The Patriarchal Ranking System

Somebody asked me a question which has only just sunk home. That person said, "Why do you always have to think differently? Isn't it dangerous? You might be a heretic."

I must admit I was a little shaken, in the sense that it is obviously true that if you think differently, you might be a heretic. But this was with regard to my habit of saying odd things about biblical characters. (Incidentally, I don't like that phrase – it seems to imply that the people we're talking about are factitious personae in some drama.)

So I trawled through the deep-freeze of my organic datastore and realised that there are perhaps a few things that make me say things most other people wouldn't. Here they are, in order of influence:

1. Family: My family has always been an amazing resource; my great-grandfather translated the Bible into Peranakan Malay, my grandfather did his daily bible study in Greek and Hebrew, and my father has always been able (as long as I've known him) to give the Bible chapter and verse for any quote read out to him (and vice versa).
2. Database: The natural outcome of coming from an academic family is that you tend to have huge hands-on experience with data sourcing and processing. In the days before the Internet, and even now, the man with the library-trained brain will normally beat the untrained brain given the same software and hardware.
3. Education: I was brought up as if my life would be spent teaching literature and history, but I was trained to teach chemistry and computing. The mixture of disciplines allows me to look at a given topic in many different ways.

I think the blend of these three elements makes me a little unconventional. However, any mistakes I have made are mine alone and should not be blamed on my family, my sources, or my education.

That said, I wondered how I actually put these things together. Well, perhaps this is a good time to say that I don't exactly know. However, I have a rough idea. My training in computing, which began a long time ago, makes me attempt to gather all the data I can find in a single brute force search (which is easy to do nowadays because you can find thousands of Bibles online) and then try to put them into a logical construct. The outcome of this construction process tends to be unusual. For example, doing an exhaustive search for anything to do with Jonah produces a psychological picture you won't see in Sunday School. Better still, it will be completely defensible since it is built by analysing everything in the text that has anything to do with the subject.

The best way to explain is to do it on the spot and see how it works (since I don't know what I specifically do, I should just do it and blog about it). So without further ado, let me leave you with yet another construct (or the outline of one). Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Patriarchal Ranking System! (Please don't take this too seriously; I don't actually prepare sermons or bible studies this way.)

Let us begin by defining 'patriarch'. Essentially, we begin with node 001 (i.e. Adam, the 'son of God' – see Luke 3:38) and note that the term is used rather narrowly if defined solely by the text. Such a definition could conceivably cover Abraham (see previous post), Isaac, Jacob and his twelve approximately immediate male descendants. That gives 15 candidates. However, a slightly broader interpretation is given from an historical survey of usage, which would include the line of Adam via Seth and Noah to Abraham.

Since all the subsequent nodes are contingent on node 001, it looks as if we must rank Adam as #1. But this would mean that you would then be numbering them off in genealogical order, which is a trivial solution. Surely we can do better than that.

Aha, the Bible compares Jesus to Adam directly. Surely that trumps everything? Well, not quite. If it were so, we'd have to look at all the various people Jesus is compared to, and this would include that infamous psalmist David and a score of others. Besides, it's only Paul who is doing that comparison.

Maybe we should consider the amount of space given to them. Actually, this would mean that Abraham would win hands-down in a head-to-head fight (argh, this is why you should never mix metaphors). But this solution tends to make the Jews unhappy because it would mean that the next patriarch on the list ought to be his eldest son, Ishmael (and there goes the West Bank haha).

By this time, you can tell that it isn't easy being me. I don't really have a patriarchal ranking system, and I apologise for being a little offensive along the way – but I must say that anybody who thinks I think differently from anybody else is making a very trivial statement. After all, each of us must demonstrably think differently from each other one of us. Nobody has exactly the same neural net, right?

Psalm 132: Triumphant

There's a fine balance in social matters today that has all to do with the rise of democracy on a sociopolitical level while capitalism increases on a socioeconomic level. The problem is that voting suffrage and cash cannot be the only fundamentals for a robust and humane society.

A large proportion of humans still have qualms about universal suffrage, just as the Athenians did in more exclusive form: does a vote out of ignorance carry the same value as a vote from an informed perspective, and why should the burden of information be on those wanting to be elected as opposed to those doing the electing? Similarly, should the more economically able have any legal (as opposed to moral) liability to the less able (e.g. through taxation, social benefit plans)?

The 132nd Psalm is unabashedly theocratic. The argument goes that if God is indeed all-wise and all-powerful, then theocracy trumps all forms of human government and politics. The problem is that human ideas about wisdom and power infect (as well as inform) our perspectives on God. We'd rather not have anyone (human or divine or whatever) be the boss of us, so to speak. That would be elitist (a meaningless tag because of its ambiguity). Here's the psalm:

Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions:
How he sware unto the LORD, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;
"Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed;
I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids,
Until I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob."
Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.
We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.
Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.
Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.
For thy servant David's sake turn not away the face of thine anointed.
The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.
If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.
For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.
There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed.
His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish.

It is a powerful and reassuring psalm of triumph for those on the right side of the anointed theocracy. The victory does not come for free; you find a place for God at the expense of your own rest and the effort of your days. But how does it apply to those who are not the inheritors of the blessing, but who are also not enemies of David?

Sometimes, when I think of these things, I am reminded of this verse by mostly-forgotten journalist William Norman Ewer (1885-1976). He devised a little clerihew that went, "How odd / of God / to choose / the Jews." In these days, we'd think of it as anti-Semitic, since it seems that whenever someone cracks a Jewish joke these days, it's anti-Semitic. But the point of the question is still valid. As a race, as a people, they are as unlikely as any other race or people to be specifically chosen by a supreme deity. Why not the Navajo, for example?

At the fundamental level of reality, we will never know why. This is what galls us; in a world of capitalism and democracy, we uphold the self-assigned rights of all men to own all things and to know all things equally. That it will never be so does not deter us from seeking some sort of philosophical ideal. But the universe is a lot more arbitrary than we are in this respect: effort and hard work are rewarded in linear fashion most times, but surprise and ingenuity win big too.

And that is why people turn away from the sociopolitical idea of God, the theocratic ideal; the perceived inequalities and externalities are too big for human economic and political thought to handle.