Note: I read the Bible to consider whether a specific passage comports to my weak-comprehension of the perhaps 5,000-year-old Sumerian philosophy expressed by Hebrew scholars 3,000 years ago in Genesis 1:28: Female& male-human-being can& may, independent of other entities, constrain political chaos on earth. I think the next Bible canon should include the law codes of Sumer.
I perceive that the 10,000-year-old Sumer civilization ought to be considered, in order to increase civic-integrity while appreciating private spiritual pursuits in 2022 and beyond.
Judges
The author has Gideon
blaming the-God for erroneous personal ambitions
I object to the Gideon
story, in appreciating Genesis 1:28’s message: constrain chaos in your way of
living. I use “the-God” to express the source and suggest an improvement herein:
.
Recall that so far, in
300,000 years homo-sapiens development (through the year
2022), the following evidences suggest the-ineluctable-truth, most of which is
not known:
1) No culture has attempted to follow the 5500 year-old Genesis-1
advice from Sumer: human-being can& may constrain chaos in both
individual& group lifestyles and thus to living human-being and to
posterity.
2) The Old Testament scheme: to discover a God that will usurp the
Genesis-1 choice:
a) Attribute individual/group ambition to the-God.
In other words, “blame” the-God for un-civic motives.
b) Persuade the-God to strategy& power under
individual/group goals.
i) Barter each: sacrifice, worship, praise, & prayer.
ii) Impose supernatural reports so that the-God’s hand is publically
perceived.
c) Publically pretend that the-God usurped
individual/group ambitions.
i) Ridicule the opponent by claiming they follow a false god.
ii) Claim the loser (e.g., in battle/debate) can never recover/return.
d) Parlay attribution of individual/group success
to the-God.
e) Enjoy the fruits of victory, regardless of
the-God.
f) Accept personal/group satisfaction using high
political skill.
g) Shamelessly return to old habits and past idols.
3) Civic-citizens may learn from Gideon’s privations:
a) Gideon (not privy to the Internet) never
received Jesus’ message that Gideon is a god-facing-death.[1]
i) Doubted/feared himself.
ii) Doubted/feared his origins.
iii) Feared
the future.
4) Gideon focused on temporal needs without time& work for
self-perfection in the-God’s image.[2]
a) Did not appreciate fellow-citizens and their
civically-good contributions.
b) Did not appreciate physic& its-progeny;
looked to mystery (metaphysics).
c) Looked to cultural doctrine for guidance.
i) Recalled doctrinal successes.
ii) Overlooked doctrinal failures.
Conclusion
1) So far, Christianity seems to conflate salvation of the soul&
civic order.
a) Human-kind mostly seeks the-good with assurance
of benefits.
b) Perhaps there’s an achievable better future by
separation of intentions:
i) For death, accept the salvation Jesus provides rather than a
doctrine.
ii) For life, practice the
responsible-human-independence necessity& justice demand.
(1) Consider that Jesus
claimed presence at the origins of Genesis 1.
(2) Accept that
the-world’s-good-citizens appreciate Jesus as a good civic influencer and
peacemaker who demands personal choice to every human-being.
iii) Among
Christians, Baptists have a special opportunity to lessen 2022 divergent chaos.
(1) Confident, independent
pursuit of the-good that is implied in the Bible and subsequent history.
(2) Humility toward each
believer’s potential to improve interpretation.
(3) Appreciation&
humility to whatever-controls-the-consequence-of-personal-choice.
(a) The source of the laws
of physics& its progeny, including fiction.
(b) The above wieldy phrase,
perhaps supplants the suggestion “the-God”, proposed to distinguish from “God”.
2) The discussion is important: “the-ineluctable-truth”, during 2006
to 2021 emerged as worthy for conversation.
a) Then, the 400 year hiding of “ineluctable”
seemed evident.
b) And both “ineluctable truth” and “the
ineluctable truth” were published in 1906. But our educators did not share it
with us.
3) Potential to recall past error, in order to aid reform to
civic-integrity, trusting the-ineluctable-truth -- Jesus, God, chance, or
whatever-accommodates-private-choice for salvation, while practicing RHI.
a) I choose to participate in development of
the-metaphysical-Jesus for civic-integrity among human-beings and cannot pray
for salvation of my soul.
b) I pray to Jesus to save Cynthia’s soul,
collaborating her hope& comfort.
4) I think whatever-controls-the-consequence-of-personal-choice
judges my person.
Following are my
comments after studying Judges 6 – 8.
Introduction
Considering Judges 6-8,
Gideon’s story, encouraged appreciation for Genesis 1:28 a 5,500 year-old
message that civilizations ignored throughout& beyond the Bible unto 2022
chaos. Civic-citizens can lead 2022 reform in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and in
the USA. We, the-good-People of the entity We the People of the United States,
vainly look to higher power to usurp our responsibility for necessity&
justice in civic integrity: responsible-human-independence (RHI).
Miscellaneous background (with highlight) about non-Israel tribes (a majority of the
12 might justify "Israelites", but this
story involves a minority)
· We understand Samuel (d. 1012 BCE) wrote the
book of Judges.
· The “300 Spartans” at Thermopile happened in 480
BC. It seems there were 4,000 allies with the Spartans.
· Abraham and Keturah (after Sara and Hagar both
died) conceived Midian as
well as Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Ishbak, and Shuah.[3]
· Gideon was the son of Joash, from the Abiezrite clan, the weakest in the tribe of Manasseh (first of 12 tribes of
Israel) and lived in Ephra (Ophrah).
· Amalek was the son of Eliphaz(himself the son of Esau, ancestor of the Edomites) and Eliphaz's concubine Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan.
· Amorites refer to highland mountaineers who
inhabited the land of Canaan, described in Genesis as descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, son of Noah, generations older than
Abraham.
· Asherah pole: pagan homage to the Ugaritic
mother goddess Asherah. Ugarit was
an ancient city port in northern Syria. Expressions were in cuneiform.
Gideon, vaunted as he
may be through Bible distribution to hotel rooms, "heroes" a story of
brutality upon invading the land of an existing civilization and killing the
invaded peoples, at least the men. It’s all done in the name of the Lord God
(except not in the NIV text), with negotiation for miracles. And for the Lord
to punish a few of the 12 tribes of Israel for worshipping false gods. I
perceive no success in this story.
I assert that ancient
human-being needed the power of the Internet to discover Genesis 1:28’s
necessity& justice directive: human-being can& may independently
provide peace on Earth. I don’t know the-ineluctable-truth and think focusing
on Genesis 1:28 and the-objective-truth, when the-ineluctable-truth is yet
undiscovered, will serve a successful human life. Each individual may civically
pursue the-good humankind can glean from the metaphysical Jesus, with or
without the spiritually-saving body& blood of Jesus. Already, many
non-Christian people appreciate Jesus’ leadership to the-civic-good. Baptists,
due to their individual priesthoods can promote the metaphysical Jesus for
civic necessity& justice as well as trust-in& expect a
spiritually-favored afterdeath.[4]
Comments by Chapter and Verse
In Chapter 6, the author
bemuses the reader with different entities: “angel”, “lord”, “the Lord”, and
“God”, each in dialogues with Gideon. There are many ways to excuse these and
other problems with the “God’s word” writing.
6:1 Perhaps the scholars exaggerate by calling Gideon’s Abiezerite clan (the weakest in the tribe of Manasseh) “the Israelites”.
6:2-7 The Abiezerites perceived insufficient strength to defeat the tribes they were invading, so they sought supernatural power as claimed earlier Bible stories.
6:8-12 First, a prophet spoke to the tribe, then an angel spoke to Gideon, calling him “mighty warrior” (so the writer says).
6:13-24 Gideon addresses the angel, as “lord”, that he is weak, but the response is reported as from “Lord”. The Lord promises to murder all the Midianites. However, Gideon negotiates a sacrifice as proof that the murders would take place. The angel instructs Gideon about the sacrifice, and Gideon fears death after seeing the angel’s face. But the Lord promised peace despite the glance.
6:25-32 Then the Lord instructs Gideon to sacrifice a bull and tear down the Amorite alter. Gideon does so at night, due to fear of his own tribe. The Abiezerites demanded to execute Gideon, then his father, Joash shamed the Abiezerites for worshipping Baal. Joash argued that Baal should be able to deal with Gideon.
6:33-40 All the Caananites gathered in the Valley of Jezreel. Gideon summoned the Abiezrites, the rest of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali to save Israel. Now, Gideon negotiates with God, and God seems to accommodate Gideon’s doubts.
7:1-8 The Lord felt
there were too many soldiers with Gideon, and public opinion as to the Lord’s
control would be lessened: the soldiers would feel they had won rather than the
Lord winning for them.
Gideon said anyone who
felt fear could leave Mount Gilead, so 22 thousand of 32 thousand soldiers
departed. There were still too many, so the Lord selected some. The 300 who
cupped their hands to drink water stayed; (I reason: any pestilence in the
water bites a hand rather than a face. But why bother speculating about
primitive caution in 2022? Better to think with discoveries through 2022.
7:9-14 The Lord sent Gideon and his servant into the enemy camp, with camels numbered like “the sand on the seashore”. Gideon overheard an enemy’s dream and his colleague’s interpretation: warning of defeat at the hands of Gideon.
7:15- Gideon took this as good news. He divided the troops into 3 companies of 100 each with torch in jars and trumpet. Thereby, they caused chaos among the many, who fled. The rest of the tribes chased the enemy. They captured two Midianite leaders, then cut-off their heads.
8:1-9 The Ephraimites were jealous and redressed Gideon. But Gideon opined that they were more productive so assigned the captured leaders to them. The 300 still chased Midianites and were tired and hungry. Local towns refused help, and Gideon swore to punish them.
8:10-21 The invaded-armies had been reduced from 135 thousand to 15 thousand. Gideon took the nomads route to surprise, pursue, and route them. He punished the towns that had not helped them, killing the men of Peniel. Gideon instructed his son to kill the Amorite princes, but the boy was too young, so Gideon did it.
8:22-27 The 4 tribes asked Gideon to offer 3 generations to rule them, and Gideon differed to the Lord. But Gideon asked for some gold. Gideon made an ephod (an instrument of priestly divination?), and it became a problem to his family.
8:28 The land had peace for 40 years. The tribes Gideon had led returned to Baal after Gideon died, forsaking the Lord and Gideon.
Only a dreamer would
object to “God’s word” in this story. However, it is not possible for me to
glean the-ineluctable-truth from it, so my opinion is that it can be ignored by
civic-citizens, except to recall that it is not prudent to attribute personal thoughts
to the-God or to that-which-controls-the-consequences-of-personal-choices. I am
a dreamer and am pursuing my dream.
[1] John
10:34 referencing Psalm 82:6.
[2] Matthew
5:48.
[3] Online
at conformingtojesus.com/charts-maps/en/genealogy_of_abraham.htm.
[4] This is
a neology to represent the uncertainty of the indefinite time after body, mind,
and person stop functioning. It admits that everlasting life is a mysterious
hope (heaven) or fear (hell) rather than a certainty.
