Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Bible Study - Exodus - Killing All The Babies

On 02/14/10 I posted an article on Exodus in which I commented that I never taught my 9 children the vengeful, tribal, blood lust that is taught in Exodus, and yet I said that it is endemic in our culture, unfortunately.

I was reading Timothy Beal's new book entitled Biblical Literacy: The Essential Bible Stories Everyone Needs To Know, and I ran across this quote which he cites from Charlotte Bronte, in her book, Jane Eyre :

"My hopes were all dead - struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooding and glowing: they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive."

Dashed wishes, hopes, and dreams, compared to dead babies??

I don't know what to make of Jane's narcissistic reference to all the first born children of Egypt being killed by God in retaliation for Pharoah's enslavement of His favorite tribe.

It seems appallingly ridiculous like all the children which the United States has killed in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and excused as "collateral damage".

Does God justify His killing of all the first born children in Egypt as "collateral damage?"

No wonder the United States can behave in such unjust and callous ways when its citizens for the most part claim to be Jews and Christians who follow this God who not only behaves in this way but seems so righteous in doing so.

At any rate, the comparison of Jane Eyre's hopes, and dreams, and aspirations to all the dead children of Egypt strikes me as banally evil.

This is article #8 in a series on bible study.

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