J: “Who were the Samaritans?”
J: “Why can't different religions coexist without hating each other?”
G: “Why is it that the majority of Christians are so convinced we need to convert everyone to 'our' faith?”
Dear J, J, & G, thanks for helping me keep this Q&R thing going.
I recently read Jason Staples’ brilliant book ‘The idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism’ and I’m keen to tell you about it. After all, if your family are going to mock you for your reading choices, the least you can do is write about them. It really is a good book though. Dense, but good.
“Jason is the real deal,” someone else told me recently. I suppose I should have asked what that meant. But I think it meant, ‘he knows what he’s talking about.’
At one point Staples says that “The bible is the great metanarrative of deportation, exile, and potential return.” Steady now Jason. It’s too early for this.
In other words there is a constant yearning, throughout the old books, for the (impossible) restoration of the hopelessly destroyed Israel. Everyone’s gone - but we want them back! It’s the valley of dry bones, if you know that passage. Can these bones live? Nope. But understanding that this restoration was the desperate hope of the writers helps to explain a lot of the weirdness of the Bible.
Staples helpfully reminds us that ‘The Jews’ in the New Testament are the descendants of the people who came back from exile in Babylon ca 536 BCE. Specifically that is people from the ‘Southern Kingdom’ - the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and some of the tribe of Levi. The others, the ‘lost’ ten tribes from the North are long gone - they are ‘East of the Euphrates’. Disappeared mate.
So the people who came back from Babylon, when they came back, had to deal with ‘the people of the land’. The people who were still there. Many of these people were still ‘Yahwists’ - in other words they are descended from the Israelite tribes who were deported, so they worshipped the same God, but they were mainly intermarried and interbred with other indigenous peoples.
It becomes really important for the Jews of the first century to demonstrate the purity of their lineage - and show that they are legit, not interbred. You can see that ‘Matthew’ does this for Jesus at the start of his gospel. ‘Directly descended from David mate, allow me to demonstrate.’
The people of the land had a different set of practises and to some extent beliefs about the way God should be worshipped, where the temple should be, etc. Some of these people, then, are the ‘Samaritans’ of the gospel stories. Close relations, worshipped the same God, but they weren’t legit according to the purity codes of the Judaism of the time.
Societies develop purity codes to perpetuate and protect themselves. So it’s fear, then, that drives people to form distinct groups and to fight with other distinct groups. Fear of losing our lives, property, or identity causes us to fight off threats. Notice how, so often, the religion that another religion hates is the one most like them.
As for the conversion thing, well I don’t know if it’s the majority of Christians, but certainly a lot of people are keen to make converts. The funny thing is that the Bible doesn’t seem to be too hot on this. Similes of ‘yeast’ or ‘salt’ seem to indicate that a small thing in a much larger mixture is what’s required. Too much salt is toxic, after all. And you can’t make bread if all you have is yeast. Disciples yes, but converts?
But I guess there are multiple reasons at play in the drive to make converts - often these overlap: for some there’s a genuine belief that a ‘non-believer’ is destined for eternal torture and must, for their own sake, be saved; for some a real sense that ‘their way’ is the very best - better than all the rest; for others a sense that if only everyone could become like them the world would be harmonious.
According to their own internal logic these three motives are actually quite reasonable, they’re not selfish or self serving. There are others though, and again they may overlap with the noble ones, fundamentally many of these are based on fear - for instance for some there may be a sense of reluctant duty at play, a real idea that this is something they ‘must’ do in order to be in with a chance of an eternal reward.
So yes, a lot of this is about fear. A quest for survival. Protect yourself at all costs. Even if it involves knocking on people’s doors to argue with them about theology. Ironically the Bible is quite clear about the need to ‘not fear’. Frightened people don’t, usually, make the best decisions though.
Can you send me a question? It doesn’t need to be serious, it can be anything. Questions give me something to write about, something other than the laundry that is. Hit reply to this email to ask your question.