“I listened to Fr. Mike already,” I told K this morning. I listened to the Bible in a Year podcast while making lunch and breakfast. It’s the best time for me to listen to it: K is taking a shower, and usually I’m alone.

“Was it interesting?”

“Well, more killing, killing, killing.”

Today, Fr. Mike covered Leviticus 24, and verses 10-16, in particular, stood out to me:

Now an Israelite woman’s son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel quarreled in the camp, and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. And they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelo′mith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in custody, till the will of the Lord should be declared to them.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Bring out of the camp him who cursed; and let all who heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.  And say to the people of Israel, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. He who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him; the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

It struck me that this is a particularly tricky passage because there’s no set definition for blasphemy. Sure, the Israelites would have codified some definition of blasphemy, but ultimately, it’s a relative thing. Just look at the definition the Oxford dictionary provides: “the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.” Sacrilege is simply profane talk: treating something that is sacred as if it were not. If that’s the case, then even highly religious people commit blasphemy all the time — in someone’s eyes. It seems that if God wanted to make sure that people weren’t getting stoned for saying “gosh,” which is really a euphemism for “God,” that this ultimate punishment was saved for at least a more heavy-handed approach, like calling someone a God-damned idiot. (Would that be blasphemy? I was just using the term to quote a hypothetical person in a hypothetical situation — but is that blasphemy?)