“That can be a very challenging, challenging reading,” Fr. Mike begins today’s commentary, which I take to mean something like, “It’s really tough to explain away these passages that seem so barbaric or seem so weirdly obsessed with relatively unimportant things. They seem to challenge the very goodness and wisdom of the god we worship.” The reading was Exodus 22 and Leviticus 15, and he says that the Exodus reading seems to be more commonsensical.
The first part of the chapter has to do with the laws of restitution — things like what to do if your bull gores another animal. That type of thing. Fr. Mike discusses these laws fairly quickly, and he’s probably right: they are fairly commonsensical in a way. These passages, Fr. Mike explains are “revealing something about God’s heart.” These are “the principles according to justice.”
What he says not a word about are the instructions in the latter half of the chapter, particularly the first set of so-called social and religious laws:
“If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall give the marriage present for her, and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equivalent to the marriage present for virgins.
“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
“Whoever lies with a beast shall be put to death.
“Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to the Lord only, shall be utterly destroyed.” (Exodus 22 16-20)
We’re to stone incorrigible children. We’re to stone witches. We’re to stone those who change religions. Stoning is such a brutal, barbaric punishment that the fact that not only does this god justify it (“I’d rather you not do it, but I guess if you do it in these situations it’s alright”) but simply commands it — that thought alone disqualifies this god of anything other than contempt from right-thinking people, from people who have a modicum of empathy and decency.
These are, remember, the “principles according to justice” instead of vengeance; this god is all about making sure the punishment fits the crime. So apparently, taking your child out, burying him to the waist, and bludgeoning him to death with stones is a just punishment. Stoning is appropriate for the imaginary crime of sorcery. And just as we see in Islam, the punishment for leaving the faith is — you guessed it — stoning.
Remember, too, that these things, according to Fr. Mike, “reveal something about God’s heart.” What it reveals to me is simple: this is not a just god; this is not a decent god.
But it is the god presented in the Bible, so all this behavior must be justified. We have to explain away this barbarity somehow. How does Fr. Mike justify it? Simple: he just doesn’t comment about it at all. Not a word about any of the commands to stone anyone. Not one word.
He does go into detail about the passage in Leviticus, which is what all we’re to do regarding menstruating women and semen-spilling men. It reads like this:
“And if a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water, and be unclean until the evening. And every garment and every skin on which the semen comes shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the evening. If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening. (Lev. 15.16-18)
This is what the creator of the universe, the ground of all being, is concerned with: what to do after a wet dream.
Fr. Mike explains it this way: “The bodily emissions are important why? Because life is in the blood. They’re important because they refer to very intrinsic and necessary parts of our relationships.” But why would there be rules about this? Fr. Mike explains,
[It] is because the body is sacred. The emissions of the body refer to life but also because this particular kind of emissions of the body have to do with sex, have to do with reproduction, have to do with relationships. […] There’s some kind of guidance, some kind of restraint again placed upon people when a) they are engaged in sexual acts with one another, and b) they’re in community with each other. And this is just part of the genius of God’s word. God’s word is saying “we’re going to show restrait.” And that restraint is not for restraint’s sake alone and also not like “oh, gross!” — that’s not what uncleanness means. Uncleanness simple means whether this is an issue of blood, an issue of seman, whaterver this is, those are things that can bring forth life. But because they bring forth life, we have to be careful around them. This is something that’s so important for us to rediscover in the twenty-first century that because there are things so connected to life we need to be careful around them.
What does that even mean? Why would we “be careful”? In what sense would we “be careful”? Is he talking about being careful with sex? I guess that’s what he means, but the Levitical passages aren’t solely about sex; they’re about menstruation and simply ejaculation (not necessarily during coitus). It all just becomes a big confusing bundle of squishy words that don’t seem to mean anything.
I feel like he’s just providing an answer that he knows, consciously or unconsciously, is vague but will communicate enough to reassure believers who are troubled by this passage. They might not even understand it, but it gives them something to calm their worries about this passage. I can even hear someone saying something like this, then appending it with, “I’m not sure I explained it right. Fr. Mike does it better. You should just listen to the podcast.”
Header image is a still from the film The Stoning of Soraya M.