Cain and Abel, Redux

I just finished watching The Proposition. It's the most emotionally devastating movie I've seen this year. Nick Cave--singer, songwriter, Australian--wrote the screenplay about a family of outlaws during the attempted "civilization" of the Outback.

Guy Pearce, who I've not seen in anything significant since Memento, plays the lead, a middle brother emotionally torn between his idiot younger brother and sociopathic older brother. The proposition, made to Pearce's character, Charlie Burns, by a cop, played incredibly well by Ray Winstone, is to kill his older brother in order to save his younger brother from the gallows. The execution is set for Christmas and the proposition is made nine days before Christmas.

I've seldom seen a movie that so ably critiques sacred violence. There is a sequence in the middle of the movie that features the flogging of Charlie's younger brother. The community comes together to witness the example of retributive justice. Mel Gibson tried for the same effect with his flogging of Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ, but where Gibson's pornograhpy fails due to its overtly evangelistic message, Hillcoat's (director) treatment works precisely because we're set up to view the horror through the eyes of a "good" person, Emily Watson playing Winstone's delicate but morally upright wife. She places her husband in the position of choosing between her and the criminal, and the full effects of her Faustian bargain are made apparent with a straightforward portrayal of communal participation in would-be redemptive violence that relies surprisingly little on the pornographic violence and gore to which Gibson resorted.

The flogging proves to be the climax of the film; all else is a denouement that spirals into uncontrollable violence and a choice that robs all the actors of their "souls." Of the brothers, one begs to be delivered from the cycle of evil, and one realizes that passivity in the face of evil is not a choice; in the exercise of violence, both are transformed into something less than human. Winstone, who makes the original Faustian proposition, reaps the full effects of his decision to bargain using tenuous categories of good and evil. Violence begets violence; the devil usually determines the outcome of wagers involving the human soul; and, redemption is not possible once the grammar of violence is taken up.

Comments

[Dallas Tim]

Your comments beg the question: What is violence and what is redemption?

I have my views (based on the Bible) Others may consider their views Scriptual as well, but have different ideas that mine.

Would spanking a child be considered violent?

What about Sports? Boxing, Hockey, etc...?

Many people consider what happened in Japan at the end of WWII to be very redemptive in that it spared countless American lives in a war that we didn't start. I'm sure the Japanese feel very differently.

Again, it all depends on what your understanding of the terms discussed happens to be. I'm not arguing that my views are always correct, I'm just saying lots of people think that everyone else uses/interprets terminology in the same way and that's not always true. I'm just as guilty as the rest.

[Zossima]

Greg, I love that last sentence, "redemption is not possible once the grammar of violence is taken up." Even speaking in violent terms destroys redemption. Oh, that we would all come to believe that one. I think Jesus acknowledged that when he said, "Whoever calls his brother a fool is in danger of gehenna."

[Zossima]

Gonna have to go read some Girard now.

[greg]

Tim,

If you think murdering a few hundred thousand innocent women and children as we did at the end of the WWII was redemptive, there is very little I can say to you about scapegoating and non-violent redemption that you would believe.

[Dallas Tim]

Greg,

So my views conflict with your views? What's new?

That was exactly my point. I wasn't trying to argue about the "correctness" of what happened in Japan. My point is, from what platform do we derive our understanding of those terms?

I'll guaran-damn-tee you that the Japanese understand what we did. They flew Kamakazis into our ships so that they would achieve some sort of hereafter bliss by sacrificing their own lives for the greater cause. That's redemptive. The idea of death leading to life is not a uniquely American (or even Christian) idea.

Are you saying that you believe what you believe because of a Christian worldview. Or do you feel that your interpretation comes from just a "Common sense" approach.

It may not always be pretty, but violence does have a purpose. It's often wrong, but not always, especially when it's a part of God's plan. Jesus preached peace and forgiveness on a personal level. He also made very clear that He would soon be judging and punishing wickedness fully and completely. (Luke 12:49-53)

[greg]

Tim,

Your point appears to be that the definition of the word redemption is contextual. Yet you think of me as a liberal. Interesting.

As far as your Luke citation goes, it's dealing with divisions among friends and family because of the kingdom. Has nothing to do with judgment.

And God doesn't use violence, even in the Christ event. He submits to violence to overthrow it.

[cheek]

This is the great tragedy of substitution theology. If you believe the Cross to simply be God's way of satisfying his own blood lust, then you allow yourself to take a pass on the poetry of the Gospel, in which Jesus steals the metaphor of the radically violent and subverts it, demonstrating that only by refusing to participate in the cycle of this world's powers can you join the revolution that he came to incite. He had his chance to start the violent revolution most of his followers were waiting for when he road into Jerusalem and again when Peter tried to start a fight in Gethsemane, but instead he chose submission and redemption. If, however, one believes that he just submitted because he knew God needed to kill somebody, then the whole narrative comes crashing down and we get people like Falwell and Robertson and Mohler spouting their "War is Peace" rubbish in the name of God's thesis on non-violence.

[Dallas Tim]

Greg/Cheek,

What happened in Egypt when God sent the "Death Angel" to take the lives of the first-born? Oh yeah, that didn't really happen. What happened to the Israelites who complained in the desert and were then killed by firey serpents that God sent as judgement. I know, it didn't happen either. Did God really tell Jonah that He would be destroying Nineveh if they didn't get their act together? Of course not. What about Revelation? There's some pretty violent terminology used there regarding God's dealing with the wicked. In fact Jesus is the one coming to mete out the punishment, and He's not coming as a humble servant, but as a fierce warrior, ready to destroy everyone who stands in His way.

Of course you may not suscribe to Revelation, or to Jesus' numerous parables about God's coming judgement on the wicked.

God has a standard. He explained it all in the OT. You can call it "Blood-lust" since that makes it easier for you to dismiss (like most straw-man arguments do) but Jesus made it clear that He was here (the first time) to be a sacrifice for His people. It was the ultimate act of love. It was the ultimate act of submission to the Father.

Please, before you attack my view of Scripture, please tell me why you would care about serving a God was powerless to keep His own Son from suffering what Jesus did in order to "subvert" a system.

Jesus wasn't forced into a corner because He had no choice. He willingly submitted to a plan that God ordained. Of course if God really didn't say/do all those things, then maybe I can just do/accept whatever works for me.

[greg]

Two larger questions, Tim. 1. Why would you serve a murderous God? 2. Why do you always begin your ethics with the OT?

Don't read "subvert a system" as a powerless statement. The principle is there in Scripture. Paul calls it overcoming principalities and powers. It's where we get Christus Victor atonement. Yes, another atonement theory in Paul despite your insistence that penal substitution is obvious.

Even assuming God sent a death angel (and let's not forget a lying spirit...God's a liar?), the question is not what God did then; it's what God does in Jesus. Even if you want to believe the blood-soaked narrative of the OT, you'll recognize that the rules have changed once Jesus shows up.

As for the violent imagery and language in Revelation, it's apocalyptic literature. It needs to be read as apocalyptic literature, unless you actually believe in flying scorpions the size of helicopters.

The argument Cheek and I are talking about is not a straw man. It's easier for you to dismiss it as such, or you just misunderstand what a straw man argument is. If God demands blood sacrifices, then he is in fact blood-thirsty or some other adjective that describes a pagan deity like Molech who required deaths to appease him. That's not a straw man, that's an inference from the text.

[starfan]

That is interesting insight, greg.

"If God demands blood sacrifices, then he is in fact blood-thirsty or some other adjective that describes a pagan deity like Molech who required deaths to appease him."

From what I read, it seems that you believe God's character changes from the OT to the NT. "Jesus came, so forget the rest." While, as you correctly imply, scripture must be read with several literary approaches, the fact is that it must still reconcile unto itself in order to have any authority. The fact that God USED, not submitted to, violence is clearly evident and does not have to so easily translate to him as having a lust for blood...that inference is your choice. God DID demand blood within a sacrificial system and the whole of the OT points directly at Christ becoming a replacement for that system. Christ came in order to fulfill God's law...not to simply live a good life of generosity and grace that we are to do our best to imitate. God's law demands death for sin...and Christ fulfilled that demand. We are to set out to live like Christ, but his example was not his only purpose.

We may think that's so unsensitive and not politically correct, but it's true. But, of course, this is all hogwash if we refuse to subscribe to the idea, on any level, of substitutionary atonement. From my perspective, it's just way to difficult to throw out so many themes, references, pointers, shadows, and scripture to believe otherwise.

[greg]

starfan,

No. I don't think God's character changes. I allowed that the view was possible if someone insists on some sort of "literal" reading of the text. I think most of hte OT is an attempt to grapple with who God is and how God acts. I see Jesus as the clarification for the discussion. With that in mind, you'll understand that I don't see God using violence, but rather submitting to it. Again, I am not opposed to the notion of substitution; I am opposed to penal substitution.

And it seems a simple inference to me that if a god demands blood, then the god is blood-thirsty or perverse or some other adjective. You can't simply say God's law demands blood for sin without asking the why behind that question. Why would God set up a system that demanded blood sacrifice? When we see people using sacrificial systems these days, we call them barbaric. Not so for YHWH. He gets a pass.

[Dallas Tim]

The Christus Victor is the same as the ransom, is the same as the Penal Substitution. They are NOT mutually exclusive terms. Paul very clearly states that Jesus "Took our place." He also says Jesus "Took captivity captive" and he used the ransom analogy as well. What dirves you to force an exclusive understanding of the atonement, when several different themes are achieved by the same act?

Jesus paid the price that God demanded... namely, death. To say that I must choose one of the terms as my only options is unwarranted.

Jesus started much of His ethic with the OT. The gospel writers referred to the OT, Paul did, Peter did, John the baptist did, the writer of Hebrews did, etc... You act as if I'm inventing some new way of interpretation. Jesus clearly stated that He came, not to change, but to fulfill. God's intent was the heart. That's why He said, in Jeremiah, that one day His children would have the law written on their hearts.

Jesus didn't change the rules, He just said, "It's the heart that God is concerned with. He sent me to make possible a way for you to 'kill' the flesh by your new life through Me."

Regarding Revelation, you can say it's apocalyptic all you want, but if I said I was fixin' to kick someone's arse, you might not think I was going to actually kick them in the posterior, but you would assume that I was about to get physically involved with them. There may not be big scorpions, but since John wasn't quite sure what he saw in the future, then he did the best he could with the terms of his day.

Regardless, it obvious enough at a plain reading that God is not happy about certain human actions and will be dealing with them with Holy wrath at some point in the future, just as He has in the past.

You mention a murderous God. The Bible clearly states (Paul in Romans for example) that God could kill all of us and be justified. Sorry that doesn't make you feel good, but (Biblical) murder is when someone's life is taken
by another who had no reason to take it. Again, according to Scripture, God made us and can do whatever He wants with us. Paul says God "Raised up Pharaoh just to destroy him." Paul isn't accusing God of murder, He's just dealing with people asking "How could God do that?"

You question my view of a God who kills. What about the God that is to weak to stop the killing? Which is worse?

[starfan]

Gotcha. I was thinking that could be a misunderstanding on my part, but I wanted to be sure as I haven't read all of your articles/essays.

Didn't Christ often refer to the law and prophets in his teaching? If most of the OT was simply an author's attempt to grapple with the character of God, I find it hard to believe that the Son of Man would so quickly use such writing as a foundation and reference for his earthly ministry.

Regarding God's USE of violence, doesn't Christ refer to the flood as a historical fact? What about his reference to Moses holding up the serpent? Sodom and Gomorrah? Are we to believe that Jesus was only telling stories here about man's grappling or that he was teaching that the Father was passively out for our good? I hope not.

For what other reason would Christ serve as a substitute/sacrifice if not as a requirement of God's justice? I'm not sure what other notion of substitution you might embrace.

[Zossima]

To argue all the logical flaws in D-Tim and starfan's thinking is just a waste of time. Their entire theological worldview starts from something completely untestable and unprovable: that the Bible is inerrant. (Guys, that was not a remotely common position until the 20th century. Yet somehow, the faith survived for 2000 years.) It's conveniently unassailable. Never mind the impossibility of explaining a god in the OT who sends lying spirits, causes Pharoah to do evil things, orders the murder of innocent babies, etc.

So, I won't go down that path.

But here's a question for D-Tim: Explain to me what is "redemptive" about Japanese kamikazes or US atomic bombs? I take it that for you, redemption merely means saving lives? (I won't bother pointing out that it is quite arguable that either action did indeed save lives.)

I take redemption in Scripture to so much more than saving a life. It is about being joined together in community, seated at the same table, sharing wealth and sharing burdens, and living in ways that invite others to the same feast and life.

I fail to see how suicide bombing or nuclear bombing or Ann Coulter wanting to kill the Arab leaders and convert Arab people to christianity accomplishes this. Violent language and violent action are 100% antithetical to redemption.

Honestly, you think way too little of the salvation of God in Christ Jesus. Throw your John "God caused Jesus to die" Piper away. Jesus death is a surrender to the forces of violence that overcomes violence. It is not God's violence against God; it is God's surrender to the violence of man in order to overcome it. There is no way that the violence of WWII or any age or a violence that would kill the Son of God fits with a biblical view of redemption.

[Streak]

You question my view of a God who kills. What about the God that is to weak to stop the killing? Which is worse?

Those are our only choices?

[greg]

Tim,

First, they're not the same. They are all theories of atonement, and I agree that they aren't always mutually exclusive. Again, you need to read what I'm writing, not what you think I'm writing. I have long said substitution is a valid atonement theory inasmuch as it means Jesus did something we couldn't do, but penal substitution inevitably leads to a blood-thirsty, murderous, childish deity.

Jesus does start with the OT, just not the parts you start with. He had nothing else to work with, by the way. We do. And he did change the OT. It's hard to conclude that the "you've heard it said...but I say to you" portions aren't clearly contradictory to the intent of the Mosaic Law. An eye for an eye and divorce are the most obvious examples. We've been through all of this before.

God might be justified in killing all of us, but if he resorted to that, he wouldn't be the same God that was revealed in Jesus Christ. That's why we start with Jesus, not the OT, because Jesus is the clearest picture of God we have.

I never said he was too weak to stop the killing, but perhaps you can explain the Holocaust. The Jews would like an explanation, that's why they speak of God's terrible silence. If he wasn't too weak to stop it, why didn't he? What about Aceh? A quarter of a million people gone in a flood. Wow. What was almighty God doing that day? You perhaps should pay more attention to what you believe than how you believe. That's a subject for an upcoming post though.

starfan,

No reason for Jesus not to use it. What other Scripture was there? And there are certainly portions that get God's character right. Portions that get it wrong too. And to refer to a story is not the same thing as to refer to the historicity of a story. That's a fallacy that Josh McDowell made up and evangelicals keep repeating. If you watch South Park and I say to you, remember when Cartman did x, you will know what I'm talking about and get my point. It won't enter into your mind that Cartman is an historical figure.

What other notion of substitution. Only Jesus could submit to the prevailing authorities with complete innocence. Legally and religiously, he's guilty according to the prevailing powers. But the judgment of God vindicates him and raises him from the dead to reveal a different grammar at work in the world. That's the version of substitution I'll buy.

Z,

I'm trying to learn to talk to people who hold the Scriptures in such high regard. Honestly, I used to use many of the same arguments, but I started paying more attention to what I believed and less to how (i.e., the Bible is our inerrant authority). That's a phrase I stole from Peter Rollins book "How (Not) to Speak of God," by the way. I'm convinced evangelicals and fundamentalists are more concerned with how they believe rather than the content. That's how they manage to hold so many contradictory ideas in tension without ever following the trajectory of their thoughts. If the Bible is inerrant, I must believe, however ridiculous the conclusions become.

By the way, Tim, you've never told me whether or not you allow your wife to speak in church or make her wear a head covering. I assume you do since you read the NT literally.

[Dallas Tim]

Zoss,

The Trinity wasn't really a codified concept either until much later, but that didn't mean no one believed it. If you're going to tell me that Orthodox Jews thought any less of the OT, than I do the entire Bible (i.e., that it was the DICTATED word of an infallible God, so much so that He stated that anyone who claimed to speak for Him but really didn't was to be killed) then you must be really into revisionist history.

The completed words and thoughts surrounding inerrancy may have taken shape over centuries, but even the NT writers themselves claim that the Scripture is the Word of God. His computer doesn't have any "delete" keys. You take that however you want, but I'll err on the side of caution.

You think that by playing along with a system that He opposed somehow overcame it? Why?

You're telling me He just died so that I can sit down with someone who feels like I do in community? I'm glad you have a new take on what redemption is. Paul said "He (God) made Him (Jesus) to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

Redemption is taking someone who is dead in sin and seperated from God and making them able to spend eternity with Him (at least that's what the Bible says).

What God does (including righteouss judgement) is not always nice and pretty.
Jesus begged God not to have to go to the cross. The veil of the temple was torn in half signifying that God had made possible a way for all men to come into His presence.

[greg]

Tim,

You're quoting Scriptures as if the meaning is evident. It's only evident to you because you've been taught to read it that way.

The Hebrews did not believe in inerrancy. That's why they felt free to redact the text over and over. The Torah was held in higher esteem, but even it was redacted.

[Dallas Tim]

You mean they redacted the text and left Jonah in there? Why? A talking Donkey? Are they serious? God killing children? What were they thinking!

Then they leave in where God says "You mess with what I've said and you'll die a slow painful death." How stupid can they be?

They claim to have carried the actual 10 commandments around in an "Ark." Sounds like they may have taken it seriously. They sure make their God look silly.

If the OT is just someone's "Best guess at what may have happened," then who cares? It's pointless to even consider.

[Leighton]

Tim,

You're quoting me there as though it's something Greg will agree with. It's not, though we have better things to do with our time than try to come to some consensus on that.

Furthermore, in context, even I don't agree that the OT is an early best guess at what actually happened in the Jewish past. That's not the point of those kinds of documents. Today when we look at history, we're tempted to throw out an entire biography of George Washington when we find out a minister decades later made up the story about the cherry tree that somehow made it into the text, but biographers in the first century were more concerned with communicating the story of the person's character, the essence of who they were, than with actual, literal, historical happenings.

FYI, if you look at the contemporaneous writings about scripture, the notion that we ought to preserve the text letter-for-letter as though it were penned by God didn't exist until the Masoretes in roughly the 2nd century BCE, and they talked about it like it was controversial. That gives about four centuries of transmission where either people didn't know to do it, or not everyone thought they should do it; longer if you go against the grain of scholarly consensus and argue that Moses actually wrote the Pentateuch.

[starfan]

Interesting approach, Zossima. I can see it now...every pre-20th century theological question being answered with a disclaimer: "That is, if you are one of the fools who believe the bible doesn't have errors." And then, all of a sudden in man's historical relationship with God, we get the radical idea that its teaching is without error.

greg,

You mention the redaction of the Torah as evidence that the Hebrews did not believe in inerrancy. Can you provide evidence where text was redacted as an effort to remove perceived error from scripture?

The tension that you speak of seems to be mistaken for error. We aren't to reduce the word to being so vague and powerless as to render us eternally unable to draw conclusions on its meaning.

[Dallas Tim]

Leighton,

Sorry, I wasn't trying to put word in you mouth. You say that the point is not to be factual as such, but more like a character study. If that's the case then God is a truly violent being.

Also, He specifically tells listeners to record, verbatim, what He says, in order to pass on to future generations (and if they don't there will be dire consequences).

I'm not sure where you get the notion that that's how we're to read the OT, but the concepts behind the text itself seem to militate against that idea.

[starfan]

Quick point of clarification:

My previous post is asking for evidence that an error in the original text was found and redacted...not redacting and correcting a translation error...or falsification that was added by the original author.

[Leighton]

Tim,

I agree--it really seems like stuff like (e.g.) the prohibition in Revelation against adding to or subtracting from the text (which you could interpret either as Rev. itself, or the NT, or the entire canon + deuterocanon with the same results as I'm about to mention) would really, really have kept people from adding and changing and deleting things, particularly if they believed even the letters themselves should be preserved. Yet the evidence is unambiguous not only that they didn't take precautions to ensure verbatim transcription, but that some changes are pretty clearly intentional. I can point you to a couple of texts by Metzger that deal with the evidence for NT documents in particular if you're interested. The cases for the OT are analogous in many ways, but more difficult to reconstruct given our paucity of source materials.

The point is, when intuitions built from readings of the text and the evidence of the physical texts themselves conflict, I tend to go with the physical texts. Scholarship would be a lot simpler if we could conclude from the fact that some texts say "Don't change me" that they weren't changed, but the fact of the matter is we can't; scribes throughout the centuries weren't that considerate of our ease of study, and copiers of Biblical texts were no exception (although descendants of the Masoretes do make it simpler in some ways).

[Leighton]

Also, my point was not that we ought to read texts in the OT a certain way, but rather that the authors and first communities in which the OT documents were alive felt no such compunctions about literal historical happenings in the same way we do today, so we can't legitimately expect them to have provided or sought such a record, or to call them dishonest for not doing something they never intended to do.