The Rabbi

God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570–1215 by David Lewis

A very intense 379 pages demonstrating Lewis’s grasp of people and events played out over Iberian peninsula immediately after Rome’s fall until the Renascence. He aptly develops the observation that religious intolerance governs over time; any enlightenment wherein contrasting religions peacefully co-exist quickly time out because one or the other’s fundamentalist evangelism becomes politically motivated—save them or kill them. Politics and religion do not mix; it’s too bad that politics and religious people cannot.
There is so much of interest, I highly recommend that one read the book, but several events demand a sentence or two. First, the year is 732 the Saracens called for another jihad to expand their geographical holdings, which then would permit the presentation of Allah’s gospel coupled with the offer of tolerant co-existence for those not seeing the light. Charles Martel of Austrasia (the Hammer by popular designation) thought otherwise: Christendom ends if Islam penetrates the Pyrenees. After much testing of capabilities Charles phalanexed his shielded and armored infantry into an impenetrable block that ever so slowly decimated wave after wave of Saracen heavy and light cavalry. Whereupon Charles unleashed his heavy horse turned the tide to victory. Here Lewis shows the breadth of his learning, speculating whether his battle actually saved Christian Europe as so many claim. That saved turned out to be an aristocratic Europe fraught with religious wars, backward economics, and manned by an ignorant serf population at least 300 years behind the technological Muslims with their Jewish and Christian co-existent populations a mountain pass to the south. Something worth thinking about, especially today as the Muslim invasion of Europe is succeeding, but one seeking a freedom and civilization not available from where they come.
‘Abd al-Rahman (756-788) mirrors the future kingdom of Jesus—an enlightened despot, severely judging his enemies but compassionately dealing with those accept his rulership. A poet with some skill, he frequented the Friday mosque service offering messages to the faithful. His building of the great mosque at Cordoba demonstrates a subtle architecture Christians were not able to grasp for centuries. (low-church architecture always puzzles me).
Several golden ages seemed to have occurred in the Andalusian period. During the caliphate of ‘Abd al-Rahman III inspired by the prince or nasi of the Cordoban Jews, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, classical Greek knowledge, lost with the fall of Rome, entered into Iberia in Arabic translation. These would form the basis of western education long afterward until science caught up to where the Greeks had been and the Arabs with their Jewish intellectuals were.
Lewis ends interestingly with the enlightened philosophers Musa ibn Maymun, Maimonides, and Ibn Rushd, Averroes, who lived past the times of enlightenment in the period of Almohad fundamentalism. Both Aristotelian, far to the left for political sanction, for safety neither remained in Iberia. Winds of change, religious fervor blew critical thinking off the Andalusian plain. A good question to ask: does it always? does it have to? may the two peacefully co-exist?

CETC Newsletter 2008 vol 12.2 by Michael Lessard-Clouston

Other than refreshing my memory (which begins to show its age) of Hirsch's New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: what every American needs to know (I will encourage my students to read this excellent work),L-C records that 57% of his respondents claim that Christianity has influenced the English language. So on the plane to Denver, I start thinking: I wonder what translation of the bible those who so answered read? In such a survey one could almost guarantee that the answer would be one of the newer translations, in contemporary English.

What does such a survey say of the future of the KJV? Rather simple, it's no longer culturally relevant! Not that it's by any means not a good translation, just that it does not relate to any reader of English: ie, its Elizabethan English not contemporary English. That has to mean something. If KJV only people want to continue to propagate by more than physical birth, they will have (are having) a major struggle in that they have to teach the ignorant how to read prior to giving them the bible to read.

I, Jeremiah, picture what Judah must do to survive in the land: I walk around like an ox yoked ready for the plow.
Alive, yes; free, no (my enemies—those who refuse to listen to my messages—put me into the stocks; my G-d into the yoke; is there a difference?

the message yhwh wants broadcasted pains
he has given Judah and her neighbors into the hands
of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon
If all these nations peacefully surrender, survival awaits,
but if they fight, sword, famine, and pestilence, inevitable death,
what an option!—but then eventually yhwh’s mercy grows thin

the prophets cry peace, deliverance, return of those
Nebuchadnezzar had already taken away
So I challenge them, as Elijah of old: you say
all will be returned; I say more will be taken
G-d agrees with you but worse must come first

I, Jeremiah, have always wondered about Hananiah
was he just trying to help?
were his words meant to encourage?
was he more than the king’s yes-man?

Hananiah spoke of peace, justifying the behavior
of king, priest, and wealthy.
Thus said yhwh: within two years all will return,
for I will break Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke

Being there I had to reply, though I offer nothing hopeful
nor new: I agree, may yhwh return all, temple vessels included:
but that misses the mark. G-d gave Torah to guide, so that he
may bless, but he sent prophets to speak correction, not peace

The crowd gets my point, as Hananiah counters
dramatically taking my yoke upon himself and
breaking it: as I broke this so yhwh will break the
yoke of Nebuchadnezzar—the drama wins the audience
I leave defeated

then the vision comes, overwhelming me, G-d
has not spoken through Hananiah, rather
Hananiah’s presumption increases the severity
of yhwh’s judgment

G-d sends me to Hananiah: yhwh has not sent you,
because you convinced the people to trust in a lie,
you will die soon. Two months later, Hananiah died;
it caused a stir; but no one considered G-d’s
involvement, no one listened no one ever listens

I, Jeremiah, accepted death row—yhwh calls it protection, I persecution

I spoke his words: follow Torah or suffer
its consequences; obey the prophetic word—it has
been consistently spoken, it has been consistently
ignored—or Solomon’s temple will look like Shiloh’s ruin,
while Jerusalem becomes a proverbial curse:
may god destroy this city as yhwh did to Jerusalem

Before my mouth closed people accosted me with
murderous intent, hauling me away to jail to await trial

All come when the judges convened,
the odds were against me; many witnessed
my threatening words—blasphemy to them
In defense I restated my message: if you repent G-d
will be compassionate toward Jerusalem; then I
claimed innocence: killing me will only make it worse
for you—my words are G-d’s words

Several argued to vindicate my claim: Jeremiah
resembles Micah of old; who not only was not executed
but rather Hezekiah listened, repented, and G-d forgave,
removing his avenging sword before it destroyed

Others against me: has not Jehoiakim already silenced
through death Uriah ben Shemaiah who likewise spoke
against this city?

In the end Ahikam persuaded, I yet survive for another day
Life with yhwh: G-d demands so much, always provides,
but never consider life without him

Jeremiah 30—restoration?

I, Jeremiah, G-d commands to write as well as
speak. Speaking yhwh’s words directs a specific audience,
writing preserves for future generations—problems repeat,
solutions remain consistent. I offer prosperity, someday—sad
because I present what Moses did: the land flowing with
milk and honey, a land blessed by G-d who intimately
guides his people, loves them, and protects then—it was
all theirs, but they gave it up—lack of trust, sensual
pleasure, pride of knowing as G-d. So I write hoping that
my people or at least those who eventually hear the words of
this epistle will learn so as not to fall as their fathers.

I, Jeremiah, now feel the distress that
soon yhwh will enact upon my people. Perhaps
Dante’s words would be do better justice to the situation
than mine, but I know that mere words hardly ever
influence; lessons are only learned by experience. Then
yhwh envisioned these words:
I am with you to deliver you—but at what terrible cost!

I, Jeremiah, in a moment of wild speculation peer into
G-d’s heart attempting to understand his hurt, that which
results from his identifying with Israel, my disobedient
people—but his covenantal ones

will these downward cycles ever end?
how low must G-d stoop until the lesson’s learned—it
requires more than my imagination to conceive blessing after
exile. yhwh’s hesed defies comprehension. Yet he has
and continues to speak words of commitment:
I (am) shall be your god;
you (are) shall be my people

All begs understanding only upon realizing the other side of
G-d’s unleashed hell-on-earth will all make sense—being
G-d’s people does not obviate accountability

Jeremiah 29 the (delayed) future

In a way Hananiah the prophet correctly anticipated
G-d benevolence, he would return his people to his
land—but as usual
G-d sets the time not them, and
he defines the standards not them, because
yhwh never negotiates the deal

Hananiah was not the only prophet
telling of yhwh’s deliverance,
several lived among the exiles with the king,
skilled workers, and priests in Babylon

In response G-d directs that I send his exilic community
a letter to combat those spreading
Hananiah-like messages of hope.
Not that I would offer hope, rather I stated that
70 years must pass before hope would become realized;
after all G-d had staked his reputation on bringing them
home—a new exodus, similar to the first, would occur.

It took me a while to figure out how to express
his vision, but here’s what I came up with:

70 years are like 40 years—a wilderness experience
built around the perfecting number 7. One cannot
initiate an exodus with those tied to the past.

Only G-d initiates exodus—Hezekiah and Josiah
were good, but only an “I am yhwh” self disclosure
moves the blind, lame, and deaf.

But then there is the end of those 70 years,
and as a result of yhwh’s 2nd coming the exiles
will call upon him confessing sin while boldly
claiming that he keep his promise of restoration

Finally in demonstration of a mercy not humanly
perceived yhwh stoops to allow himself to be
found by them; such behavior defies that
expected of the other side.

The letter was sent—most refused to listen,
choosing to cling to an oriented past stabilized life
that the risk of re-orientation denies.

Before ending I, Jeremiah, ponder the present
considering life in between now and then; all of
course relish the good old days, but why seek
solution to present problems in a dead past
rather than a hopeful future? For those waiting in Babylonian
exile life is tolerable; but for me living in Jerusalem
between an angry G-d and his disobedient people
I find myself on an ever thinning ice with only
warmer weather on the horizon.