Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Sep 30, 2022 2:52 pm
Noam Chomsky: Moral codes . . . You can find things in the traditional religions
which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean,
the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.
The God of the Bible—not only did he order His chosen people to
carry out literal genocide—I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the
last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because
hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to
cross the desert—not only did He do things like that, but, after all,
the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on
earth because some humans irritated Him. Thatʼs the story of Noah.
I mean, thatʼs beyond genocide—you donʼt know how to describe
this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy
every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing
two of each species to stay alive—thatʼs supposed to be gentle and
wonderful.
Chomsky seems to be criticizing God here. I mean, is the God mentioned above a God worthy of the total allegiance of every human being on Earth? Or, if this God truly exists, do we even have a choice as to whether or not to support it?
In regard to Chomsky, and having read many of his books and essays, there is not a metaphysical bone in his body and he describes himself as 'a child of the Enlightenment', so invested in rational, intelligible categories. His primary education was in yeshivas however and yet it has always seemed to me that if he absorbed anything from Judaism it was in the vein of social justice. Obviously, he has little conventional Jewish identity, is not a Zionist and within traditional Jewish communities he is often described as a 'self-hating Jew'.
Given his orientation the idea of God, the idea of a controlling or directing
entity, would be inconsiderable. So while he does say that there are many beautiful or constructive admonitions in Judaism and the Torah, it is obvious that the God depicted is the depiction of a lunatic. I am unsure how anyone else (except among the religiously faithful) could see it differently.
Possibly if Chomsky were pressed on the matter he would say that the Voice of God is handled by a priest-class and is their invention. So Chomsky, unless there is some hidden aspect to his personal belief I am unaware of, would define himself as an atheist. I doubt that such metaphysical speculation holds any real interest at all for him. It is simply no part of his focus.
Chomsky in the largest picture is a critique of power and power-dynamics. In any case that is a sort of reduction I have found useful. At one point I concluded that he was a sort of Machiavellian in the sense that he is very good at seeing directly into the issue of power and power-dynamics. He sees such things in their rawest forms and strips away
the stories of justification through which power defends what power does. He sees all political systems as power-management systems in which an élite holds power and attempts to justify that through rhetorical summersaults.
Within traditional Judaism (and you might have noticed this if you did watch the video I presented with snippets of Orthodox Rabbis expounding on their visions of the destiny of Jews as those chosen by God for a specific mission in this world)
the idea of the Amalekites is a central one. If you follow the thrust of the Story it is symbolically clear: all who oppose or block the Jewish Project (as defined by those religious men who represent, of course, the priest-class) are not just enemies but representations of a metaphysical force that opposes the establishment of Judaic supremacy. This was and is the entire purpose of Judaism. That is what being a chosen people
means. God is the director behind the scenes and yet enmeshed with all scenery (history). And there is a 'project' which is being brought to fruition and culmination.
The very curious thing in all of this is to see modern Christian Zionism in the light of this notion of terrestrial project. The Christian Zionists support of the Jewish Zionists and the reconquest of Judea is, literally, seen just as the first conquest was portrayed (that by Joshua in the book of Joshua). It is a
reenactment and an act that is sponsored and approved by god (obviously). The events of the 20th century, and the re-founding of Israel, have reenergized Jewish historical ambition (if I can put it in this way) and, in the minds of the religious, the idea of the culmination of the Jewish historical project. That involves re-securing Judea and expanding it to what is known as Greater Israel:
The Third Temple will be rebuilt and offerings and sacrificial religious life will resume. The Christian Zionists see themselves as 'God's helpers' in bringing these circumstances about. And the reason they can do this is because they believe in what is known as dispensationalism: two dispensations: one for the Gentiles and one for the Jews. It must be understood that *original Christianity* defined itself as a New Dispensation which excluded Jews and, in one sense, specific Jewish historical destiny. So when Jesus of Nazareth gave up his spirit:
And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
The Hebrew dispensation ended, and the rending of the temple cloth, the earthquake, and eventually the expulsion (again) from Judea which led to the Jewish Diaspora, all of this was 'divine punishment'. But it is important to realize that, from a Christian/Catholic perspective the authority of the Hebrews came to an end. Jews as 'the chosen' were
superseded. (This the doctrine of
supersessionism).
Supersessionism, also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology is a Christian theology which asserts that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant exclusive to the Jews. Supersessionist theology also holds that the universal Christian Church has succeeded ancient Israel as God's true Israel and that Christians have succeeded the ancient Israelites as the people of God.
As recently as 1943, Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Mystici corporis Christi:
By the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. ... [O]n the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees and fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race.
So the Christian story runs like this: The Jewish dispensation ended when, 'at the foot of the cross', Jews rejected the Messiah. And with the rejection of the Messiah, and this
inevitably, Jews were left within a 'project of rebellion'. That is to say that it was conceived that if one did not accept the Messiah and his project (for the world, for humanity) that one could not be
else but a rebel and a revolutionary. This was certainly the way that the idea of Hebrew rejection of the Messiah was understood. It really could not be taken in any other way given the metaphysical predicates within the idea-system.
The Jewish High Priests Annas and Caiphas did say: “If you come down from the cross, we will accept you as our Messiah.” But Jesus of Nazareth, of course, resolved to stay up there. But at a metaphysical level, of course, he did 'come down' but only be remaining true to his mission.
Turning back to the idea of
harem:
Herem or cherem (Hebrew: חרם, ḥērem), as used in the Tanakh, means something given over to Yahweh, or under a ban, and sometimes refers to things or persons to be utterly destroyed. The term has been explained in different and sometimes conflicting ways by different scholars. It has been defined as "a mode of secluding, and rendering harmless, anything imperilling the religious life of the nation", or "the total destruction of the enemy and his goods at the conclusion of a campaign", or "uncompromising consecration of property and dedication of the property to God without possibility of recall or redemption". It is translated into Latin as devotio, a word used for human sacrifice, and into Greek as anathema, which was a sacrifice to the Gods.
There is a related verb, heḥərîm (החרים), meaning "to treat as ḥērem", or "destroy utterly".
Joshua "carries out a systematic campaign against the civilians of Canaan — men, women and children — that amounts to genocide." In doing this he is carrying out herem as commanded by Yahweh in Deuteronomy 20:17: "You shall not leave alive anything that breathes". The purpose is to drive out and dispossess the Canaanites, with the implication that there are to be no treaties with the enemy, no mercy, and no intermarriage. "The extermination of the nations glorifies Yahweh as a warrior and promotes Israel's claim to the land," while their continued survival "explores the themes of disobedience and penalty and looks forward to the story told in Judges and Kings." The divine call for massacre at Jericho and elsewhere can be explained in terms of cultural norms (Israel was not the only Iron Age state to practice herem) and theology (a measure to ensure Israel's purity as well as the fulfillment of God's promise), but Patrick D. Miller in his commentary on Deuteronomy remarks, "there is no real way to make such reports palatable to the hearts and minds of contemporary readers and believers."
I believe that we need to see that the notion of the evolution of the world, and the transformation of the world, is a Core Idea that operates within the Occidental canon. Even if one is outside of religious belief (like Chomsky) nevertheless, and likely because we all absorb metaphysical ideas at a foundational level (a perceptual and thus a metaphysical level) that we
can't help but see the unfolding of reality in these ways. It is curious to realize that Nietzsche confronted this notion with his idea of Eternal Return. Not an evolutionary or culminating view of the unfolding of reality but a series of recurring circles.
But Chomsky, in many ways, and given his moral predicates, sees the world as coming to a fruition according to a 'design'. He sees language as *innate* in human beings and something that it genetic. Similarly, I have presumed he sees the fruition of history (in a socialistic world-civilization?) as also 'genetic'.