Why Christians Desperately Need to Re-think the Concept of Community...Again and Again

Is the idea of community in desperate need of overhauling?

I don’t know many Christian communities who come together to honor the life of a deceased or dying person, whose only connection to them that he was just a Christian like them. But in the virtual world community of Final Fantasy this past week, players from across the globe came together this week to honor a player who was dying from an incurable disease. Soon after he passed. You can find the article here.

I often hear traditional Christians who serve a traditional idea of church community speak suspiciously and cautiously of the virtual world as a gateway of disconnected, anti-social players who congregate only to escape the pressures of the world. Of course we know that the Church model of community changed, many times in fact, so it is often hard to peg down these traditionalists on what is the best structure and model of community? Is it the small house dwelling where only a handful of believers met? This is what my Pentecostal brethren used to think. Is it a middle-sized 400+ church broken out into smaller groups. This is what my Church of Christ pastor used to assert since the idea of a return to the 1st century church community of Christ is implausible. Or is it the large mega-church where thousands flock?

Before the virtual world became synonymous with anonymous community, music used to be the bane of every thorough-going traditionalists. Back then, the conversation centered on what were acceptable forms of music. Should we only have organs and voices? Should we use guitars and drums? How about the genre of music? Should we allow our expression of Christianity to cross into secular genres? Should we have Christian hip hop or Christian country?  How about secular music in the church. My Church of Christ community used to do this and I HATED it. So did a number of other. Listening to U2 took me back to some great parties, but not the throne room of God. Unfortunately, the pastor never relented. He was a music guy, and so that was that.

The very first evidence we have of a gathering of Christians singing comes from a letter from Pliny the Young to the Emperor Trajan about 90 years after Jesus’ death. It appears the music was only a capella and it was sung by a small group in the early morning hours. I would have been sleeping.

The point is community changes. And we at a stage in history and time where we can embrace those movements. In fact, the church more or less DOES embrace ecclesiological change, which makes it all the more baffling when I come across those who protest that community must be done in person! But ask a Roman Catholic priest if community is always in person and he might tell you to step on the other side of the confessional.  Community CAN BE ANONYMOUS and bonds can still be built.

Philosophical and Theological Concerns with Retaining Individuality and a View Towards Advaita-Vendanta (Part One)

I want to switch gears a bit to look at the most influential form of Hindu philosophy, in particular the Advaita-Vendata. To do so however, I want to venture into the nature of the world to come in Abrahamic religions in which individuality is often considered a non-negotiable trait to look at possible alternative ways of considering this very speculative area of theological concern. I will do this in two parts. The first part will look at the framework of individuality in the afterlife, and some of the problems it creates, and the second part (in another post) will look at the ways Advaita-Vendata may resolve some of those problems.

On the one hand, there is good philosophical structure for this belief in all Abrahamic religions, and that is that God made everything and because everything is contingent upon God, we do not exist of necessity. Glorification is about wholeness. One may say there can be no glorification if there is nothing to glorify and so the idea that beings do not co-exist with God dilute the meaning is one strong argument. But another argument means that if God truly is all powerful and worthy of all glorification, then his need for anything outside of himself weakens the meaning of that glorification. God’s dependence on others to glorify him means his glory is never all-encompassing, but contingent.

And so we have what I would call the practicable and existential scenario. Full glorification in either sense seems to create a weakness that is not easily overcome.

Let’s delve deeper…

What can we say about the theological structure of God’s oneness? Simply, that it is a messy subject to untangle.

Let’s take one of Paul’s eschatological visions. We tend to ignore it, but it is buried there in 1 Corinthians. It is the one that says Jesus will hand everything over (or be willfully subjected) to the Father, so that God can be all in all. I have often heard in church that through the fullness of time we will continue to get to know God. It was a romantic and hopeful vision. But I think this is more of an extension of Paul’s use of the Jewish aspaklaria (“looking glass” - a doctrine noted by Maimonides, the Babylonian Talmud and Judah ben Illia in the 2^nd century for the “seeing of God”) then it is on the verses from which it is derived. It does strike a cord with Hindu philosophy, since knowing rather than action is what creates enlightenment or intimacy. Still, Abrahamic religious followers desperately want to retain their individuality in the afterlife (olam haba). We want to recognize others we knew in heaven. But what does it really mean that in seeing God face to face we will know him because we are known of him?

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror [aspaklaria]; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." – 1 Corinthians 13:12

So knowing again becomes a way we are tied into enlightenment. The seeing, which we assume implies individuality, doesn’t seem as important here, and is perhaps metaphoric. Certainly, in the Jewish tradition of aspaklaria, the Rabbis rarely thought this to be a visceral encounter as if God were simply another thing to apprehend (see my earlier post "Paul the Apostle and Maimonides on Seeing Through a Glass Darkly"). Moses' ability to see God, for example, is seen through the corridors of prophecy, through enlightenment, not physical contact. So we have to be careful about comprehending God here “face to face.”

These are the mysterious, dare I say, mystical arteries that run through Pauline thought. As far as visions of heaven go, we read some of the following:

Ephesians 2:6-7 - And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus

 Luke 23:43 - Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

 2 Corinthians 5:8 - To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

 Conversely, we don’t here this one so much, at least I haven’t:

 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all. (panta en pasin – Greek) 

So what are we dealing with here? Given that this occurs just prior to one of the most controversial verses in the New Testament, the baptism of the dead (practiced by Mormons and the New Apostolic Church sect), orthodox thinkers tend to roll over these passages, and they are generally never touched in sermons.

What does it mean then that Jesus subjects himself to God? Is this the dissolution of the Trinity? Is Jesus’ own individual godhead assimilated into God? Or is it somehow bigger then Jesus since in handing over all things to God, it would follow us humans would be included in that? Maybe we should just avoid this verse all together because there isn’t much of anything like it elsewhere in the scripture, lest we make a doctrine out of it? Maybe…but ignoring it won’t make it go away.

Let’s not forget that the popular depictions of hell that many of us grew up with, are no longer a part of serious conversation on the afterlife. Images of burning pits of fire and screaming souls being tortured by red devils with pitchforks, so prescient to the popular imagination, have fallen by the wayside. A few years ago, I even heard a very popular evangelical Christian philosopher, in answering this question, try to refute those depictions by saying that the Bible gives us a number of different images of hell. He didn’t go so far as to say that there were differing theologies in the Bible, because I believe he’s a “conscripted” inspirationalist, but at least there was some acknowledgement on his behalf.

This 1 Corinthians passage, most agree, tends to be addressing something going on in the eschatological age. Compare this to the Luke verse which speaks to an intermediary phase where those who die live with Christ until that time he returns in the Second Coming. As my one professor used to say there are at least a handful of ideas on the afterlife in the New Testament alone. Can someone say “soul-sleep” anyone?

I’m also familiar with elaborate attempts to exegete this 1 Corinthians 15 verse usually in apologetics against Muslims who claim Jesus is subordinate to the Father. But I admit that I am not convinced when Christian apologists attempt to justify this verse by assuring us that the individuation occurring here is not a diminution of essence but one of roles. I think this difficult because a) questions of essence don’t become prominent until the fourth century and beyond and b) it smacks of the same problem we encounter when we try to affix a modern notion of homosexuality on the bible. We say the act is wrong but the orientation is not. Well, I have to agree with my more conservative colleagues when I say that such dichotomies while useful in modern contexts, were unknown in late antiquity.

But then we come to Hebrews 2:7, where we see a similar word. God makes Jesus a little lower than angels.

ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ

If rank and order are implied here and not essence then this means that Jesus was made of lower rank than the angels. Yet, we are told at least in one other place that Jesus could command an army of angels, and in another place the angels come to nurture him. We have Satan continually threatening to reveal who he is (essence). How do you command an army of angels if they outrank you for the purpose of your mission? While this is only suggested as a possibility he could have acted upon, that fact that such a possibility existed makes the claim of his lowly state a bit more tenuous. So here we have a problem with understanding kenosis as self-emptying or merely restricting oneself) and yes, I am intentionally summoning different theological positions from different books of scripture to show that there is not one theology at work across these documents.

Apparently in Hebrews everything is subject to humanity (compare with 1 Corinthians 15, in which everything is subject to God)

Let’s continue….

So we may ask if the “all in all” is an existential position or a hierarchical one in which the godhead’s intrinsic value remains despite different roles and responsibilities. While I think this is the wrong question, I’ll at least say that the Greek word here seems to be about obedience. (hupotageesetai)

I’m still left scratching my head why Christ would need to be subordinate at any time to God in the eschatological world at the end of days. That subordination at least makes some sense as he appears as a man trying to show us an example of how we should live. But the diminishing of his reconstitution as God is not at all convincing, especially since the incorruptible spiritual body he is said to take on following his death is a result of some glorification. But even if this is not about existential being and the Greek word only speaks to rank, it still does little to connect me with the next part of the verse.  Christ is obedient to God until God becomes all in all.

Does this mean until God takes back all power?

Does this mean nobody has any responsibilities, Jesus included? We simply serve God or play our harps?

I don’t mean to sound intentionally nitpicky or simple, but it does make one wonder. Essentially, to take back all power, authority, glory, dominion, whatever words we use to absolutize some virtue of godhood means Jesus would have to be reduced to nothing. And if this is existential, it is even more problematic: how can God be all in all and still allow something differentiated outside his being? God would simply be of an essence more powerful, but not absolute, even medieval thinkers like Aquinas understood this. The simplicity of God is actually a tribute to his power. Any being that is divided is inherently flawed in his essence. This is why Trinitarians do not stratify multiple essences.  

 

Kenosis is effective in helping us understand the earthly ministry of Jesus who defers his power, but kenosis gives us no hint at how God remains all-powerful as long Jesus and we remain individuated.  The distinction made about one’s absolute intrinsic value vs. his station in life seems more like something of a modern concern than an ancient one. Certainly Paul’s view on slavery would attest to this. Onesimus is valuable to Paul’s ministry for what he can do. He is not released because of some intrinsic value he has that puts him above his position as a slave.

The NT writers were not interested in continuity and probably in most cases they did not have all the books that eventually became canonical to cross-reference their theology. What they had was a story of Jesus that went in a number of different directions, and each time they sought to add something they did so without the knowledge that their own take on the story could create problems with someone else’s take.

Dude, Where’s my Cloak? How the Gospels, Talmud, and Archaeology Reflect a Similar Story about Debt

           Did you ever wonder why Jesus made examples of things he did? One opinion is that because Jesus grew out of an agricultural society, a lot of his parables and wisdom sayings hinge on this context.

Much of what we find in the Sermon on the Mount has some place in the customary practices of ancient Judea. This defies the notion that Jesus’ words were so astounding that people were in awe of some form of new wisdom. This is particularly important if we understand that had Jesus been saying things that were completely new, it would have sounded strange and foreign to the people he was trying to reach. A more moderate view is that Jesus spoke the things that people already knew, but he did so with authority.

One reason we know Jesus repeated things often heard was because we see the traditions discussed often paralleled in the writings of Rabbinic Judaism that developed alongside Christianity. I have spoken about some of these in past posts, including the more dubious practice of mesirah. There are a few important lines in the Sermon on the Mount that talk about this practice with regard to the believer’s orientation to judicial proceedings, and as I argued, Paul and Jesus have very different ideas about its usage.

Extracting Jesus from his Jewish background is a sophisticated task. Sometimes it is required (for example, because the gospel writer is working in another culture and language). But other times, it takes away from the story’s grounding, especially when we spiritualize a passage without reason.

A typical accusation against the Bible is its lack of archaeological witness. I’m not sure where I first heard this or why, except that many archaeologists don’t appreciate being brought into the service of the bible or having their profession marginalized as the measuring stick that reinforces biblical insights. They simply want to do their job, which at times, does seem to confirm some facts found in biblical narratives. And so I guess one may consider it a territory war. What archaeologists do, however, is important. Indeed, their work does not always complement biblical knowledge and so one understands when they are offended by such sweeping claims.

Conversely, Near East archaeology confirms that the bible is not a book of fairytales, written out of time, or oblivious to its cultural surroundings. This is not surprising, because most religious books are contextually constrained to the environs of their development!

One particular case that can be found in the gospels, archaeology, and the Talmud, is a story about the importance of a cloak.

Jesus said with food and clothing let us be content. But when a man loses his cloak or garment, should he continue to be content? Jesus doesn’t tell us, but given that in the culture he lived in, these kinds of things were the sum total of much of a person's belongings, this statement doesn’t appear as ascetically (not aesthetically) pleasing  as we tend to spiritualize.

Let's look at what the Talmud tells us first. In a story concerning debt reconciliation, a rabbi deprives workers of their garments when they accidentally break wine vases they are hired to transport for him. Bava Metzia 83a records:

Rav was one of the first rabbis who, after the publication in approximately the year 180 C.E. of the Mishnah, the oldest part of the Talmud, opened the first academy to study and expound on the Mishnah.  Rav's colleague, Rabbi Rabbah bar Bar Hanan, hired porters to move a barrel of wine that the rabbi had purchased.  The porters were negligent and dropped and busted the barrel, emptying its contents.  Rabbah bar Bar Hanan not only refused to pay the workers, but took their cloaks as compensation for the lost wine.  The workers went to Rav and told Rav what had happened.  

Rav told Rabbah bar Bar Hanan, "Give them back their cloaks."  

Rabbah bar Bar Hanan asked Rav, "Is this the law?"  

Rav answered, "Yes."  And, quoting Proverbs 2:20, "That you may walk in a good way, and may keep the paths of the just."

Rabbah bar Bar Hanan accepted Rav's ruling and returned the cloaks to the workers.  The workers then asked again for their wages and Rabbah bar Bar Hanan again refused to pay them.
The workers returned to Rav and said to him, "We are poor, we have worked all day, we are hungry, and we have nothing."

Rav then said to Rabbah bar Bar Hanan, "Go, and give them their wages."

Rabbah bar Bar Hanan asked Rav, "Is this the law?"  

Rav replied, "Yes."  And he again quoted Proverbs 2:20 - "That you may walk in a good way, and may keep the paths of the just."

               One of the problematic aspects of this text is that nowhere is it mentioned that Proverbs is the law (halakhic or torah - biblical law). Proverbs is wisdom literature, nothing more. Even bar Hanan knew this was not the law. But this is not really the point, just something to point out.

Archaeology tells a similar story. The Mesad Hashavayahu Ostracon (dated to the 7^th century BCE, around the time of King Josiah) contains an inscription in which a fieldworker appeals to the governor about the conduct of one Hashavayahu, an officer who apparently took his garment and would not return it. He cites a law concerning holding one’s belongings past sundown as collateral for a debt. The passage reads:

"Let my lord, the governor, hear the word of his servant! Your servant is a reaper. Your servant was in Hazar Asam, and your servant reaped, and finished, and he has stored (the grain) during these days before the Sabbath. When your servant had finished the harvest, and had stored (the grain) during these days, Hoshavyahu came, the son of Shobi, and he seized the garment of your servant, when I had finished my harvest. It (is already now some) days (since) he took the garment of your servant. And all my companions can bear witness for me - they who reaped with me in the heat of the harvest - yes, my companions can bear witness for me. Amen! I am innocent from guilt. And he stole my garment! It is for the governor to give back the garment of his servant. So grant him mercy in that you return the garment of your servant and do not be displeased."

So Jesus too has something to say about debts.  And again, he does so in the context of cloaks. In the Sermon on the Mount he asserts:

“And if a man will sue you at law, and take away your coat. Let him have your cloak as well.” – Matthew 5:40

The gospel of Matthew is typically portrayed as the most Jewish of the gospels, so it is not a wonder when he works within Jewish custom to bring out a custom most of his audience would recognize. Luke on the other hand, simply speaks to non-resistance.

“…and to him that takes away your cloak, do not resist given him your coat as well.” – Luke 6:29

In both cases, Jesus does do something unique. He teaches love over law. In the first part, perhaps a form of "shaming one's enemy"(bosheth), and in the second "demonstrating non-resistance." Putting Jesus in the context of his surroundings often reveals a level of continuity that continues to be of interest to scholars and laity alike.

 

Leviticus 18, Incest and the Problems of Translation in Rabbinic Law

             One of the stranger translation problems I ran into this week was the rabbinic prohibition of arayot (literally nakedness) and how it refers to the Holiness Code found in Leviticus 18. In a number of instances in which I found the word translated in this context into English, the preference was “incest.” The word incest carries with it a very specific meaning in English. One dictionary defines it as “sexual intercourse between closely related persons.” While more than a few of the examples found in Leviticus 18 can be described as the sin of incest, Leviticus also covers bestiality, homosexuality, and adultery.

One such example of the use of incest alone comes from the post-Talmudic Shulhan Arukh, a source of legal administration in the medieval ages by Rabbi Joseph Karo. It is an important document in establishing the development of rabbinic thinking, but it translates the arayot (at least in the translation I found) differently. The passage below what is known in Rabbinic Judaism as the principle of pikuach nefesh (saving a life), and it suggests three sins for which there is no escape. Once violated, these sins require that a Torah-observant Jew give his life.

A person should permit himself to be killed rather than violate a negative commandment in public or because of religious coercion, or rather than commit murder, fornication, or idolatry. A person may not save his life at the cost of another person's, but he may save his life by deception.

The more popular translation is simply incest, replaced here with fornication. You can find this in a variety of places, including Rambam’s long explanation on pikuach nefesh in which he describes the second sin as “incest.” Now while a conversation I had with a rabbi on the problem of translation here only revealed that incest is a compensatory word meant to cover all sexually illicit conduct found in Leviticus 18, others, like Emil Fackenheim, the great German-American rabbi of the previous century, suggested that incest was a “family matter.” Referring to the principle of pikuach nefesh, he writes:

“Why incest? The authorities seem unanimous about the fact but not the reason; but it may be surmised that incest destroys the family, that Israel begins as a family and in a sense always remains a family, and that its witness to the nations includes the sanctity of family life.”[1]

So given that incest is tantamount to familial intercourse, Fackenheim does little to extend that definition to include adultery, male homosexuality, or bestiality. But why? The rabbi then asked me why pre-martial sex was not included in this list because that surely had to be a sin. But this brings us to the very problem Fackenheim recognizes. The reason why incest is chosen is not at all clear, if the implication is why not these others? Then we have an example in which the arayot of Leviticus 18 as a cover-all term for at least three varieties of sexual sin may not be the best translation, but simply the sin of incest.

Perhaps Fackenheim did not think these other sins affected the “family structure.” Now it becomes a little dicey when Fackenheim concludes that it is because Israel is a family that incest is wrong. Following this logic, one could argue that any sex would therefore be wrong (even married sex) because it would be done within the confines of Israel and certainly Fackenheim is not prescribing mixed marriages here as the answers.

Therefore, I can’t help but believe he means literal incest here. An approach that tries to square this up with arayot has to explain the insufficiency of the explanation to capture homosexuality, adultery, and bestiality as the only types of sin that ruin the family, when Fackenheim’s own description of Israel as a family would also make sex within marriage wrong.  While Incest (depending upon impregnation) destroys the genetic sanctity of the family, and adultery (depending upon impregnation) destroys the moral sanctity of the family, bestiality and male homosexuality at best destroy the perception of wholesomeness. Pre-martial sex on the other hand, not mentioned as arayot, cannot destroy any perception of family since no family is implied.

Still, it strikes me as a sloppiness that needs to be remedied, especially among American Jewish thinkers who continue to use incest where they mean arayot, a description that encompasses much more. The only thing I can find similar where I encounter the frustrations typical of a former English major, though not as morally egregious, is the translation from Hebrew texts to English ones where the word people is used. The ha’am of the Hebrew is a singular noun, but in English it is usually a plural in subject-verb predication. Yet, you see instances time and again where the translation is not things such as “The people of Israel is a community.” Or “I have seen how my people responds to such allegations.” The same rabbi suggested that the people here may be referring to the collective consciousness and so should be rendered singularly, but I find this a difficult proposition to accept, especially since the contexts in which I see these written do not suggest mystical or figurative understandings that require enhancements.

So while love may cover a multitude of sins, I’m not sure incest does.

---

[1] What is Judaism? P. 139

How the Buddhist Prohibition Against Eating Meat Runs Counter to the Claims of Evolution

**This is part two of an examination into Buddhism’s prohibition against eating meat.

Buddhism often recuses itself from the debate between god and evolution, assuming it a problem of supernaturalism. Westerners who no doubt flock to Buddhism on account of staying out of this conversation and touting a godless route to spirituality, tend to promote it as a far better approach than the "sieve" that has been created as science, philosophy, and biblical criticism continue to challenge traditional monotheistic claims.

I can think of no other agitant more grueling for a scholar than the problem of God and evil. But I also want to make it clear that Buddhism hardly gets off the hook. While Buddhism does not proclaim an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful god (though there are certainly gods and Buddha protectors in the traditions of Buddhism), the problems with some of its fundamental  doctrinal claims pose considerable problems. Last time, we looked at the narrowness of nonviolence (ahimsa) as an ethical issue applied to Buddhism only in the realm of eating meat by claiming that a in adopting a more consistent approach to ahimsa, a Buddhist would need to challenge the food production industry of our day and not just the mass slaughter of animals for meat.

Today I want to look again at another problem in the doctrine of abstaining from eating meat, this time from the world of science.

Buddhism, it is well-known, sponsors vegan or vegetarian lifestyles. The idea is that all animals are fundamentally connected by their karma in the wheel of life. This means that murder extends beyond human species and into the animal kingdom. One problem with this however remains with the way evolution encounters Buddhism, not as a friend, but as a competitor with competing claims.

Humans were thought to not only develop teeth for meat eating, but in two recent independent studies (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/49888012/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/sorry-vegans-eating-meat-cooking-food-made-us-human/) there remains growing consensus in the scientific community that both our small stomachs and large brains (a rarity for a creature our size) was most likely stimulated by this evolution from meat-eating. Simply put, consuming meat allowed us the ability for higher thought as a species, and it was this higher thought that most likely spawned our ability to...well...do what I am doing right now...thinking about ethics in the religious imagination.

To be fair, early Buddhists did not always eat a strictly vegetarian or vegan diet. But it is difficult to reconcile this practice with one that sees the spiritual dignity of all creatures with varying levels of consciousness, since it is consciousness that binds us together in our journey.

Does this mean that just because we have the ability to do something, we do it? I have the ability to eat until I’m sick, but should I?

I can see this question raised as a possible apologetic to defend a Buddhist's conviction on this topic. But understand this:  The ability to even ponder vegetarianism or veganism as a lifestyle choice or religious conviction is a higher brain function that itself was produced by millions of years of eating meat!  We have to understand the implications of this fact because it creates a context of primary evil, similar to the story of Genesis. To become capable of the highest form of Buddhist spirituality, evolution has taken us down a path that is fundamentally opposed in Buddhist doctrine! But since Buddhism does not concern itself with stories of origination (such as the origin of good and evil in creation), it would be hard to know where to frame such meta-histories. Perhaps a Buddhist may argue, that evolution at one time had all things living peaceable, and it was only through one or another condition that animals started turning on one another. The problem with this solution is that we are still left with a path in which evil is primary to obtain the highest spiritual plane. The highest spiritual goal in the dharmachakra is not facilitated through the 8-fold path, but is first activated by murdering animals to consume their flesh to get where I must be to follow such a path!

Perhaps, Buddhism has something similar to the Augustinian Christian concept of a “fortunate fall”(felix culpa) – i.e., if it weren’t for humanity’s fall from grace, we would not experience so great a salvation in Jesus! Melius enim iudicavit de malis benefacere, quam mala nulla esse permittere. But again, to posit this effectively, it logically follows one must have a sense of origination, and because no such thing exists in Buddhism, we are only left with questions.

Is the Logic of Vegetarianism a Problem in Buddhist Thinking?

As a recent vegetarian, one of the difficulties I deal with is limiting my choices of food. I’ve learned that true ritualized vegetarianism, the kind found in Buddhism that was meant to spare violence against animal life does not stop with the partaking of the flesh of an animal. It challenges us to go beyond this prohibition and consider the manufacturing facilities where diary is also produced. I started thinking about this when my wife recently brought to my attention the fact that dairy cows, even on so-called organic farms, are often treated harshly and their non-milk producing male offspring born on such farms are destroyed.

This kind of violence is not a direct concern in Buddhism. One obvious reason may lie in the fact that the early texts dealt with cycles of life (samsara) in which mass-production facilities did not exist. For overall efficiency, even on organic farms, which face growing demands for their products as healthier alternatives, disposing of the young and violently beating non-compliant animals is much easier than it would have been for a subsistent farmer living in South East Asia, even several hundred years ago, whose family relied on the lives of its livestock. Buddhism is often charged by its Western cousins with not “towing the line” when it comes to modern ethical issues. And there may be truth to this. But my reflection is also non-scholarly, and it is certainly something I will be exploring in the days to come.

Violence in such situations depends much more on where you get your products rather than right-to-life issues that come with slaughtering animals. Production awareness goes into very difficult areas, one such being our patronage of any company who participated or participates in some kind of evil. It is what we call in Christianity, sins of omission and sins of commission, and it assumes in the first that there is a standard of evil one must recognized universally. On a real level, Buddhism has this too. After all, one’s skillfulness (kosala), instead of morality, is often spoken of, and is part of the very fabric of life. Since there is no supreme lawgiver, the law is all that is front of us.

We might not be able to talk about right or wrong and only intentionality, but then we could appeal to any such argument to make our case for eating meat as well!

For example, I did not intend to kill any animal, but now that the meat is in front of me, I will eat.

While one might take pause here, it should be made clear that Tibetan monks would traditionally eat whatever was given to them in their begging bowls (patta). While many villagers are conscientious to provide vegetarian meals for the monks today, we know historically that this did not always happen, but on occasions portions were meat. Furthermore, legend tells us that the death of our historical Buddha occurred when he accepted what was put in front of him (a plate of spoiled food). Siddhartha knew what it was, but since gratitude was thought a more skillful action than self-preservation, he chose the former path and died.

So is the logic of vegetarianism a problem in Buddhist thinking? Only insofar as we must expand it to cover the whole range of nonviolent activities. And this inevitable mucks the waters.  

 

Was Jesus’ Vision of Lazarus in Hell of Egyptian Origin?

Did you hear the one about the rich man who dies and goes to hell and sees his servant enjoying himself in Abraham’s bosom? Well, apparently so did Jesus, and just as Proverbs shares a common heritage with the Egyptian wisdom of Amenemope, it seems that Jesus was also familiar with a more ancient story, the Tale of Khaemweset than the one he sets out in the gospels about a certain rich man named Lazarus.

It is important to remember that is no hell in ancient Judaism like the one we imagine in Christianity. At best we get a spectral realm, much like in ancient Greek thought, where people go, but do not perish under insurmountable conditions – they kind of just linger. In Hebrew they might be called צֵל, because the word for soul נָ֫פֶשׁ usually refers to a living body, not a spirit as in Christianity. And while we do have later tales that bring out forms of punishment (Sisyphus and the rolling boulder, for example), it seems clear to me that Jesus is not thinking in his inveterate Jewish tradition at this point in his story. One might argue that he was thinking like a Maccabean Jew, where the concept of afterlife revenge becomes important just a few hundred years prior to Jesus’ life, but by this time there was so much intermingling in Hellenistic thought that not even the Tannaim Jews considered the story of the Maccabees a part of their heritage (one reason it is not considered an authority book).

When we look to Egypt, however, we get an altogether different image. Here gods like Shezmu, squeezes his victims in a wine press. Judgment is very much a feature of the underworld as well. Mummies are unwrapped of their wrappings and thrown into fire pits. The sun god Ra ignores the screams and tortures of the dead, who are separated from their souls and go hungry and thirsty for all eternity. Christianity’s vision of hell is much closer to this than anything in Judaism.

The Tale of Khaemweset, which was discovered on the back of a papyrus for a land registry, it is thought, also comes under the influence of Hellenistic thought (and so probably closer to Jesus than the more ancient tales of Egyptian hells), but what is unique in the story is the very thing Jesus preaches in the gospels. That the last shall be first, the first shall be last, and those who you think had everything in this life are subject to harsh punishments in the next.

Though I’m sure I don’t speak for all, but conservative Christians tend to like this story because it supposedly reveals Jesus’ preternatural power, his deity flashing through his humanity, as he tells his followers about his own encounter with hell, in a story out of time. And of course, there are modifications to this story. The afterlife is now associated with Abraham’s bosom, though it should be noted that like the realm of the blessed in Egypt, both the righteous and evil dead are spirited to their final resting places through the same corridor (so to speak). In the Egyptian tales, the righteous ones use talismans and spells to fight through demonic hordes as they make their way to paradise. The idea that one uses the same corridor is much more detailed in the eponymous account of hell attributed to Josephus where a psychopomp or a guide carries the soul of the dead down one of two paths.

It is however difficult to ignore the similarities between Jesus’ and Kaemwese’s account. Of all the possible visions of hell available to the Son of God, one wonders why he chooses the one that already had great traction in his world. Could he have been testifying to the universal nature of the religious vision? Was he simply sharing something, to call to mind, a reality that his listeners may have been familiar with through folktales to inspire in them right conduct? At any rate, there is good evidence that the Egyptians exerted a significant influence on other stories in Jewish scripture, so why not here as well?

Living Your Infinitesimally Short Life Meaningfully

The impermanence of life…oh how it reigns true in our religious traditions! Coming into Thanksgiving, it reminds us to be thankful where we are and spread ourselves thin for the benefit of others.

Here are four examples of reflections on impermanence: Two from the New Testament, one from the Jewish Bible, and the other is a story from the Jodo Shinshu tradition of Buddhism. Two are exhortations; the other two are narrative examples.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” – The Epistle of James 4:13-16

The Master said, “One day, on my way to Kyoto, I went to Moji and stayed at a hotel where I waited for the departure of my boat. My room was upstairs. In the next room was a merchant who was intently reckoning on an abacus. Before long, a servant of the lodging house told us that the departure time would come soon. The merchant packed his account books and abacus in his wicker trunk and got on board with other passengers. When the boat set sail, he produced those things and resumed his work. Being his roommate, I thought to myself: What wonderful timing! If he had not stopped his work when the departure time was announced, he would have missed the boat. How amazing it is that he stopped his work in time and got on the boat while he admirably resumed his work once on board! “When I urge people to listen to the Dharma, they would say ‘I am busy with my work,’ or ‘I am too young to listen to the Dharma’. They do not know that the wind of impermanence can suddenly blow at any time. Why do they not learn from this merchant? Why do they not first get on board the Boat of the Vow of Great Compassion and then keep themselves busy with secular work?” – a story from Master Gôjun Shichiri (1835-1900)

 

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”  - The Gospel of Luke 12:16-21

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. – Ecclesiastes 11:9

Five World Religions' Eschatologies and Their Common Thread

Eschatology may be described as the end-time dreams of religious peoples and cultures with a vision towards the future that is often connected to the present. Existentially rendered, eschatology is the hopeful longing for a golden age and a time beyond the Sitz im Leben of the author, whose future reality nevertheless is codified in the images and symbols of the present.

Yet all eschatologies rely on hypothetical realities that attempt to create severe breaks with the reality they present even while they remain intimately close to the language and imagery of their time. Most extraordinary, and what I want to explore here, is that so many eschatologies that are culturally and geographically distant from one another bear striking similarities.

Are these similarities merely accidental? Are they guided by some universal revelation? Or do they speak to a supernal longing in each one of us for an age of salvation, justice, or peace? An age in which we matter because what we believe is finally validated.

Let’s take a very brief look at five possible eschatologies as they appear in the major religions of the world, that either help shape or form a part of the overall experience of their religions.

Buddhism

Known as the manifestation of the Buddhas in ten directions, Buddha Maitreya is the savior of humanity in the Buddhist tradition. He comes at a time when Buddhism has been forgotten from the earth and thus he returns to deliver its message once again. Whether or not the passage in the Pali canon where this occurs is apocryphal, it is accepted as part of the repertoire among the three major traditions. In the passage from the Maitreyavyakarana, the world is thought to look very much like the ideal Buddhist paradise, in which men will fall into trancelike meditations, their cravings swept underfoot, and their morality will be amplified. They will live without homes, families, and possessions. All of these of course are recognizable Buddhist ephemera. No doubt in every religion, heaven, hell, and every unexamined meta-reality in between looks much like the religious reality’s doctrine or image of their idealistic conditions which they fight to keep stabilized in this world.

Christianity

In Christianity, Jesus returns at a time when anti-Christ destroys the world so that he instigates a battle between God and the devil. Jesus returns as a warrior king to set the world right once again. He reestablishes God’s place on earth. While many Christians attempt to sophisticate and sanitize this eschatology by placing it squarely in the gospels as something Jesus brought into the here-and-now (or a form of realized eschatology to deconstruct completely the language of the epoch in which it was written), it is clear that the Book of Revelation uses the kind of imagistic creatures and drama that other cultures also imagine in their own scriptures and sacred writings. All peoples will eventually come to worship Jesus in Jerusalem.
Judaism

Judaism requires that the world completely repair itself (tikkun olam) so that the ground is ripe and sanctified for the return of Messiah. This end-times figure, whether Elijah redivivus or not, is very much a co-signer to the tradition of Messiah that held three primary goals as far back as David: A House for the Lord, a House for David, and the Establishment of Land. Thus, a third temple will be constructed, the Messiah will be someone from the House of David, descendant from his line, and all Jews will eventually come back to the land they are to possess. And what of the rest of us? Well, God dwelling among his people and the world knowing who God is will come to him and worship him, although the manner is unclear. It does not necessarily seem like mass conversion will be necessary. Maybe like Cyrus the Great, God’s first messiah, he will only require tribute. This tripartite formula is also found in Christianity's Book of Revelation.

Hinduism

Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu offers one such eschatological vision in Hinduism. Kalki, like Jesus comes on a white horse with a sword (in his hand not like Christianity in his mouth). This metahistorical narrative takes place after the Kali Yuga, or this present age, in which death and destruction are the rule and not the exception. The golden age, or more accurately Satya Yuga, comes as a time in which peace will rule and all violence will cease. Like our Jewish friends who believe in the reestablishment of the temple, so our Indian friends taking from their own practices envision the end as one in which meditation is supremely important and as an inevitable establishment as something universal.

Consider the following sutta:

"Lord Kalki, the Lord of the universe, riding His swift horse Devadatta and, sword in hand, will travel over the earth exhibiting His eight mystic powers and eight special qualities of Godhead. Displaying His unequalled effulgence and riding with great speed, He will kill by the millions those thieves and rogues who have dared dress as kings."

Islam

Mahdi, in Islam, comes only from the extra-canonical hadiths, where he is said to assist Jesus in his parousia (second coming). In numerous views that accept the Madhi, he brings in an Islamic age of law and various practices intrinsic to Islamic ritual. Like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and even Buddhism, it comes as the ultimate vengeance against a religious world that is divided. Umma Salam, a wife of Muhammad, was said to have stated that the Madhi will wipe out all superstitions save Islam. Unbelievers will come to believe and follow Sharia Law.

Some Final Thoughts

In ages where such religions have been marginalized in their earthly forms, their eternal forms no doubt offer a kind of reprisal in which not only they but all people take over the characteristics of their religions. In effect, it is a type of victory narrative.

In all of these eschatologies, they immediately follow our age, which makes it all the more imperative that we as the generation that is going to bring all this upon us act soberly and responsibly. Of course in religions where there are no channels or cycles of rebirth, it makes sense to think that from the Axial Age onward (900 – 500 BCE) when the knowledge of religion increases and ever sophisticates, humankind represents the zenith of its own longings.

Those like Rudyard Kipling who say that East and West are too far apart, forget that there were incursions, even in the Axial Age, where religions touched. For example, the kingdom of the Buddhist Gandhara was interdicted by Greek Hellenistic influences, typified in much of the architecture. It was during this time that glimpses of Maitreya could be seen most prominently often in some combination with Greek gods. Could this be because the Greeks, who followed Christ hundreds of years later, were interested connoisseurs of religion, as we see in the melding of the Logos of Stoicism with the Messiah of Judaism? All food for thought…

In the end (excuse the pun), there is much in common with the way religious peoples think about themselves and the end of the world. Many see a victory for their way of life, their ideology, etc.  

Some Personal Updates on Academic Pursuits and Future Projects (10/2014)

Moving fast and steadily towards the end of the year reminds me of all the various projects I have going on. I wanted to depart from my normal topical blogs and share a little about what I am currently working through.

In late August, I attended a conference at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where I presented a paper on analyses of pluralism, exclusivism, and synthesis in virtual world environments (which by that I mean, video games). My hope is to turn this paper into a journal article, and the conference organizers have informed us that Cambridge University Press has expressed interest by inviting those participants at this conference to submit their work for consideration.

At the mid-point of October, I enrolled in one continuing education course on the study of Hinduism through the Oxford Centre of Hindu Studies. The third part of my educational odyssey is to enter a program in Buddhist Studies (I was already accepted into the program through South Wales), but this is at least two years away, depending upon whether I do my PhD work first.

I am still working to get through the final edits on my Bonhoeffer manuscript for publication with Wipf & Stock. Finishing this work has been complicated by work schedules and, quite frankly, a number of irons in the fire, including course work at Towson University, a full-time job, and family obligations. I am hoping to fast-track this, if I haven't already seen some daylight on this, by January 2015, when I should have some more free time.

Another proposal of mine, this time on the problematic criteria of inclusion at Yad Vashem's Righteous Among the Nations memorial, was accepted for a conference on Transnational Holocaust Memory. The conference is at the University of Leeds in January 2015. The paper has already been written, but would require some additional editorial work.

I  recently submitted a proposal for an academic anthology on a topic from the realm of science fiction. The organizer responded that the proposal was "very interesting." And yes, I am being deliberately vague until I feel I can say more.

There are two other conferences for which I have submitted proposals and hope to hear something soon. Both would leverage my interests in Jewish theology and ethics.

At the end of December, I official close the course work portion of the degree work I am doing in Jewish Studies at Towson University. The final option will be thesis work. I am looking forward to this.

Finally, I would also like to present at AAR's annual regional meeting in March since it is at a college campus in my area. Last March, I presented a paper on Bonhoeffer and his ideas on responsible marriage with regard to homosexual ideology. I was hoping to do a follow up to this paper, as the first paper only touched upon responses to the social institution of marriage from his writing. A second paper would look deeper at the issue by suggesting consistent theological themes that support the idea that homosexual marriage is responsible marriage according to Bonhoeffer's corpus of theological writing.

I would admit that I am a very non-traditional student and academic. Without a PhD degree at this point, I am still doing much of what would be expected of a doctoral candidate or post-doctoral student with regard to publishing. I'm sure there are some out there that would find this approach unorthodox, but provided my work speaks for me, I really have no problem fending off this kind of tactical, traditionally ingrained criticism. If at any point, I found myself completely inept or insufficient to do this kind of work in concert with my course work, I think I would pull back. But the level of competition among graduate students and doctoral students requires that individuals publish and immerse themselves in these kinds of opportunities when and where they are available. I have faced rejection, and I'm certain there is more to come, but I strive constantly to put my best effort into everything I do. And as an interfaith theologian, my non-traditional interests in immersive study of traditions other than my own I hope makes me more marketable than a candidate who takes a more traditional path, who may be called to teach a world religions course but cannot honestly say he or she has the acumen to go to a peer conference and speak into one of those traditions on anything other than a basic level. In the end, it is all about credibility.

Romans 5:7 as Responsa to Jewish Perceptions of Martyrdom

I don’t remember ever seeing much attention given to Romans 5:7. I tend to think there are two reasons for this; one is historical and the other practical. From a historical point-of-view, Paul’s line about individuals dying for one another seems to be betrayed in the centuries following him when Christians at various times within the Empire were marched to their deaths.

The willingness of Christians to die for one another was one of the reasons Marcus Aurelius was said to stop his own persecutions. As for us future readers, the idea of dying for one’s faith seems absurd in a time when our world is open to religious pluralism so that when it happens, we are offended and appalled. To be fair to Paul, he did not have either of these contexts.

So the question opens up: to what might have Paul been referring to when he commented about the superior moral character of Christ whose self-sacrifice was so grand? You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:6-8 These lines break up the theological argument Paul is making about justification by faith and appears as a much more blunt characterization of human beings. It may be a general opinion about the state of humanity. Yet, Paul relates his letter in the context of the Israel and is writing to a community of Christians where Jewish Christians were experiencing prejudice within and persecution without.

For someone like myself who finds value in the historical-critical method, one might reasonably imagine that Paul’s wisdom comes from his years of rabbinic training. So what might have been a rabbinic view on self-sacrifice? Jesus’ death was not only outrageous to many Jews because they could not imagine a dying Messiah, but also because the idea of dying in Judaism to demonstrate one’s faith is contrary to the call to life and self-preservation. Unlike in Christianity, the desire for heaven in Judaism has never been as theologically robust or necessary. Living in the present life was much more an acceptance of Israel’s covenant with God then the promise of the life thereafter. This traditionally has problematized martyrdom in Judaism. While few instances of martyrdom come up, for example in tractate Sanhedrin and the pseudo-canonical Maccabees, these are very much confined. Paul’s rejection of the call to martyrdom stands with these above examples. Only idolatry, sexual sin, and desecration for the sake of desecration of torah were seen as impermissible, so to allow oneself to die instead of violating these precepts was an incredibly pious act. Paul’s placing of Jesus’ crucifixion as an incredibly pious act despite that those hung by a tree were considered criminals, murderers, and heretics must have seemed audacious to Jews trying to read this. The theology of life in Judaism for a people constantly confronted with death was replaced by a theology that started with death to bring about life in another place.

That Jews saw the kingdom of God as a physical kingdom then was not just rampant Messianic hope of physical dominion but also supported their whole theological understanding of what it meant to be Jewish. The promise of a physical messianic reign validated their call to stand in this life. ***This Jewish ethics of survival is important and can be found in a few other places, such as the John 11:50 verse: “You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (see my previous blog post “His Blood Be Upon Us – An Alternate Reading of Jewish Responsa.”)

How Buddhism Informs one’s Christianity: How to Pray

The quintessential passage on prayer in the Christian tradition can be found in Matthew 6:5-15.

Here Jesus looks out on his followers and says “when you pray…pray like this” and then proceeds to give them the formula for the Our Father (Pater Noster) prayer that so many Christians know.

Growing up as a Roman Catholic and then in my twenties falling in with a nondenominational church in the Protestant tradition, I have had the opportunity to experience two radically different approaches to prayer. My Roman Catholicism made it a token recitation and a mark of being in and a part of the community. My nondenominational church never recited it, said it was meant merely as a model, and encouraged us to avoid such vain repetitions because we should always pray in our own intimate individualistic way to God. What I missed in both of these traditions is not what to pray but how to pray. This is perhaps the most significant blind spot in Christian ecclesiology. And even where we would expect to find answers, teaching one to pray is a foreign notion in scripture. We might look, for example, at Paul and Jesus who assumed that we should know how to pray and appear to be confident in our ability to carry out a proper prayer. And why shouldn’t they be? Both Paul and Jesus were Jews. Prayer was second nature and meant for communal consumption. Most encounters with prayer in the Bible are public. Yes, I know Jesus tells us to pray in private to our heavenly father but in context of Matthew 6 it was a response to situations in which we are tempted to make a show of our prayer. Even the Psalms, which suggest in our modern interpretation some of the more heartfelt and intimate prayers of the earlier writers were actually meant as congregational prayers.

Public or private, however, there is no instruction on how to pray. Through the years I have heard more sermons on what to say and ask for during prayer then I can count. Still, when I was faced with how to pray, the practice always remained left to me, though I admit much of what my community prayed and the words they used found their way into my personal prayers. And so this leads me to the topic of this article. Buddhism with its meditative practices and Christianity with its emphasis on public and private prayer may be worlds apart, but, I would add not incompatible. The notion of meditation, which is the clearing of the mind to focus oneself, seems to me an indispensible component of one’s prayer life. The writer of 2 Corinthians (let’s assume Paul) hints at something like this. The kenotic mind (or the empty mind if I may call it this) is the one that casts down or brings every thought into captivity to obey Christ. Paul seems to be saying that when one finds his mind straying while he is in prayer, he is to take control of those thoughts. (2 Co 10:5) But how? Paul answers : by bringing them into obedience to Christ. How does a thought become obedient to Christ? When I was in a nondenominational church, I often referred to this verse by Paul. In prayer, I would often fall asleep or my mind would stray to the events of the day. I would easily lose focus. My mind was always in motion. And so I applied Paul’s formula. I would invoke the name of Christ to capture those thoughts that easily derailed my concentration, even the ugly ones. I would stand up and walk around, keep my eyes open, everything based upon personal experimentation. But it never quite worked and I always found myself back in the same place.

For the Buddhist, the very act of praying is given as much, if not more attention, then what is being said. Clearing one’s mind during Sādhanā is a discipline that is so integral to the Buddhist frame of mind, that the recitation of the sacred syllable ॐ is often considered an afterthought. Yet, there is something important here, and it communicates that preparation, frame of mind, peace of mind, presence, and one’s physical being are as important if not more than what is being said. We know from the gospels that Jesus had a problem with the amount of words being offered in prayer. This is particularly why he encourages people into their prayer closets, to avoid the temptation to put on a show. I think it is instructive to remember that prayers were not performed silently in the ancient world, and the first intimation of silent prayer does manifest in Christianity until the mid-fourth century when St. Augustine stumbles upon Ambrose praying in silence. That Augustine found this behavior odd at least suggests that even two centuries later many Christians must have been praying out loud. One’s prayer closet was suggested by Jesus not as an act of private prayer where one silently projects his prayers to God, but as a way to protect the genuineness of one’s prayer against the temptations that may come with seeking out favor or public approval. It most likely continued that people were praying out loud and to suggest anything else is a modern interpolation.

One can learn from the practical significance of Buddhist meditation techniques. Breathing, Vajra positioning of the body, visualization, even verbalizations that do not translate into comprehensible language (think of Glossolalia in the Pentecostal tradition) are ways of supporting spiritual worship. All these things may deepen rather than hinder a profound experience of prayer in any tradition.

Jeremiah 1:5 is not a Refutation of Abortion – It is about Working in Clay!

Clay in the potter’s hand...We’ve heard it before…We've sung it. But do we understand what we are affirming?

Modern exegetes like to convince us that this simply describes the act of creation performed in a society where pottery and agriculture were primary forms of commerce. Such an explanation would explain all those farming allusions Jesus makes in his parables, right? After all, if we're not dealing in figurative speech, then the contention that the Judeo-Christian witness has universal application available to all becomes a little narrow. But perhaps it is not correct to assign this to the figurative language bin before we recognize that there was a very real primitive belief in the Near East that man was formed from the earth. We all recognize this in Genesis 1. But what we often fail to recognize is that the Hebrew word selection used is not arbitrary and that when we see similar words find their way into other passages of the Bible, we need take heed. What was the author getting at? Why did he use a word? Was it because only this was available to him? Or was it something more?

Of course there are cases like this: The word dag for fish in Hebrew has no equivalent. Social anthropologists and linguistics believe this is simply because the ancient Jews were not primarily maritime peoples, say, like their cousins the Philistines. But when it comes to sheep, there are multiple words! That’s because the Hebrews were shepherds. When our modern Christian apologists take verses like Jeremiah 1:5 to report how the prophet was alluding to his political mind on anti-abortion, they need to realize that the yasar (יָצַר) the writer uses for the word “form” may very well be connected to the primitive usage of the word. One good reason for this is because we see words like tohu wabohu in Genesis appear in other places in the Bible when the concern is about cosmology. There were certainly other cognates of the word “to make, to form, or to create.” But יָצַר has a distinctive meaning that is often connected to formations of pottery. Go read Jeremiah 18! The clay motif clearly goes back to Adam. God formed Adam from the dirt (adamah/ אדמה). (So the next time someone says their name is dirt, say “why yes, this is true!”) Of course, the authors knew how babies were born.

So to say this baby was formed in clay would have been absurd. I think what Jeremiah is doing here is connecting the concept of birth with the first act of human creation (the forming of Adam from clay). It was a way of seeing oneself in the ebb and flow of sacred history and to affirm that Jeremiah’s generation was connected with Adam’s generation, that God is a faithful God, and continues his work in creation.