The Dunedin School Boycotts the Internet

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All Blacks, analytical philosophy, apostrophes in personal pronouns, aspergers, boycott, Chosen People Syndrome, Continental Philosophy, Dunedin School, fish n chips, global warming, Israel, Peter Akinola gives BJs, SBL, socialism, Society of Biblical Literature, whoring universities

As a protest against what we view as certain injustices currently being perpetrated in the world, the Dunedin School believes that, ethically, it has no other choice but to refuse to blog until the following demands are met:

• the U.S.A. must introduce real socialism
• all so-called “Universities” must renounce any profit motive, or relinquish the name “University”
• the Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh must give Elton John a BJ (a nice one)
• the Annual and International Meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature must eliminate all of its ridiculous and endlessly multiplying confessional sessions, and officially declare that they have no place in critical biblical studies
• Germany must recognize that Aspergers has become a national epidemic
• Analytical and Continental philosophy must resolve their differences and come together as one
• the All Blacks must be disbanded
• global warming must be stopped, right now
• the apostrophe rule for personal pronouns must be strictly policed (by former All Blacks, armed only with referee whistles)
• each and every Israeli must write out 100,000,000,000 times, on A4 paper, the line: “We are not the divinely Chosen People, we were being very silly boys and girls”
• and free fish n chips on Fridays for everyone

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Lingering Questions about God’s Providence (1): Destroying Illicit Cult Places

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Assyria, Babylon, Hezekiah, Israel, Josiah, Judah, Persia

The Bible reliably informs us that all of the great empires of antiquity – such as the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and the Persian Empire – only really existed to do God’s bidding. And what God’s bidding typically involved was giving Israel, or Judah, a comprehensive pants-down spanking. As a historical explanation, what such an account lacks in socio-economic realism it certainly makes up for in bold imagination.

But one thing, especially, puzzles me: why would God bother getting Kings Hezekiah and Josiah to destroy all the illicit cult places in the land, given that the Assyrian and Babylonian armies which he was controlling were doing just that, at much the same time?

“[King Hezekiah] removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole … “

” … In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.”

(2 Kings 18:4, 13)

“[King Josiah] … commanded [the priests] to bring out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens … He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city … The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem … He broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the sacred poles, and covered the sites with human bones. Moreover, the altar at Bethel … he pulled down that altar along with the high place. … Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the towns of Samaria … He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there … “

” … [But 3 years after Josiah’s death and 2 kings later] … Yahweh sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of Yahweh that he spoke by his servants the prophets. Surely this came upon Judah at the command of Yahweh… “

(2 Kings 23:4-20; 24:2-3)

A puzzling divine redundancy? A coincidence that might provoke a more economic and mundane explanation? Well… so it might justifiably appear to our admittedly finite minds.

What do you do with Rehoboam?

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Alice in Wonderland, Israel, Jeroboam, Philip Davies, Rehoboam, Roland Boer, Tim Burton, Tweedledee, Tweedledum

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, played by Matt Lucas in Tim Burton's 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland

More precisely, Roland asks, “What in hell do you do with him?”

Philip Davies has an idea.

Davies, who concludes that there is a whole lot more fiction than history in the Hebrew Bible, poses the following rhetorical question about Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the legendary first kings of the divided monarchies of Israel and Judah:

“Are Rehoboam and Jeroboam more like Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”

(‘Biblical Israel in the Ninth Century?’ Proceedings of the British Academy 143 (2007): 49-56, 54)

So you can do something with Rehoboam and Jeroboam. One option is to treat them as uncanny twins from the fairy-tale realm of Wonderland, aka Biblical Israel.