THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IS MORE
CONSERVATIVE THAN YOU MIGHT BE AWARE OF
I originally
posted this on Dissecting
Leftism but thought I should post it here for those who come to this
site via a Google search
Although I am an atheist, I grew up
steeped in the New Testament so reading the Bible is for me like
visiting an old friend. I do not however know the Old Testament as well
as I should so I recently read right through the Book of Deuteronomy.
Its main theme is avoidance of false gods and when I think of the many
false Gods around today -- socialism, global warming, anti-"obesity"
etc. -- it is clear that people have not changed much and we do still
need to be alert against false gods.
Another prominent theme in
Deuteronomy however is what some might call "Christian" charity. There
are frequent instructions to be kind, forgiving and generous to the
poor. The compassion and concern for the outcast shown by Jesus was very
Jewish.
But giving the poor your OWN goods is very different from
giving the poor OTHER people's goods, which is what the Leftist wants to
do and which would once have been called robbery.
And the Torah
does make clear that abstract justice is an absolute -- a duty. Where
PUBLIC matters are concerned (as distinct from deeds in private life),
you are NOT allowed to favour the poor. Exodus 23:3 is clearest about
that. The NIV probably gives the most accurate interpretation of the
text. It says: "Do not show favouritism to a poor
man in his lawsuit". So, just because a man is poor, the law
is not allowed to be biased in his favour. Moses was clearly not a
Leftist.
I probably should leave it at that but the pedant in me
causes me to note further that the Hebrew word rendered as "lawsuit"
above has a rather broader application than that in the original. The KJ
renders it as "cause" and it could refer to any controversy. So again we
see that special favour towards the poor in any public way is OUT.
Private charity is the proper response to the poor.
Being a bit
of a language freak, I wrote about the interpretation of Exodus 23:3 to
David Boxenhorn, an Israeli
who often blogs about the interpretion of Hebrew and the Hebrew
scriptures. I received his comments after I had written the above and
his comments would seem to broaden even my interpretation. He wrote
(inter alia):
"That quote refers to favoring the poor in court, one
of many possible dangers to justice cited in the Bible - see previous
and following passages. Not distorting judgment is a major theme of
the Bible....
But the word translated as "poor" - dal - is
probably better translated as "weak", the usual Biblical word for poor
is evyon, as you see three verses down in 23:6. Also, the word
translated as "cause" - riv - is more simply translated as "argument",
and the word "favor" - tehdar - I might translate as "make more
wonderful or enhance". So I might translate the passage as: "and you
will not enhance [the testimony] of the weak, in an
argument"
So it is the disadvantaged generally
that the passage applies to and it is arguments generally that the
passage applies to. So you are not allowed to glorify the disadvantaged
beyond what reality shows -- no absurd accounts of the glories of
African history, for instance. Truth is paramount -- not the distorted
and selective truth that is the stock in trade of the Left (Noam Chomsky
take a bow).
You can see the original Hebrew (with accompanying
translation) here.
posted by jonjayray 8:12
AM
