Blogging about blogging about books I've blogged about.

So, over at Slate - one of my daily must-read sites - a dude named David Plotz has been more or less doing what I did first semester of my sophomore year at St. John's. He's reading the bible and writing about it, so really the only minor difference is that he (presumably) is getting paid for doing so, while I was paying to do so.

Anyway, he's now up to Leviticus, and I've sort of been following along since he started writing, because it's interesting. About the beginning of Leviticus, he says this:

Which is why what I'm about to say is so incredibly unfair—namely that the author of Leviticus is a dreadful writer. He can't possibly be the same person (people) who wrote the cracking good stories of Exodus or Genesis. Leviticus is agonizingly repetitive. For example, it describes how exactly you sacrifice an animal. Then, a chapter later, it repeats those instructions, word for word, for a slightly different ritual (a "reparation" offering as opposed to a "purification" offering). It's very tedious, but I suppose it's unfair to blame the author, since it is a manual. The user guide for my new digital camera isn't beach reading either.

Amen (though I haven't actually read more than a few pages of Leviticus myself; I know it's not unusual). That's part what I find so fascinating about the bible, especially the old testament: In parts it's got some decent stories, but other parts are just dull and boring and repetitious. And yet, all those parts are still there. I'm certain there's some self-referencing passage somewhere in the bible that says not to cut out random bits even if they're no longer relevant or something, but it just strikes me as a prime example of why 'new media' will never ever replace books fully. Books are solid, tangible, and even the awful bits tend to survive, because you'd have to re-copy the entire rest of the thing otherwise. There's no delete key with pen and paper.

Anyway, the thing that caught my eye today was his take on some of the bits about slavery in the bible. This stuff is perfectly representative of why I have no tolerance for organized religion based on the judeochristian tradition: it's all built on one single text that's often poorly-written, disorganized, astoundingly contradictory, and vastly irrelevant to today's world. Since he gets paid to write, and I do not, I'll just let Mr. Plotz sum up here:

Like most first-time Bible readers, I've been stunned by the amount of slavery in the Good Book. The second half of this chapter is the worst passage yet, a real slavery gobsmack. It doesn't sound so bad at first. In fact, it seems quite tolerant, because it is specifying all the ways in which an indentured Israelite must be well-treated. You can only keep him and his family until the Jubilee year: They can never become property. The Lord reminds His people to treat their Israelite slaves generously: "You shall not rule over him ruthlessly; you shall fear your God." This is all very apples and honey.

But note who the passage is not talking about: All the non-Israelite slaves. They, by contrast, become property "for all time." Leviticus says you must not treat Israelite slaves "ruthlessly." But what does that imply about how to treat non-Israelite slaves? Bring out the whips! Cut the rations! Want to be ruthless? Go ahead, be ruthless!

At the end of Chapter 24—right before this slavery chapter—there's a wonderful passage about equality in law: "You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike." Great stuff! Of course the Torah doesn't really mean it. Every so often—as in this Chapter 24 verse—the Bible nods toward a universal brotherhood of men. These are the kumbaya verses that are quoted by modern judges and heralded by modern civil rights activists. But they are aberrations. Most of the time, the Bible conceives of a tribal world, a world of a Chosen Us, and a nearly sub-human Them—an Us who can never be slaves, but a Them that can be exploited ruthlessly, a Them that is property, a Them whose first-born can be smitten.

Is it any real surprise that the MidEast is such a ridiculous mess today?