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If Not Empire, What? a Survey of the Bible

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If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible Berry Friesen John K. Stoner www.bible-and-empire.net CreateSpace December 2014 2 If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible Copyright © 2014 by Berry Friesen and John K. Stoner The content of this book may be reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For more information, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ International Standard Book Number: 978-0692344781 For Library of Congress information, contact the authors. Bible quotations unless otherwise noted are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Cover design by Judith Rempel Smucker. For information or to correspond with the authors, send email to [email protected] Bound or electronic copies of this book may be obtained from www.amazon.com. The entire content also is available in PDF format reader at www.bible-and-empire.net. For the sake of concordance with our PDF edition, the page numbering in this book begins with the title page. Published in cooperation with CreateSpace, DBA On-Demand Publishing, LLC December 2014 If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible 3 *** Naboth owned a vineyard beside the palace grounds; the king asked to buy it. Naboth refused, saying, “This land is my ancestral inheritance; YHWH would not want me to sell my heritage.” This angered the king. Not only had Naboth refused to sell, he had invoked his god as his reason. The king’s wife told him to cheer up. “You’re king of Israel,” she said. “I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard.” The queen approached the leaders of Naboth’s town. “The nation is under threat,” she confided; “the king’s security staff suspect Naboth. He must be killed without involving the king.” The town’s leaders convened an official inquiry and summoned Naboth to appear. Two witnesses accused him of disloyalty to god-and-the-king. So the townspeople killed Naboth with stones. When the queen heard Naboth was dead, she said to the king: “Remember that guy who wouldn’t sell his vineyard? Apparently he died and his property is available.” So the king took possession of Naboth’s vineyard. Then Elijah the Tishbite heard the word of YHWH, saying: “Go to Naboth’s vineyard; there you will find the king, who has taken it for himself. Confront him about his violence and his greed.” Authors’ paraphrase of 1 Kings 21:1–19 4 If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible Table of Contents Preface 7 PART I: The Worldview of Biblical Writers 11 1. A Particular God 13 2. The Voice of YHWH 19 3. A Heavenless Faith 22 4. The Story of a People 25 5. A Pilgrimage of Nations 29 6. Resistance to Empire 33 7. A Good Society 39 PART II: The First Testament Writings 43 8. In the Beginning 46 9. A Subversive God 55 10. Life Beyond the Empire (Part A) 71 11. Possessing the Land (or not) 89 12. Israel Like the Nations 99 13. Speaking Inconvenient Truth 124 14. Finding YHWH in Babylon 151 15. Collaboration with the Empire 168 16. Beyond State, Tribe or Ritual 185 17. Living Wisely (Part A) 201 18. Despair, Praise, Exultation 212 PART III: The Second Testament Writings 217 19. Who is this Man Called Jesus? 219 20. Jesus, One with YHWH 239 21. A New Political Community 248 22. Life Beyond the Empire (Part B) 268 23. Living Wisely (Part B) 319 24. Steadfast Resistance and Faithful Witness 324 25. So What? 336 PART IV. Praying Biblical Texts 341 Bibliography 347 Discussion Questions: 42, 88, 149, 200, 216, 246, 267, 322, 339 If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible 5 Book Finder: Number refers to page where discussion begins. First Testament Genesis 1–11 46 Ecclesiastes 201 Genesis 12–50 55 Song of Solomon 207 Exodus 1–15 56 Isaiah 1–39 132 Exodus 16–40 72 Isaiah 40–55 161 Leviticus 77 Isaiah 56–66 187 Numbers 80 Jeremiah 142 Deuteronomy 84 Lamentations 212 Joshua 90 Ezekiel 152 Judges 92 Daniel 1–6 157 Ruth 190 Daniel 7–12 197 1 Samuel 1–12 96 Hosea 129 1 Samuel 13–31 103 Joel 194 2 Samuel 103 Amos 128 1 Kings 1–10 103 Obadiah 127 1 Kings 11–22 108 Jonah 192 2 Kings 108 Micah 135 1 Chronicles 122 Nahum 139 2 Chronicles 123 Habakkuk 140 Ezra 170 Zephaniah 137 Nehemiah 178 Haggai 172 Esther 165 Zechariah 1–8 173 Job 203 Zechariah 9–14 196 Psalms 213 Malachi 182 Proverbs 208 Second Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke 219 1 Timothy 314 John 239 2 Timothy 297 Acts of the Apostles 248 Titus 315 Romans 289 Philemon 282 1 Corinthians 274 Hebrews 303 2 Corinthians 287 James 319 Galatians 270 1 Peter 311 Ephesians 299 2 Peter 317 Philippians 293 1, 2, 3 John 307 Colossians 283 Jude 306 1 Thessalonians 273 Revelation to John 324 2 Thessalonians 309 6 If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible *** As authors, we are simply asking people to read the Bible the way it was written—as a collection of arguments about life, love and power. Especially, we ask people to pay attention to the big argument, whether God created the world to work by the imperial paradigm of domination and homicidal power or by the peasant-and-commoner vision of compassion and community. *** If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible 7 Preface Most people simply want “a life:” loving relationships, satisfying work, a creative outlet and occasional encounters with the spiritual dimension of the cosmos. They do not want to bother with the empire, its devices and deceptions. Life is too sweet, too fragile, too short to waste on such matters. Or so it seems, at least in our corner, the United States of America (USA). Yet trends within our era require us to pay attention to where the empire is taking us. We live in natural environments with shrinking space for habitation, in market economies that consume our future while giving back less and less, and in political entities that treat everyday people as somehow suspect. War, deception and arrangements that enrich the few at the expense of the many have become routine. The policies of the empire drive these trends, even while its leaders claim to be our salvation. And so we must deal with the empire and its way of running the world; ignoring it is no longer an option. We can give ourselves to the imperial project and try our best to swim toward the top of its destructive tide, or we can accommodate part of it while maintaining a foothold in another reality. Or we can join the resistance and create an alternative. By “empire” we mean a system of coordinated control that enriches itself through overwhelming socio-economic and military power at the global level. An empire justifies its violence and greed by morally powerful stories about evil and by potent myths and religious beliefs related to divine purpose and the tragic complexity of life. It portrays itself as the primary source of security and peace in the world. The biblical saga introduces another understanding of power for organizing human life, one that operates by truth-telling and compassion, forgiveness and opportunities to try again, empowerment at the base and varied ways of coping with the challenges of living. Jesus called this multi-voiced, nonviolent yet pro-active approach the kingdom, or empire, of God. 8 If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible The story of Jesus and his message of the kingdom of God has been, for good and ill, the most influential story of human history. It illuminates the story of YHWH, the god of the Hebrew people (throughout—though not exclusively—we use this name YHWH, which signifies a refusal to be named, and “god” as a generic term signifying a being or thing that is worshipped). But this story is not nearly as religious as that description makes it seem. As it turns out, Jesus and his god are all about saving the world (John 3:17), not metaphysically or by miraculous intervention in human affairs, but through communities of people whose ways of living on Earth are just, liberating and sustainable. The process of finding and following those ways of living is what we mean by “political.” In our time, such communities challenge three commonly-held assumptions that are leading us toward the destruction of human life on Earth. The first is that marketplace indicators are virtually laws of nature, like gravity. The second is that of all available options, an imperial arrangement of power is the best way to organize the world and avoid chaos. The third is that life for individuals after death is what is really important; life on Earth is only of passing significance. The Bible speaks to these assumptions in a variety of voices and not all agree with one another. Yet on balance, the biblical message subverts these three assumptions. It insists the market must serve humanity, not we the market. It rejects the claim that the violence and domination of the empire lead to a just, liberating and sustainable life. It promises not immortality in heaven or hell for each individual, but hope for resurrection after death to a renewed Earth.
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