a0for a serious \"illness\" of the Old Testament: intolerance. It is one of the first\u00a0treatments offered for this devastating \"illness\" of the spirit, which shrivels and\u00a0starves the human spirit by restricting acceptance of the different and blocking\u00a0love of what is. Intolerance is like an alien and indigestible food in the stomach\u00a0- constipating and unhealthy, and until it is eliminated health will be\u00a0impossible.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt is ironic that The Book Jonah would become a battleground for\u00a0arguments between literalists and debunkers, each filled with the intolerant\u00a0and passionate intensity that a single correct reading provides. But wait a\u00a0minute. Is this story about whether or not a man can live inside a fish?\u00a0Consider this pattern: Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a\u00a0Thousand Faces, brings together hundreds of stories from many different\u00a0cultures to argue that we all tell the same stories and that our heroes all have\u00a0the same face. He extracts a pattern from hero stories that looks like this:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA. SEPARATION\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1. the call to adventure\r\n\r\n2. refusal of the call\r\n\r\n3. supernatural aid\r\n\r\n4. the crossing of the first threshold\r\n\r\n5. the belly of the whale\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nB. INITIATION\r\n\r\n1. the road of trials\r\n\r\n2. the meeting with the goddess\r\n\r\n3. woman as the temptress\r\n\r\n4. atonement with the father\r\n\r\n5. apotheosis\r\n\r\n6. the ultimate boon\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nC. RETURN\r\n\r\n1. refusal of return\r\n\r\n2. the magic flight\r\n\r\n3. rescue from without\r\n\r\n4. the crossing of the return threshold\r\n\r\n5. master of the two worlds\r\n\r\n6. freedom to live\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhether the hero be ridiculous or sublime, Greek or barbarian, gentile or Jew, his journey varies little in essential plan. Popular tales represent the heroic action as physical; the higher religions show the deed to be moral; nevertheless, there will be found astonishingly little variation in the morphology of the adventure, the character roles involved, the victories gained. (page 38, Campbell)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIf we use this map to chart the meaning of the Jonah story we do not\u00a0find a realistic description of how things are, but rather a prescription of how\u00a0things ought to be, presented in the genre of protest fiction. Jonah gets the call\u00a0to go to Nineveh, but attempts to refuse it. The reluctant hero is such a part of\u00a0our heritage that we tend to overlook the reluctance, but we still hold to the\u00a0cultural myth that tells us that a leader (hero) should be reluctant, should not\u00a0really want to lead us but should somehow be talked into the task. (\"I don't\u00a0want to run, but many have urged me to do so,\" or \"Duty called me to this\u00a0position of power; I was quite happy before the call just selling used cars.\")\u00a0Jonah is cut of the same verbal cloth as Moses, who is the paradigmatic\u00a0reluctant hero; both try valiantly to escape their destiny, to hide from the call.\u00a0Separation, initiation and return are all present in this story. Jonah refuses the\u00a0call, but he can not escape his own life; he is initiated into the new by the\u00a0bizarre experience of being swallowed up; and he returns or passes the\u00a0threshold after calling out to God:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI called to the Lord in my distress,\r\n\r\nand he answered me;\r\n\r\nout of the belly of Sheol I cried\r\n\r\nfor help,\r\n\r\nand thou hast heard my cry.\r\n\r\nThou didst cast me into the depths,\r\n\r\nfar out at sea,\r\n\r\nand the flood closed round me;\r\n\r\nall thy waves, all thy billows, passed\r\n\r\nover me.\r\n\r\nI thought I was banished from thy sight\r\n\r\nand should never see thy holy temple again.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAfter this experience Jonah is called a second time, \"Go to the great city\u00a0of Nineveh, go now and denounce it in the words I give you.\" Jonah obeys at\u00a0once. Armed with his new found power he proceeds to Nineveh to chastise and\u00a0punish the evildoers in the name of his god. Like Samuel and Elijah before\u00a0him, Jonah is rigid in his intolerance of evil and is almost gleefully and righ-\u00a0teously looking forward to the destruction of Nineveh. If Elisha could kill forty\u00a0two boys for making fun of his bald head, then surely Jonah can witness the\u00a0destruction of one hundred and twenty thousand sinners at the hand of an\u00a0angry god. But the people repent and \"God saw what they did, and how they\u00a0abandoned their wicked ways, and he repented and did not bring upon them\u00a0the disaster he had threatened.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJonah is angry. This is what he had feared: he would make this trip to\u00a0Nineveh to bring them destruction and death for their sinful ways and at the\u00a0last minute God would get soft on him and show compassion. He still has not\u00a0learned what his \"trip\" was about; he cannot read the experience he has just\u00a0undergone. God provides him with one more experience by which to under-\u00a0stand the meaning of his call. After providing Jonah with a gourd to shade and\u00a0protect him from the weather God causes a worm to destroy the gourd. At the\u00a0loss of this simple gourd, Jonah is mortally angered, and we read in King\u00a0James, Jonah 4.9-11:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n9. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to\r\n\r\nbe angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to\r\n\r\nbe angry, even unto death.\r\n\r\n10. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on\r\n\r\nthe gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured,\r\n\r\nneither madest it grow; which came up in a night,\r\n\r\nand perished in a night:\r\n\r\n11. And should i not spare Nineveh, that\r\n\r\ngreat city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand\r\n\r\npersons that cannot discern between their\r\n\r\nright hand and their left hand; and also much\r\n\r\ncattle?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNineveh is not destroyed. This god is changing, and for the first time we\u00a0have a story which explicitly champions religious tolerance. Jonah's bigotry is\u00a0rebuked by the religious tolerance of God. Jonah will bring back a boon for all\u00a0of his community: Be tolerant of the new and the different, for we are\u00a0responsible for our own suffering, our own destiny.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEzekiel (may God strengthen) is priest and prophet who began his\u00a0career in the last years of the Kingdom of Judah and ended it during the\u00a0captivity in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. He is the\u00a0prophet of ecstatic visions, of clairvoyance, of out of body experiences,\u00a0catatonic states, and allegory. He is addressed as \"Man\" or \"Son of Man\" by the\u00a0Lord who comes upon him and gives him his prophetic powers. The\u00a0empowering experience, described in chapter 1, is in the form of an experience\u00a0rich in visual splendour and symbol. By the river Kebar Ezekiel sees a storm\u00a0cloud carried by the wind and bristling with flashes of fire and brilliant light. In\u00a0the fire he sees four living creatures with human form and animal faces.\u00a0Images of lions, eagles, oxen, wings and radiant fire exhibit the power and\u00a0majesty of God in this complex visual metaphor. As Ezekiel looks at the living\u00a0creatures he notices wheels on the ground beside each of the four creatures.\u00a0\"The wheels sparkled like topaz, and they were all alike: in form and working\u00a0they were like a wheel inside a wheel, and when they moved in any of the four\u00a0directions they never swerved in their course.\" (1.15) the rims of these wheels\u00a0are \"full of eyes all round.\" The imagery is unmistakable: all seeing eyes in fire,\u00a0these are the eyes that will see into the past and into the future - powerful and\u00a0omniscient. These are the eyes of a prophet, blinded by the normal but\u00a0sensitive to the divine. Above the wheels and the creatures, above the vault\u00a0over their heads, emerging from what looks like a furnace of molten brass is a\u00a0human figure, radiant and powerful \"like the appearance of the Lord.\" This\u00a0imagery is the empowering scene for this prophet, who the Lord refers to as\u00a0simply \"Man,\" or literally \"Son of Man.\" The Lord gives him a task to perform:\u00a0\"I am sending you to the Israelites, a nation of rebels who have rebelled against\u00a0me.\" Imaged in fire and wind, this god will now complete the commission by\u00a0having his prophet literally eat the words he is to speak. \"Open your mouth\u00a0and eat what I give you.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEzekiel reports: \"Then I saw a hand stretched out to me, holding a\u00a0scroll. He unrolled it before me, and it was written all over on both sides with\u00a0dirges and laments and words of woe. Then he said to me, `Man, eat what is in\u00a0front of you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the Israelites.' So I opened\u00a0my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said, `Man, swallow this\u00a0scroll I give you, and fill yourself full. So I ate it, and it tasted sweet as honey.\"\u00a0(Ezek. 2.9 - 3.3) Ezekiel eats the word of his god and now contains the word,\u00a0or the word is made flesh in Ezekiel's act of eating it. He is now transported\u00a0by a spirit atop the wheels and with a rushing sound he is suddenly with the\u00a0exiles, where he stays for seven days and is dumbfounded. It is as if there is a\u00a0requirement for Ezekiel to digest the word, and to do that he must spend a\u00a0week without speech in order that he will be properly prepared to deliver the\u00a0word when it is required. The word of the divine has taken on the form of the\u00a0human. \"Man, I have made you a watchman for the Israelites; you will take\u00a0messages from me and carry my warnings to them.\" Each of these messages\u00a0will be introduced by a standard formula: \"these are the words of the Lord\u00a0God,\" a formula we will read some twenty times in the rest of the book.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWords, messages, prophesies, scrolls, speech and speechlessness,\u00a0tongues and tongues tied, listen, refuse to listen - all of these are the diction of\u00a0images of the book of destiny, the plot that the divine has chosen to reveal to a\u00a0living and human prophet. And this is an angry god, a god who brings a\u00a0whirlwind of revenge, destruction, desolation and death to a people who are\u00a0his chosen people: \"An end is coming, the end is coming upon the four corners\u00a0of the earth. The end is now upon you; I will unleash my anger against you; I\u00a0will call you to account for your doings and bring your abominations upon your\u00a0own heads.\" (7.3) \u00a0 This anger will lead to the destruction of Israel and to the en-\u00a0slavement of her people. For rebelling against the Laws of the covenant, these\u00a0chosen but fallen people will be punished by their god who will bring a sword\u00a0against them and destroy the hill-shrines, altars, and idols, along with the cities\u00a0and the lands. \"I will scatter your bones about your altars,\" the Lord says,\u00a0through Ezekiel, who sees six men with battle-axes who have come to destroy\u00a0all of the sinners. One of the six is a man dressed in linen who has a pen and\u00a0ink at his waist, and whose task is to put a mark on the foreheads of those who\u00a0are worthy of being spared. Only those with the mark will be spared; all others\u00a0will be killed without pity.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThese visions of Ezekiel's spark with energy are alive with imagination\u00a0and freshness. It is as if the poet's powers are increased in the company of\u00a0destruction and desolation. An angry god feeds the imagination with powerful\u00a0images of famine, pestilence, and destruction. There is a condemnation of\u00a0Jerusalem. The city is described as a wanton woman fornicating with everyone\u00a0and even paying the fornicators. A whirlwind of images is heaped up to be\u00a0thrown at the abominable Israelites who have sinned against Yahweh. New\u00a0principles of justice are introduced through Ezekiel, for example, Yahweh tells\u00a0him:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYou may ask, `Why is the son not punished for his father's\r\n\r\niniquity?' Because he has always done what is just and right and has\r\n\r\nbeen careful to obey all my laws, therefore he shall live. It is the\r\n\r\nsoul that sins, and no other, that shall die; a son shall not share a\r\n\r\nfather's guilt, nor a father his sons's.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd then a bit later Yahweh bitterly says, \"`The Lord acts without principle,'\u00a0say the Israelites. No, Israelites, it is you who act without principle, not I.\" But\u00a0in defense of the Israelites one might well remember the earlier words of this\u00a0god when he said \"I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third\u00a0and fourth generations of those who hate me.\" These two principles are\u00a0logically incompatible. And a god who changes moral principles is hard to tell\u00a0apart from one who is without principles. A long list of punishments to be\u00a0levelled against the sinful Israelites leads to the next set of prophesies which\u00a0are against foreign nations. Ammon, Sidon, Tyre, Egypt, Moab, Edom, Seir\u00a0(the hill country of Edom) are all to be punished, in some cases because they\u00a0rejoiced when they saw the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the\u00a0people, in other cases so that the people will know that Yahweh is the Lord.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAll of this imagery of destruction leads to another experience for\u00a0Ezekiel: \"The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he carried me down in a\u00a0plain full of bones.\" There Ezekiel is made to go to and fro across the bones\u00a0until he has been around them all. They cover the plain and are \"very dry.\"\u00a0Here then is the imaged end, the promise of a nation has ended in a valley of\u00a0dry bones, lacking any life or flesh, spirit or vitality. Those Hebrews rescued\u00a0from Egyptian slavery so long ago, those peoples who had been forged into a\u00a0congregation in the desert, those chosen tribes who were to be as numerous as\u00a0stars in the sky, as multitudinous as sand on the beach, are now seen in this\u00a0vision as dead and dry, devoid of life.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut then Ezekiel is ordered to take one leaf of a wooden tablet and\u00a0write on it, `Judah and his associates of Israel.' And to take another and write\u00a0on it, `Joseph, the leaf of Ephraim and all his associates of Israel.' And to bring\u00a0the two together to form a single tablet. And like the tablet in Ezekiel's hand\u00a0the Lord will bring together the exiled Israelites and assemble them from their\u00a0places and restore them to their own soil. The restoration of the united\u00a0kingdom is imaged in writers' works - the restored kingdom is in the book, as it\u00a0were. \"The leaves on which you write shall be visible in your hand for all to\u00a0see.\" And the leaves on which Yahweh writes, the leaves of history, will be\u00a0visible for all to see also, in the renewed covenant and the rebuilt city of\u00a0Jerusalem, in the midst of which will be the sanctuary of the Lord. The\u00a0theocracy is to be restored and detailed directions are given for the\u00a0construction of the temple. Ezekiel looks back at the sin of the Israelites, tells\u00a0of the consequences of the sin, and then promises a future which will resurrect\u00a0the best of the past. Ezekiel also looks forward to the beginnings of the\u00a0Christian story in the New Testament. Its hero\/prophet, Jesus, will also have\u00a0the power to see more than any other can see, and will, like Ezekiel, be an\u00a0incarnation of the word in the flesh. \"The perimeter of the city shall be\u00a0eighteen thousand cubits, and the city's name for ever after shall be\u00a0Jehovah-shammah.\"6<\/a>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n
\r\n\r\n[1]<\/a> The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, <\/em>edited by Allen C. Myers, et.al. published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[2]<\/a> David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Selections from a Treatise of Human Nature, <\/em>Chicago: Open Court, 1912, Section 10.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[3]<\/a> Richard Swinburne, editor, Miracles<\/em>, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, page2.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[4]<\/a> 5,000\/100 = 50; therefore Jesus is fifty times more powerful than Elisha.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[5]<\/a> See R. F. Holland, \u201cThe Miraculous,\u201d American Philosophical Quarterly<\/em>, 1965, 2:43-51.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n6<\/a> That is \u201cthe Lord is there.\u201d Other prophets have given Jerusalem other names as signs of future transformations.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"
\n

CHAPTER TEN: THERE IS A VOICE THAT CRIES<\/p>\n

THE PROPHETS OF OLD<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Prophet<\/td>\nApproximate dates B.C.E.<\/td>\nKings<\/td>\nKingdom<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Samuel<\/td>\n1050 – 1000<\/td>\nSaul, David<\/td>\nUnited Kingdom<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Elijah<\/td>\n870 – 850<\/td>\nAhab, Ahaziah<\/td>\nIsrael<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Elisha<\/td>\n850 – 795<\/td>\nJehoram-Jehoash<\/td>\nIsrael<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Micaiah<\/td>\n853<\/td>\nAhab<\/td>\nIsrael<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prophets of the monarchs:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Amos<\/td>\n760<\/td>\nJeroboam II<\/td>\nIsrael<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jonah<\/td>\n760<\/td>\nJeroboam II<\/td>\nIsrael<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hosea<\/td>\n760 – 722<\/td>\nJeroboam II-Hoshea<\/td>\nIsrael<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Isaiah<\/td>\n740 – 700<\/td>\nUzziah-Hezekiah<\/td>\nJudah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Micah<\/td>\n740 – 687<\/td>\nJotham-Hezekiah<\/td>\nJudah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zephaniah<\/td>\n640 – 610<\/td>\nJosiah<\/td>\nJudah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nahum<\/td>\n630 – 612<\/td>\nJosiah<\/td>\nJudah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jeremiah<\/td>\n626 – 580<\/td>\nJosiah-The Exile<\/td>\nJudah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Habakkuk<\/td>\n600<\/td>\nJehoiakim<\/td>\nJudah<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prophets from the exile and after:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ezekiel<\/td>\n592 – 570<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Obadiah<\/td>\nexile<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Haggaai<\/td>\n520<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zechariah<\/td>\n520 – 518<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Malachi<\/td>\n500 – 400<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parts of the Book of Isaiah are assigned to this period, which is sometimes referred to as Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elisha replaces Elijah or “my god is Yahweh” replaces “my god is\u00a0salvation.” Elisha is primarily known for his many miracles, but his task, as the\u00a0Eerdmans’ Bible Dictionary[1]<\/a> puts it, “was actually three-fold: to heal,\u00a0prophesy, and complete Elijah’s assignments.” As healer he cures Naaman,\u00a0the commander of the Syrian army, who suffered from leprosy, by having him\u00a0bathe three times in the Jordan River. As prophet he correctly predicts that\u00a0the combined forces of Jehosaphat of Judah and Jehoram of Israel will defeat\u00a0the Moabites in battle. To complete Elijah’s duties he travels to Damascus to\u00a0anoint Hazael as legitimate sovereign. But in the popular mind Elisha will\u00a0always be associated with miracles. And just what is a miracle? The most\u00a0famous discussion of miracles is by David Hume in his Enquiry\u00a0Concerning Human Understanding:[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and<\/p>\n

unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against<\/p>\n

a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any<\/p>\n

argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it<\/p>\n

more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of<\/p>\n

itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is<\/p>\n

extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found<\/p>\n

agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of<\/p>\n

these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing<\/p>\n

is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of<\/p>\n

nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health,<\/p>\n

should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more<\/p>\n

unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to<\/p>\n

happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life;<\/p>\n

because that has never been observed, in any age or country. There<\/p>\n

must, therefore, be an uniform experience against every miraculous<\/p>\n

event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as<\/p>\n

a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and<\/p>\n

full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any<\/p>\n

miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered<\/p>\n

credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.<\/p>\n

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our<\/p>\n

attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle,<\/p>\n

unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be<\/p>\n

more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish:<\/p>\n

And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments,<\/p>\n

and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree<\/p>\n

of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.’ When any<\/p>\n

one tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately<\/p>\n

consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person<\/p>\n

should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he<\/p>\n

relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle<\/p>\n

against the other; and according to the superiority, which I<\/p>\n

discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater<\/p>\n

miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more<\/p>\n

miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then,<\/p>\n

can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From this we get a working definition, which also coincides with the way\u00a0we use the word `miracle’: “a miracle is an event of an extraordinary kind\u00a0brought about by a god and of religious significance.”[3]<\/a> Thus, for example, the\u00a0claim in Joshua 10.13 that the sun stayed still for one day while the Israelites\u00a0defeated the Amorites, would count as an extraordinary event since it violates\u00a0Newtonian laws; the event is reported to have been brought about by Yahweh,\u00a0and was another significant exhibition of Yahweh’s power and his intervention\u00a0into history on the part of his chosen people. Using Hume’s criterion for\u00a0testing this claim we would weigh the probability of the sun standing still versus\u00a0the probability that the report is false. Surely such an event would have been\u00a0reported by witnesses all over the world, for it would have been of great\u00a0moment; but we have testimony of the event only from the Hebrew writer, who\u00a0wants to tell a particular story about divine intervention. It seems more likely\u00a0that the writer is proclaiming the miracle rather than describing it. Hume has\u00a0four arguments designed to show that “there never was a miraculous event\u00a0established” in Part II of his Section 10. Hume argues that “there is not to be\u00a0found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of\u00a0such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against\u00a0all delusions in themselves.” Secondly, he notes that people love to gossip\u00a0about the unusual and that religious people are not beyond using falsehood to\u00a0support what they take to be basically true. His third point is that “it forms a\u00a0strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they\u00a0are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous people.” These\u00a0three points turn on factual matters, and take miracles as serious claims about\u00a0matters of fact. It may well be, however, that miracles are matters of the form\u00a0of a story and not the facts of the matter. Miracles do not offer evidence for\u00a0the existence of god; miracles presuppose the existence of god. Hume’s fourth\u00a0argument is logical in nature and is an important one to consider:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I may add as a fourth reason, which diminishes the authority of<\/p>\n

prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have<\/p>\n

not been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite<\/p>\n

number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the<\/p>\n

credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this<\/p>\n

the better understood, let us consider, that, in matters of religion,<\/p>\n

whatever is different is contrary; and that it is impossible the<\/p>\n

religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China<\/p>\n

should, all of them, be established on any solid foundation. Every<\/p>\n

miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these<\/p>\n

religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is<\/p>\n

to establish the particular system to which it is attributed; so has it<\/p>\n

the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other<\/p>\n

system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit<\/p>\n

of those miracles, on which that system was established; so that all<\/p>\n

the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary<\/p>\n

facts, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong,<\/p>\n

as opposite to each other.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Multiple religions, each offering miracle as evidence for its truth, act to\u00a0weaken miracle as evidence, to the extent that each religion is exclusive. One\u00a0way out of this problem is to see that miracles are literary devices used to\u00a0affirm or ground the claims of a particular official line. When a\u00a0prophet, in a story, accurately tells the future, that is a sign of authenticity, a\u00a0way of establishing the prophet as a trustworthy story teller. When one\u00a0prophet is reported as repeating a previous prophet’s miracle, as when Jesus\u00a0feeds the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, while earlier Elisha had\u00a0fed one hundred with twenty barley loaves and some fresh ripe ears of corn, it\u00a0is a way of indicating that Jesus is a new and more powerful Elisha.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Consider other than biblical miracles. We have all heard of the person\u00a0(maybe even a friend or relative) who is diagnosed as having cancer and is then\u00a0given a prognosis of “less than a year to live.” But the person recovers, and the\u00a0doctor says that the cancer is gone. The person’s life is imperiled; against\u00a0expectation, the person is saved. Isn’t that a miracle? It depends upon who is\u00a0reading the events. From the medical point of view, such examples\u00a0indicate that medical prediction, in many cases, is not particularly accurate.\u00a0And this does not mean that the doctor was an incompetent or the cancer was\u00a0never there. Part of the description of a particular case may well include\u00a0remission and even cure with no “treatment” at all. Since the human body is a\u00a0complex system and the state of our knowledge of the various kinds of cancers\u00a0is incomplete, it is not at all a violation of natural law that this particular\u00a0person has recovered. But now consider these same facts from the point of\u00a0view of the patient. Imagine that after the diagnosis the patient goes to see her\u00a0priest and together they pray. And several times a day she prays to her god for\u00a0assistance. From her point of view a miracle has occurred. Her petition has\u00a0been granted and no matter what others say she will continue to believe that a\u00a0miracle has occurred and that her life is the only evidence required. The\u00a0popular press is full of these sorts of stories of prayer-miracles. Another kind\u00a0of example comes from near escapes from potentially deadly accidents. In a\u00a0recent severe windstorm in British Columbia several trees were blown down in\u00a0populated areas. House after house suffered damage from large Douglas Fir\u00a0trees suddenly uprooted by the wind and thrown into the house. In one case a\u00a0couple were in bed in their water bed thinking about getting up to prepare for\u00a0the day. Since the roads were blocked and the ferry was not running it seemed\u00a0probable that going to work late was not a bad idea. The man moved across\u00a0the water bed to “cuddle” a bit before getting up. Crash! His side of the bed sud-\u00a0denly had an arm thick branch puncturing the very spot where he had just\u00a0been. Miracle? Or coincidence? The significance of some coincidences as\u00a0opposed to others (the cat was under the bed, say, and was impaled by the\u00a0branch) comes about because of the relation between the coincidence and a set\u00a0of human hopes, fears, and desires. The non-religious person would, as he\u00a0jumped out of the deflating bed, thank his good luck for saving him at the cost\u00a0of the cat. Coincidence-miracles depend upon the point of view of the persons\u00a0involved. What the non-religious person calls luck is called the grace of God or\u00a0a miracle of God by the religious person. When such a coincidence does occur,\u00a0and when from a particular person’s point of view that coincidence is sig-\u00a0nificant, the tendency is to think of oneself as being special (Lady Luck smiles\u00a0on you). Once again we find a flawed argument at work: If I am special then\u00a0God will look after me by arranging for good things to happen to me. Good\u00a0things happen to me; therefore, I am special. Such a coincidence can be taken\u00a0by the religious person as a sign that god is at work in the universe and that\u00a0god cares about persons. But, unfortunately for this reading, bad things\u00a0happen to good people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hume is skeptical in part because it seems that miracles always happen\u00a0long ago and far away. In those cases then we have to depend upon\u00a0“eyewitness” testimony, and as we all know it is less than perfect. If we think of\u00a0miracles as events that are conceptually impossible and empirically certain[5]<\/a>\u00a0then at least we get the idea of what would count as a miracle. It is\u00a0conceptually impossible to “part the waters” of a sea, or to stop the sun for a\u00a0period of time, or to make the sun go backwards. If one witnessed such an\u00a0event one would have good evidence that it occurred, but if one reads about it\u00a0one has not a miracle but a miracle-story. In order for us to believe the story\u00a0we will have to believe the story teller, and one way of establishing the au-\u00a0thority of the text is by privileging it, by naming it “scripture” instead of story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elisha’s `violation’ miracles include making an iron axe float, making\u00a0leprosy come and go on command, overhearing the King of Aram from a vast\u00a0distance, causing persons to be blind and then restoring their sight, raising a\u00a0child from the dead, and foretelling the future. All of these affirm that he is a\u00a0`man of god’. The narrative relates the fortunes of the kings of the divided\u00a0kingdom and above all provides a reading for why the chosen people are not\u00a0flourishing in the promised land. Throughout this part of Kings we are\u00a0reminded of the violation of the religious laws of Yahweh, particularly in the\u00a0use of hill shrines for sacrifice. The struggle between Yahweh and Baal is\u00a0reported here and it comes to a climax in [6]<\/a> Kings 10 when Jehu orders a\u00a0sacred ceremony for Baal to be held. “Jehu himself sent word throughout\u00a0Israel, and all the ministers of Baal came; there was not a man left who did not\u00a0come. They went into the temple of Baal and it was filled from end to end.”\u00a0Once he has all of the ministers of Baal in one place he orders them to be\u00a0killed by the soldiers he has stationed outside. “So they slew them without\u00a0quarter.” The sacred pillar of the Baal and the temple which housed it are\u00a0destroyed and made into a privy. “Thus Jehu stamped out the worship of Baal\u00a0in Israel,” and he is properly rewarded: “You have done what is right in my\u00a0eyes,” says the Lord, “…your sons to the fourth generation shall sit on the\u00a0throne of Israel.” (Do you remember that commandment: Thou shalt not kill?)\u00a0Jehu reigned over Israel for twenty-eight years. Elisha continues to perform his\u00a0magical rituals and during the reign of Jehoash he dies and is buried. But this\u00a0is not the last we hear of him. Even in death this prophet is presented as\u00a0having supernatural powers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Year by year Moabite raiders used to invade the land. Once some<\/p>\n

men were burying a dead man when they caught sight of the<\/p>\n

raiders. They threw the body into the grave of Elisha and made off;<\/p>\n

when the body touched the prophet’s bones, the man came to life<\/p>\n

and rose to his feet. (2 Kings 13.21)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elisha has been presented as a prophet capable of violation miracles,\u00a0including, making iron float on water, a feeding miracle, a resurrection\u00a0miracle, and the power to bring others back to life even after he has died. One\u00a0way of asserting the special status of an Old Testament hero is to tell stories\u00a0that show him as a miracle worker. The rest of 2 Kings relates the downfall of\u00a0the southern and northern kingdoms until the time that the troops of\u00a0Nebuchadnezzar besiege Jerusalem. After a prolonged siege he takes the city,\u00a0defeats the king and his army, and burns the palace, the temple, and all the\u00a0houses of the city. Jerusalem is destroyed. The chosen people are defeated and\u00a0their most holy of sites is destroyed. How could this horrible destruction and\u00a0defeat have happened? We are told, “All this happened to the Israelites\u00a0because they had sinned against the Lord their God who brought them up\u00a0from Egypt…” (2 Kings 17.7) Now begins the Babylonian Exile (587 – 539\u00a0B.C.E.).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This flourishing, chosen, and special people are completely defeated\u00a0and taken in to captivity, where their king, instead of ruling the promised land\u00a0will be a welfare case at the table of the Babylonian king, to be fed at the\u00a0pleasure of Babylon. During this exile from the land it would have been easy\u00a0for the Jews to become exiled from their religion as well. They had no formal\u00a0text – no scripture to turn to for comfort and explanation. The stories of their\u00a0past were an integral part of them but they were as scattered as were the\u00a0people. In a strange land with its strange customs and stranger gods, they must\u00a0have experienced an alienation worthy of twentieth century existential analysis.\u00a0Cut off from their poetry, their priests, and their god, they would have felt\u00a0utterly alone and abandoned. From the high point of the United Kingdom to\u00a0the low point of the diaspora the fall has been great. The first fall\u00a0(disobedience) had resulted in expulsion from the Garden of Eden; this fall\u00a0also results in expulsion from the promised land and reasons for it are sought\u00a0by the prophets. One can imagine the prophet\/poets in exile searching their\u00a0memories and whatever documents they possessed for the answers to the\u00a0burning question: what happened? What happened to the promise made in the\u00a0covenant? Why have we fallen so low? And they would have found \u00a0 the\u00a0answer: disobedience. \u00a0 One imagines them working feverishly to record the\u00a0story of the covenant and prescribing those actions required to purge the guilt\u00a0and recover the promise. The `Poetic Genius’ of the prophets was historical in\u00a0the sense that, with hindsight, it revealed a story which in turn revealed a\u00a0growth and development of the human spirit, from childhood to adulthood, or,\u00a0as Blake would later put it, from innocence to experience. One aspect of the\u00a0story is its affirmation of the importance of prophets. Citing many examples\u00a0that the destruction could have been avoided had the king and people listened\u00a0to the prophets (2 Kings 17.13; 23; 20.16-18; 22.15-18; 24.2, 13) sent to them\u00a0by God, the writers attempt to reestablish the authority of the prophets as\u00a0mediators between God and the people. The new prophets must reinterpret\u00a0the text to explain the destruction of Jerusalem and to build a future city for\u00a0the chosen people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After all, Amos, “one of the sheep-farmers of Tekoa,” had prophesied\u00a0in about 760 B.C.E. that the Lord would destroy the nation because of its\u00a0disobedience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“For you alone have I cared<\/p>\n

among all the nations of the world;<\/p>\n

therefore will I punish you<\/p>\n

for all your iniquities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And he had given a careful description of the problems that would\u00a0cause the wrath of the Lord:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You who loll on beds inlaid with ivory<\/p>\n

and sprawl over your couches,<\/p>\n

feasting on lambs from the flock<\/p>\n

and fatted calves,<\/p>\n

you who pluck the strings of the lute<\/p>\n

and invent musical instruments like David,<\/p>\n

you who drink wine by the bowlful<\/p>\n

and lard yourselves with the richest of oils,<\/p>\n

but are not grieved at the ruin of Joseph –<\/p>\n

now, therefore,<\/p>\n

you shall head the column of exiles;<\/p>\n

that will be the end of sprawling and revelry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gluttony, drunkenness, lack of industry – these are all a part of the\u00a0disease, but the most serious and deadly sin of all is to be “not grieved at the\u00a0ruin of Joseph,” which asserts one of the common themes of the Old\u00a0Testament: forget the past and die. Looking back on Amos from the period of\u00a0exile must have been an experience of discovery, for Amos had described the\u00a0illness and the result of the illness almost 200 years before. In a vision Amos\u00a0had seen a swarm of locusts devouring the land, had seen the Lord summoning\u00a0a “flame of fire to devour all of creation,” and had seen the Lord with a plumb\u00a0line in his hand to measure the heart of the people. But he had also sounded a\u00a0promise for the future: “I will restore David’s fallen house; I will repair its\u00a0gaping walls and restore its ruins.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jonah is a favorite prophet because of the detail of his story. “Jonah”\u00a0has also been a battleground for fundamentalists and skeptics who debate\u00a0whether or not a man could live inside a fish or not. One side argues that living\u00a0inside a fish would be no problem, if the fish were large enough, and there\u00a0were air to breathe, and the man didn’t get crushed on the way in. The other\u00a0side argues that the man would never get by the throat, would be digested if he\u00a0did get by, and if he were not digested or crushed he would be suffocated.\u00a0`Therefore, the Bible is true,’ says the fundamentalist. `No, therefore, the Bible\u00a0is false,’ says the skeptic. Both readings depend upon taking the story as\u00a0composed of propositions which are either true or false. But this story is not\u00a0description; it is prescription. And it is a powerful and necessary prescription\u00a0for a serious “illness” of the Old Testament: intolerance. It is one of the first\u00a0treatments offered for this devastating “illness” of the spirit, which shrivels and\u00a0starves the human spirit by restricting acceptance of the different and blocking\u00a0love of what is. Intolerance is like an alien and indigestible food in the stomach\u00a0– constipating and unhealthy, and until it is eliminated health will be\u00a0impossible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is ironic that The Book Jonah would become a battleground for\u00a0arguments between literalists and debunkers, each filled with the intolerant\u00a0and passionate intensity that a single correct reading provides. But wait a\u00a0minute. Is this story about whether or not a man can live inside a fish?\u00a0Consider this pattern: Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a\u00a0Thousand Faces, brings together hundreds of stories from many different\u00a0cultures to argue that we all tell the same stories and that our heroes all have\u00a0the same face. He extracts a pattern from hero stories that looks like this:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A. SEPARATION<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. the call to adventure<\/p>\n

2. refusal of the call<\/p>\n

3. supernatural aid<\/p>\n

4. the crossing of the first threshold<\/p>\n

5. the belly of the whale<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

B. INITIATION<\/p>\n

1. the road of trials<\/p>\n

2. the meeting with the goddess<\/p>\n

3. woman as the temptress<\/p>\n

4. atonement with the father<\/p>\n

5. apotheosis<\/p>\n

6. the ultimate boon<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

C. RETURN<\/p>\n

1. refusal of return<\/p>\n

2. the magic flight<\/p>\n

3. rescue from without<\/p>\n

4. the crossing of the return threshold<\/p>\n

5. master of the two worlds<\/p>\n

6. freedom to live<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether the hero be ridiculous or sublime, Greek or barbarian, gentile or Jew, his journey varies little in essential plan. Popular tales represent the heroic action as physical; the higher religions show the deed to be moral; nevertheless, there will be found astonishingly little variation in the morphology of the adventure, the character roles involved, the victories gained. (page 38, Campbell)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If we use this map to chart the meaning of the Jonah story we do not\u00a0find a realistic description of how things are, but rather a prescription of how\u00a0things ought to be, presented in the genre of protest fiction. Jonah gets the call\u00a0to go to Nineveh, but attempts to refuse it. The reluctant hero is such a part of\u00a0our heritage that we tend to overlook the reluctance, but we still hold to the\u00a0cultural myth that tells us that a leader (hero) should be reluctant, should not\u00a0really want to lead us but should somehow be talked into the task. (“I don’t\u00a0want to run, but many have urged me to do so,” or “Duty called me to this\u00a0position of power; I was quite happy before the call just selling used cars.”)\u00a0Jonah is cut of the same verbal cloth as Moses, who is the paradigmatic\u00a0reluctant hero; both try valiantly to escape their destiny, to hide from the call.\u00a0Separation, initiation and return are all present in this story. Jonah refuses the\u00a0call, but he can not escape his own life; he is initiated into the new by the\u00a0bizarre experience of being swallowed up; and he returns or passes the\u00a0threshold after calling out to God:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I called to the Lord in my distress,<\/p>\n

and he answered me;<\/p>\n

out of the belly of Sheol I cried<\/p>\n

for help,<\/p>\n

and thou hast heard my cry.<\/p>\n

Thou didst cast me into the depths,<\/p>\n

far out at sea,<\/p>\n

and the flood closed round me;<\/p>\n

all thy waves, all thy billows, passed<\/p>\n

over me.<\/p>\n

I thought I was banished from thy sight<\/p>\n

and should never see thy holy temple again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After this experience Jonah is called a second time, “Go to the great city\u00a0of Nineveh, go now and denounce it in the words I give you.” Jonah obeys at\u00a0once. Armed with his new found power he proceeds to Nineveh to chastise and\u00a0punish the evildoers in the name of his god. Like Samuel and Elijah before\u00a0him, Jonah is rigid in his intolerance of evil and is almost gleefully and righ-\u00a0teously looking forward to the destruction of Nineveh. If Elisha could kill forty\u00a0two boys for making fun of his bald head, then surely Jonah can witness the\u00a0destruction of one hundred and twenty thousand sinners at the hand of an\u00a0angry god. But the people repent and “God saw what they did, and how they\u00a0abandoned their wicked ways, and he repented and did not bring upon them\u00a0the disaster he had threatened.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jonah is angry. This is what he had feared: he would make this trip to\u00a0Nineveh to bring them destruction and death for their sinful ways and at the\u00a0last minute God would get soft on him and show compassion. He still has not\u00a0learned what his “trip” was about; he cannot read the experience he has just\u00a0undergone. God provides him with one more experience by which to under-\u00a0stand the meaning of his call. After providing Jonah with a gourd to shade and\u00a0protect him from the weather God causes a worm to destroy the gourd. At the\u00a0loss of this simple gourd, Jonah is mortally angered, and we read in King\u00a0James, Jonah 4.9-11:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to<\/p>\n

be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to<\/p>\n

be angry, even unto death.<\/p>\n

10. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on<\/p>\n

the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured,<\/p>\n

neither madest it grow; which came up in a night,<\/p>\n

and perished in a night:<\/p>\n

11. And should i not spare Nineveh, that<\/p>\n

great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand<\/p>\n

persons that cannot discern between their<\/p>\n

right hand and their left hand; and also much<\/p>\n

cattle?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nineveh is not destroyed. This god is changing, and for the first time we\u00a0have a story which explicitly champions religious tolerance. Jonah’s bigotry is\u00a0rebuked by the religious tolerance of God. Jonah will bring back a boon for all\u00a0of his community: Be tolerant of the new and the different, for we are\u00a0responsible for our own suffering, our own destiny.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ezekiel (may God strengthen) is priest and prophet who began his\u00a0career in the last years of the Kingdom of Judah and ended it during the\u00a0captivity in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. He is the\u00a0prophet of ecstatic visions, of clairvoyance, of out of body experiences,\u00a0catatonic states, and allegory. He is addressed as “Man” or “Son of Man” by the\u00a0Lord who comes upon him and gives him his prophetic powers. The\u00a0empowering experience, described in chapter 1, is in the form of an experience\u00a0rich in visual splendour and symbol. By the river Kebar Ezekiel sees a storm\u00a0cloud carried by the wind and bristling with flashes of fire and brilliant light. In\u00a0the fire he sees four living creatures with human form and animal faces.\u00a0Images of lions, eagles, oxen, wings and radiant fire exhibit the power and\u00a0majesty of God in this complex visual metaphor. As Ezekiel looks at the living\u00a0creatures he notices wheels on the ground beside each of the four creatures.\u00a0“The wheels sparkled like topaz, and they were all alike: in form and working\u00a0they were like a wheel inside a wheel, and when they moved in any of the four\u00a0directions they never swerved in their course.” (1.15) the rims of these wheels\u00a0are “full of eyes all round.” The imagery is unmistakable: all seeing eyes in fire,\u00a0these are the eyes that will see into the past and into the future – powerful and\u00a0omniscient. These are the eyes of a prophet, blinded by the normal but\u00a0sensitive to the divine. Above the wheels and the creatures, above the vault\u00a0over their heads, emerging from what looks like a furnace of molten brass is a\u00a0human figure, radiant and powerful “like the appearance of the Lord.” This\u00a0imagery is the empowering scene for this prophet, who the Lord refers to as\u00a0simply “Man,” or literally “Son of Man.” The Lord gives him a task to perform:\u00a0“I am sending you to the Israelites, a nation of rebels who have rebelled against\u00a0me.” Imaged in fire and wind, this god will now complete the commission by\u00a0having his prophet literally eat the words he is to speak. “Open your mouth\u00a0and eat what I give you.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ezekiel reports: “Then I saw a hand stretched out to me, holding a\u00a0scroll. He unrolled it before me, and it was written all over on both sides with\u00a0dirges and laments and words of woe. Then he said to me, `Man, eat what is in\u00a0front of you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the Israelites.’ So I opened\u00a0my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said, `Man, swallow this\u00a0scroll I give you, and fill yourself full. So I ate it, and it tasted sweet as honey.”\u00a0(Ezek. 2.9 – 3.3) Ezekiel eats the word of his god and now contains the word,\u00a0or the word is made flesh in Ezekiel’s act of eating it. He is now transported\u00a0by a spirit atop the wheels and with a rushing sound he is suddenly with the\u00a0exiles, where he stays for seven days and is dumbfounded. It is as if there is a\u00a0requirement for Ezekiel to digest the word, and to do that he must spend a\u00a0week without speech in order that he will be properly prepared to deliver the\u00a0word when it is required. The word of the divine has taken on the form of the\u00a0human. “Man, I have made you a watchman for the Israelites; you will take\u00a0messages from me and carry my warnings to them.” Each of these messages\u00a0will be introduced by a standard formula: “these are the words of the Lord\u00a0God,” a formula we will read some twenty times in the rest of the book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Words, messages, prophesies, scrolls, speech and speechlessness,\u00a0tongues and tongues tied, listen, refuse to listen – all of these are the diction of\u00a0images of the book of destiny, the plot that the divine has chosen to reveal to a\u00a0living and human prophet. And this is an angry god, a god who brings a\u00a0whirlwind of revenge, destruction, desolation and death to a people who are\u00a0his chosen people: “An end is coming, the end is coming upon the four corners\u00a0of the earth. The end is now upon you; I will unleash my anger against you; I\u00a0will call you to account for your doings and bring your abominations upon your\u00a0own heads.” (7.3) \u00a0 This anger will lead to the destruction of Israel and to the en-\u00a0slavement of her people. For rebelling against the Laws of the covenant, these\u00a0chosen but fallen people will be punished by their god who will bring a sword\u00a0against them and destroy the hill-shrines, altars, and idols, along with the cities\u00a0and the lands. “I will scatter your bones about your altars,” the Lord says,\u00a0through Ezekiel, who sees six men with battle-axes who have come to destroy\u00a0all of the sinners. One of the six is a man dressed in linen who has a pen and\u00a0ink at his waist, and whose task is to put a mark on the foreheads of those who\u00a0are worthy of being spared. Only those with the mark will be spared; all others\u00a0will be killed without pity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These visions of Ezekiel’s spark with energy are alive with imagination\u00a0and freshness. It is as if the poet’s powers are increased in the company of\u00a0destruction and desolation. An angry god feeds the imagination with powerful\u00a0images of famine, pestilence, and destruction. There is a condemnation of\u00a0Jerusalem. The city is described as a wanton woman fornicating with everyone\u00a0and even paying the fornicators. A whirlwind of images is heaped up to be\u00a0thrown at the abominable Israelites who have sinned against Yahweh. New\u00a0principles of justice are introduced through Ezekiel, for example, Yahweh tells\u00a0him:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You may ask, `Why is the son not punished for his father’s<\/p>\n

iniquity?’ Because he has always done what is just and right and has<\/p>\n

been careful to obey all my laws, therefore he shall live. It is the<\/p>\n

soul that sins, and no other, that shall die; a son shall not share a<\/p>\n

father’s guilt, nor a father his sons’s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And then a bit later Yahweh bitterly says, “`The Lord acts without principle,’\u00a0say the Israelites. No, Israelites, it is you who act without principle, not I.” But\u00a0in defense of the Israelites one might well remember the earlier words of this\u00a0god when he said “I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third\u00a0and fourth generations of those who hate me.” These two principles are\u00a0logically incompatible. And a god who changes moral principles is hard to tell\u00a0apart from one who is without principles. A long list of punishments to be\u00a0levelled against the sinful Israelites leads to the next set of prophesies which\u00a0are against foreign nations. Ammon, Sidon, Tyre, Egypt, Moab, Edom, Seir\u00a0(the hill country of Edom) are all to be punished, in some cases because they\u00a0rejoiced when they saw the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the\u00a0people, in other cases so that the people will know that Yahweh is the Lord.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All of this imagery of destruction leads to another experience for\u00a0Ezekiel: “The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he carried me down in a\u00a0plain full of bones.” There Ezekiel is made to go to and fro across the bones\u00a0until he has been around them all. They cover the plain and are “very dry.”\u00a0Here then is the imaged end, the promise of a nation has ended in a valley of\u00a0dry bones, lacking any life or flesh, spirit or vitality. Those Hebrews rescued\u00a0from Egyptian slavery so long ago, those peoples who had been forged into a\u00a0congregation in the desert, those chosen tribes who were to be as numerous as\u00a0stars in the sky, as multitudinous as sand on the beach, are now seen in this\u00a0vision as dead and dry, devoid of life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But then Ezekiel is ordered to take one leaf of a wooden tablet and\u00a0write on it, `Judah and his associates of Israel.’ And to take another and write\u00a0on it, `Joseph, the leaf of Ephraim and all his associates of Israel.’ And to bring\u00a0the two together to form a single tablet. And like the tablet in Ezekiel’s hand\u00a0the Lord will bring together the exiled Israelites and assemble them from their\u00a0places and restore them to their own soil. The restoration of the united\u00a0kingdom is imaged in writers’ works – the restored kingdom is in the book, as it\u00a0were. “The leaves on which you write shall be visible in your hand for all to\u00a0see.” And the leaves on which Yahweh writes, the leaves of history, will be\u00a0visible for all to see also, in the renewed covenant and the rebuilt city of\u00a0Jerusalem, in the midst of which will be the sanctuary of the Lord. The\u00a0theocracy is to be restored and detailed directions are given for the\u00a0construction of the temple. Ezekiel looks back at the sin of the Israelites, tells\u00a0of the consequences of the sin, and then promises a future which will resurrect\u00a0the best of the past. Ezekiel also looks forward to the beginnings of the\u00a0Christian story in the New Testament. Its hero\/prophet, Jesus, will also have\u00a0the power to see more than any other can see, and will, like Ezekiel, be an\u00a0incarnation of the word in the flesh. “The perimeter of the city shall be\u00a0eighteen thousand cubits, and the city’s name for ever after shall be\u00a0Jehovah-shammah.”6<\/a><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, <\/em>edited by Allen C. Myers, et.al. published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Selections from a Treatise of Human Nature, <\/em>Chicago: Open Court, 1912, Section 10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/a> Richard Swinburne, editor, Miracles<\/em>, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, page2.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/a> 5,000\/100 = 50; therefore Jesus is fifty times more powerful than Elisha.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]<\/a> See R. F. Holland, \u201cThe Miraculous,\u201d American Philosophical Quarterly<\/em>, 1965, 2:43-51.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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6<\/a> That is \u201cthe Lord is there.\u201d Other prophets have given Jerusalem other names as signs of future transformations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"menu_order":10,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-42","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42\/revisions\/49"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}