The Jesus Delusion (eBook)

1THE EMBARRASSING GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Non-Christians might well ask first of all: what sense can I make of an old God? And why all the fuss over a few ancient texts? But the texts are not limited in time to Antiquity. Even today, the Churches still indefatigably recommend reading the Bible, children in schools and in religious instruction are still confronted with these texts, and a life according to “biblical principles” is still something that pious folk and the orthodox strive for. But the biblical writings, in their concepts of God and man, cannot be reconciled with humane and liberal principles.

The largely positive picture of the Bible is due mainly to the fact that we take it on board only in fragments. The faithful are offered a bowdlerized version by the Churches, a selection from the texts that is meant to feed the faithful only those passages that are easy to digest. A juicy roast is sold to the faithful as a vegetarian meal because of its vegetable garnishment. This is the mining technique, used consciously by the Churches but also unconsciously by Bible readers: they pick out edifying and positive passages and filter out whatever does not fit into their view of things.

Jesus of Nazareth the man is of central significance for Christians. If they understand him, people think they have understood the Bible, even the Old Testament. In later chapters of this book we will deal in detail with Jesus of Nazareth, about whom there is quite a bit to be said. But before turning to the alleged Son, let us look first at the alleged Father, the God of the Old Testament.

Yahweh – God of war and violence

Despite all the whitewashing by the Churches, and to their embarrassment, the God of the Old Testament comes across as a war god in numerous passages. Yahweh is the one who leads the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt and from whom they receive the land of Palestine, which of course they have to take from its rightful owners. God’s favors to Israel often come in war. And the God Yahweh still has a completely naive relation to war and murder. He does not just permit wars of aggression and extermination, he explicitly orders them. That God seems to have no ethical scruples; gentlemanly restraint is not his style. God is the Lord of Sebaoth, the God of hosts, which the Churches (they still use the title today) now like to refer to as “the heavenly hosts”, but which in the original meaning describes a bunch of warriors. Yahweh was a god of war.

The wars that Yahweh calls on his people to fight are then, of course, holy wars, and Israel’s victories in battle are signs of his power. He himself joins in the fight. Before the crossing of the Jordan we read:1

Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee (Deuteronomy 9:3).

The taking of the land is understood by Jews and Christians alike as a blessing from God. From today’s point of view it was clearly a campaign of conquest and extermination and was marked by extraordinary cruelty, yet it is justified on religious grounds.

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: (Deuteronomy 20:10–16)

Before the invasion of Palestine by the Israelites we read in another passage:

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee (Deuteronomy 7:1–2, 5, 16).

The Old Testament is full of such passages in which Yahweh summons his people to war and extermination. And the people demonstrate their obedience precisely by fulfilling the divine bloodlust.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites (…) And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (Numbers 31:1–2, 7–10, 15–18).

Religious heroes like Moses and Joshua turn out to be war criminals from today’s point of view; in their religious delusion they see themselves as instruments of their God. Moses can sing:

I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy (Deuteronomy 32, 42).

It is incomprehensible that the Bible, despite such unbridled fantasies of violence, is still considered a moral authority, or that pious parents still make their children read it. Religious heroes can easily obstruct the development of a humane ethic. Richard Dawkins writes in his book, The God Delusion, of an experiment with more than 1,000 students in Israel aged between eight and fourteen to whom the report on the battle for Jericho was read out:

And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD. So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her. And the young men that were spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had; and they brought out all her kindred, and left them without the camp of Israel. And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.(Joshua 6:16–24).

The students were then asked whether Joshua and the Israelites had acted properly. Two thirds of the children thought their actions were proper. God had ordered it, and the people in Jericho in any case followed another religion; those justifications came from the children. For Israeli students Joshua is simply a hero of the people; their religion has hammered that into them. Hence his deeds were not only excusable, but just. The results from a control group of 186 Israeli students...