Every Theologian Loves a Good Parallel

Parallels are always interesting finds in the study of comparative theology. They allow us to speculate on the kinds of theological cross-pollination that occurs between religions and cultures, see who is influencing whom, and make educated guesses about why such imitation occurred. The four passages below illustrate this well. One parallel is features Luke  on the birth of Jesus and a latter  medieval Jewish work on the birth of the attributed writer of the Zohar, Isaac Luria. The second parallel features a passage from Mark and a passage from the Zohar.

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever;
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” 35 And the angel said to her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God.

And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Now let’s look at a medieval Jewish work:

Sefer HaKavanot U'Ma'aseh Nissim records that one day Isaac Luria's father remained in the beth kneset alone, studying, when Eliyahu HaNavi appeared to him and said, "I have been sent to you by the Almighty to bring you tidings that your holy wife shall conceive and bear a child, and that you must call him Yitzchak. He shall begin to deliver Israel from the Klipot [husks, forces of evil]. Through him, numerous souls will receive their tikkun. He is also destined to reveal many hidden mysteries in the Torah and to expound on the Zohar. His fame will spread throughout the world. Take care therefore that you not circumcise him before I come to be the Sandak [who holds the child during the Brit Milah ceremony]."

Or how about this one?

Mark  9:42

If anyone causes one of these little ones-those who believe in me-to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.  (see also Matthew 18:6, Luke 17:2.

Here, the Greek ahofobi may be translated as a deep place or an abyss. Now let’s look at the Jewish Zohar.

Zohar 1:48a

All evil spirits and demons, indeed, the entire Realm of Defilement [Sitra ‘Ahra’], hide within the eye of the millstone of the Cavern of the Great Abyss. For when the spirit of holiness spreads over the world, the spirit of defilement cannot remain…The entire world is under the [shelter] of the supernal Peace. (with regard to Shabbat)

Clearly the anonymous Jewish writer of the Zohar knew his Christian scriptures quite well….

 

 

So Why Does it Seem that Traditional Church Communities do not Celebrate Infant Baptisms as an Overcoming of Sin and Death?

I have only attended two infant baptisms in a handful of years in traditional Christian communities. The first was at a Roman Catholic Church and the second at an Episcopal Church. Both experiences were very similar but both were very revealing about what we believe and what we say.

At the Roman Catholic service, the priest told the congregation how there is no evidence in the Bible that infant baptism exists and furthermore that the purpose of infant baptism was introduction into the community. While it is certainly true that there is no evidence of infant baptism in the scriptures, there is no official doctrinaire statement that baptism in Roman Catholicism is about entrance or introduction into the community as a primary meaning of the sacrament. It certainly sounds great and certainly it is the effect of baptism, but the notion of original sin was simply bumped out of the ceremony.

 

 

In the second infant baptism, the church leader giving the sermon was more specific and expressed to the family whose infant was being baptized that no infant has done anything wrong to invite God’s judgment. Such an interpretation clearly challenges the traditional understanding of the 39 articles in Episcopal circles. And it depends upon whether you see these as doctrines or guidelines or something in between.

In both, the theme was clear: there was a palpable discomfort in talking about original sin or the effects of sin in the world. What was present were cute little infants dressed in their flowing white dresses, smiling faces beaming at the infant, and a general atmosphere of happiness. And why shouldn’t there be happiness? But was it based on the introduction of an infant into a religious community, or was there pure joy that these infants, separated from God, are now joined in salvation. Is there a true understanding and happiness that what was once lost (even if for 6 months of life) is now found? I don’t think so. And I think we understand this instinctually. Certainly, there are more opportunities to celebrate an individual’s salvation who comes to such a place after a long and painful journey. We see this in the story of the prodigal son. It is a story that has all the Aristotelian elements drama that are necessary to hold our attention. Someone raised in the church…not so much. Their salvation seems cultural, not radical. And so the narrative for these little ones has to be different in scope and essence.

A Few Thoughts on the Racial Divide, Millennials, and Declining Church Populations

Though his article is a bit dated (2013),[1] Steve McSwain couldn’t be more incorrect about one of his seven causes why churches are not filling. He writes:

“You cannot tell Millennials that your church welcomes everybody – that all can come to Jesus – and then, when they come, what they find are few mixed races or no mixed couples.  You cannot say, “Everybody is welcome here if, by that, you really mean, so long as you’re like the rest of us, straight and in a traditional family.”

There are a couple of issues here, but I’ll address one of the obvious ones, the issue having to do with race. As late as the 1970s, Martin Luther King Jr. said the most segregated day in the United States is Sunday. Why? There are a number of reasons, but I’ll provide two that I think are tenable: People feel more comfortable with people who look like them and the socio-economic divide has unfairly divided communities, so that with so many churches available in their own communities, whites are not flocking to leave suburbia on Sunday and blacks, who may not have the means to get out of their communities.

So when the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church  and Milledge Avenue Baptist Church started in 2012 to advertise “experiments” regarding  race mixing where black and white congregations come together to celebrate one another’s styles, I have to wonder if this is a genuine expression that has staying power or simply a  bandage addressing a much larger wound that started some time ago (one may say even in the New Testament itself).[2]

See, in the New Testament, Paul was regularly confronted by manufactured crises in mixed communities in which Jews or Romans or Greeks were upset that such and such a group was getting preferential treatment over another.

So I question if all of this is a failure on the part of churches to “welcome everybody,” or if it isn’t imbedded deep in our human psyche, something that not even the New Testament could resolve. A typical Christian, socially economically divided from his white brethren may not feel the need to walk into an all-white community and vice versa. Perhaps challenging Millennials who have a better relationship in between races is the key necessary to shame the churches where the gray-haired population has dutiful attended church but not understood the radicality of Jesus’ message whose “Hellenizing tendencies” in welcoming his Jewish oppressors (the Romans) to the table of salvation was unwelcomed in his day by the majority.

The problem is that youth are often considered second-class citizens, and where they are not, pastors most likely have a hard time handing over the reigns while balancing the needs of their older clientele as well. And what has been the response you ask? Divide the church even more, for example, into a traditional and contemporary worship service. I don’t have the answer, and I’m not sure there is one, because I’ve been in many churches, both contemporary and traditional, and my own neighborhood is more racially intermingled than my churches, both conservative and liberal.

---

[1] “Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore, The Huffington Post, 10/14/2014

[2] http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2014-01-20/black-and-white-athens-churches-combine-congregations-see-kings-dream-come

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.

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[1] What is Judaism? P. 139