The Social Network & 2 Samuel 12: Reinterpreting History

A few weeks ago, I finally saw the social network, the story of how Mark Zuckerburg founded facebook, screwing over many friends in the process. An interesting movie, to be sure, but not an entirely true account of how things really happened.

There is a lot of truth in the story, however, and it ties into something that has been happening with the lives of the rich and powerful, be they internet company CEOs or ancient Hebrew kings: the reinterpreting of history to create an understanding of events that is more favorable to they way you want things to be understood. Watching the movie reminded about reading I had done in Word Biblical Commentary when I was researching a paper about 2 Samuel 12.

2 Samuel 11-12 is the account of King David's adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, a women he saw bathing, slept with, and got pregnant. To try and cover this up, David brought Bathsheba's husband home from the battlefield, but when he refused to go into his house and spend the night with his wife as long as the battle continued, David had him killed and took Bathsheba as his wife. Because God was angry with David, the child died, but then God bless David & Bathsheba's second son, Solomon, who succeeded David as king.

The interesting thing about this section of scripture in regards to the social network takes place in 2 Samuel 11:27b-12:15a (the section Nathan Condemns David in the link). In this section, God sends a prophet named Nathan to David who tells him a story about a rich man and a poor man who loses a prized lamb because of the rich man's greed and selfishness. David is outraged, and then Nathan tells him that he's the rich man. David is mortified and repents, so Nathan tells him that God has spared his life, but the child is still going to die.

So what does any of this have to do with the social network? Well, click on that link in the last paragraph again, and you'll notice that if you skip the section Nathan Condemns David, the story still makes sense without it. Some scholars (including the author of the commentary I mentioned) think that this is because this section is a later addition to the story:

"It is possible that the narrative contained in chaps. 11-12 was part of the Solomonic apologia or propaganda. To be possible it did not have to lie or distort facts; rather it had to appeal to what was already known or believed. At the same time, it had to reshape and supplement the shared information, beliefs and hopes. Thus the inherently detrimental David-Bathsheba-Uriah story could not be disregarded for it would not go away. However, it could be retold in less critical manner and it could be rendered innocuous by the addition of David's repentance, Yahweh's forgiveness and the punishment imposed. Thus the way was open for a future reversal of fortunes. Vv 24-25, in particular, contain an implicit promise of better things to come: Yahweh loved Solomon!" (Word Biblical Commentary vol. 11, pg. 166, emphasis my own)

Those in support of Solomon's kingship couldn't change the fact that David's mistakes were public knowledge. However, they could add to how those mistakes played out the story of David's repentance and the knowledge that God has forgiven the line of David for the sins committed.

Making a movie about a quiet nerd who worked hard to develop a website and then left friends who weren't making the best decision or all that invested in the company's future (as well as paying out a few hefty settlements here and there) would be kind of boring. And it wouldn't do much for Mark Zuckerburg's image.

But, if you make a movie about an underdog nerd billionaire with a sharp wit that hides a sensitive soul that just wants a girl back, you've done something: you've reinterpreted everything: he's not a guy who can be a jerk who just happened to nurture great idea into a billionaire dollar website; he's a tortured soul fighting the pretentious snobs who just wants to be loved.

Unlearning the Half-Truths of Sunday School, Pt. 1

There are a lot of stories in the Bible, that, when we talk about them in church, we seem to entirely change their meaning and intended message. In an attempt to undo some of this damage, I'd like to take a look at some of these stories, and talk about what they're actually trying to say, beginning with Jonah.

Jonah is one of my absolute favorite stories in the entire bible. However, if you think the story of Jonah is about a fish (or a whale), then you are sorely mistaken.

Usually, when people hear the story of Jonah, they only hear about the first two out of four chapters. The first two chapters cover the part of the story that most people are familiar with: God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah runs in the opposite direction, God makes a storm, Jonah convinces the sailors he is with to throw him overboard, and a fish swallows him. After spending three days in the fish, it coughs him up on the shore, and Jonah goes to do what God tells him.

If the story were to stop here, then you would probably say that the story of Jonah is about having the courage to do what God tells us. And, while this is part of the message of Jonah, this is by no means what the story of Jonah is really about. To figure that out, we have to look at the last two chapters.

In chapter three, Jonah goes and tells the people of Nineveh that in forty days God will destroy Nineveh. Without any sort of call to repentance or assurance that this will stop God's wrath, Nineveh repents, and God decides not to destroy the city. Again, if it were to stop here, you might say that this is a story about how obedience to the will of God brings about good things. however, the real meat of the story of Jonah is in chapter four.

At the beginning of chapter four, Jonah is furious. He prays this prayer to God, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

At this point, we could probably uses some context to explain why Jonah is so upset. To understand his rage, you need to understand who Jonah is, and who the Assyrians are. The Assyrians (whose capital city was Nineveh) were some of the most brutal, vicious, and violent conquerors to ever rule the Middle East. Some common practices of the Assyrians to inflict upon their captives were to skin their prisoners alive, cut off various body parts to inspire terror in their enemies, pull out tongues, and display mounds of human skulls. And, in the eight century BCE, The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel. So, in all likelihood, they skinned Israelites alive, maimed and dismembered them, and proudly displayed their skulls for all to see before dragging them off to the four corners of their empire, never to return. The Assyrians are solely responsible for the decimation of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Now, one would think that the opportunity to bring tidings of destruction and wrath against the city responsible for the deaths of countless Hebrews would be a joyful task for Jonah. However, Jonah runs away because he knows God. He knows that if he goes and delivers this message, the people will have a chance to repent and be saved. The fact that this is the absolute last thing that Jonah wants is the exact reason he runs in the first place.

After Jonah tells God how he feels, God asks him if he has any right to be angry. Jonah (conspicuously lacking a response to God's question) leaves the city and goes to see what will happen to it, probably hoping that God will change his mind again and Sodom and Gomorrah it to the ground. While he waits, God provides a vine for shade. However, a worm eats the vine, it gets hot, and Jonah is again furious. So furious, in fact, that he states death would be preferable to his current situation.

And then, in verses 9-11, the last verses of the last chapter of the book, we find the true meaning of the book of Jonah. "But God said to Jonah, 'Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?' 'I do', he said. 'I am angry enough to die.' But the LORD said, 'You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?'"

This is the heart of the message of the story of Jonah: forgiveness, even to the point of being able to forgive those who have wrong us in unspeakable ways. I hope you understand how profound Jonah's ability to forgive in order to forgive the Assyrians would have to be. Jonah forgive the Assyrians would be like Jews forgiving Nazis. It would be like the Tutsis forgiving the Hutu. Forgiveness on that level is rarely seen in our world.

The book of Jonah ends unresolved. We don't know from this book if Jonah ever forgave the Assyrians; we don't know from this book how long Nineveh's repentance lasted. All we do know is that God cares about all peoples, even those we might call monsters, and that God is willing to forgive all peoples, even those we might not think deserve forgiveness.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”

Let The One Who Has Ears Hear

A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed. He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, "They will respect my son." But the tenants said to one another, "This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours." So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”

My Confession of Faith

So, on Thursday I blogged about an open letter than had been written concerning the Nazarene Article of Faith on scripture. Apparently an anonymous (and presumably atheist) reader of my blog didn't appreciate this, saying that:

"The problem is, you still think that some guy died, and three days later hopped back-up like a guru, wall-walking zombie. Furthermore, you think that this zombie guy's take on life 2000 years ago, long before science was even dreamt of, should somehow be trusted today. 'Oh, he's God!' You'll still say, just like the fundamentalist you decry. But you only believe that because you read it in the magic book. So now who is using circular reasoning? Geesh--liberal Christians are still stupid, it's just their island of stupidity is a bit smaller than their fundamentalist cro-mag neighbors."

So, in the interest of not being a "guy [who] believes religious fantasy for reasons he won't reveal ON HIS OWN BLOG", I will blog on the reasons why I am a confessing believer in the Christian faith.

There are several reasons I choose to believe the confessions of the Christian faith, such as that Jesus Christ was divine and that he died and was resurrected three days later. Honestly, the reasons I believe are not in any way driven by reason. They can be shown to be supportable by reason, but I didn't dispassionately assess criteria and then after weighing all the pros and cons of both sides of the argument come to the most reasonable and justifiable conclusion. The reasons I came to faith are emotive. I can offer defense against arguments against Christianity all day long, but they are not the reasons I believe. The reason I have faith is that I feel the weight of my sins, and I believe that Jesus Christ can forgive them and offer me a way of life that is better than what I could have without him.

Anonymous, if that isn't good enough for you, feel free to raise questions concerning the validity of Christian beliefs, and I'd be more than willing to answer them to the best of my ability.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”

Concerning Doctrine

In my wanderings across this vast wasteland known as the internet, I stumbled across something attacking not only my denomination's beliefs on Scripture, but personally naming my university as responsible for what he deemed to be a "seed of heresy". You can read this "Open Letter Concerning the Authority of Scriptures" in its entirety here, but the basis of his argument is a problem with the Nazarene Manual's doctrine on Scripture:

"We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith."

This basically means that while we believe that entirety of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired word of God, that inspiration was interpreted by human beings, and as such is possibly subject to some degree of fallibility, except in the matter of salvation. So, to make a long statement short: If it will save your soul, then it's infallible. Otherwise, it need not be necessarily 100% accurate.

Mr. McDonald (the writer of this letter) believes that this position on scripture is not strong enough, and that scripture (supported in his letter by quoting scripture) is entirely infallible. After all, "God is perfect in all His works, in regards to anything. He did not even allow a man's interpretation, will, or opinion to enter His Word."

As a solution to the problem of our scriptural heresy, MacDonald offers this as alternative to our current doctrine: "Scripture, being found as eternally inerrent and inspired of God, is veracious and authoritative concerning every aspect of physical and spiritual existence. The Bible has been provided as our only completely truthful standard of theology, ethics, science, history, and every other realm into which its limitless grasp extends."

Ethics:

"O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (Psalm 137:8-9)

"When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it." (Joshua 8:24)

"While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses." (Numbers 15:32-36)

Science:

"He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." (Psalm 104:5)

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?" (Job 38:22-23)

"What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?" (Job 38:24)

"Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, 'Here we are'?" (Job 38:35)

So, I leave the choice to you, dear reader, as to whether you want to be believe that scripture might be wrong in the areas of science, and that the bloodlust of the Israelites may have occasionally taken things too far, or whether you want to believe that God condones baby crushing, snow is kept in storehouses in the sky, the earth has a foundation, and God talks to lightning bolts. Your choice.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”