the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

To catch y'all up, first: 

- As I type this sentence, I have 12 days, 8 hours, and 31 minutes more of uniformed living. After that, I'm on permissive temporary duty for 20 days for job-seeking (although, what job I'm seeking remains to be determined), and then 77 days of terminal leave before I'm a complete civilian on 1 May 2016. 

- I've been scrambling to do the out-processing stuff I should have done months ago, such as medical outprocessing forms and the retirement physical, etc. To my friends who are retiring soon or at some yet undetermined point in the future from Our Majesty's Royal Air Force, take note: Get the medical history form and related documents filled out early, and get that ball rolling, even if you're still so busy you need a third hand to scratch yourself. Just do it. Trust me. 

- I'm finished with everything except running around to parts unknown and collecting signatures, but I will be back in the classroom at least three times between now and the 22nd of January, which is my "final out" date. That is, when I make my last call at the military personnel facility in uniform so they can give me their administrative blessing and release me to the winds, like a dandelion gone to seed. I'll get to teach some poetry to seniors for a friend (yes! :) ), and something-or-other (yet to be determined) to some freshmen about composition during my last week for another friend. It'll be fun. 

- What I'll do with my time after retirement...is...hm. I have lots of plans, but the first involves just boring myself. That's right. I want to be bored for a while, until I appreciate focus and work again. Y'know...I've done some off-the-cuff math, and I figure as follows: The average officer (at least) who has served 20 years in the military has done enough work for the average person who has worked 40 years. The final figure may vary a bit (for example, I was in NATO for two years, and the work slowed down to very little after my first few months there), but it's generally true. Officers are worked as needed with little or no thought to their personal lives and needs. It comes with the territory, as they say. So...yeah. I'm tired, people. I want to rest, and I want to be bored. 

- I'll bore myself with art--drawing, coloring, painting--and music. I'll read and write. We'll travel. I'll play with my nice camera, the pets, and my friends. 

Back to autodidacticism, though.

I've been listening to Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature and reading Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Oddly, both of them are focused a great deal on language.  

Asimov mainly focuses on the secular history underlying the stories of the bible. Yes, he was a science fiction writer, but he definitely did his research. He makes sense of much of Genesis which tends to confound the rest of us, offering plausible explanations for passages that most of us have probably never seen the point of. For example, the birth of Pharez and Zarah in Genesis 38, in which one child, Zarah, sticks his hand out of the birth canal and the midwife, assuming he'll be the first, ties a thread around the finger to mark him. However, he draws back his hand and his brother Pharez is born first.

Why would the writers preserve such a pointless tale? Haven't you wondered? 

Asimov points out that the brothers are eponyms for the two chief clans of the tribe of Judah, the Zerahites (or Zerathites) and the Perezites (or Pharzites), and that the birth story addresses early tribal history. That is, the Zerahites were dominant early, but the Perezites were eventually dominant. The birth story is just a shorthand way of preserving this early tribal history (and obviously written centuries after the fact, as attested by countless anachronisms in the book). 

But here's the thing I noticed a couple of days ago that really threw me for a loop. Asimov mentions, almost off-handedly, the Moabite Stone ("the Mesha Stele"). It's during a discussion of 2 Kings, because the Moabites have their version of a part of the history that can be compared with what is in the bible. What struck me, though, is how much the tale of the stone--from 840 or 810 BCE, the period discussed in 2 Kings--sounded precisely like that standard explanations of the Israelites for why things happen the way they do. Consider (and for those of you intimidated by The Great Wall of Text, I've highlighted some bits for your consideration):

I am Mesha, son of Chemosh-gad, king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I have reigned after my father. And I have built this sanctuary for Chemosh in Karchah, a sanctuary of salvation, for he saved me from all aggressors, and made me look upon all mine enemies with contempt. Omri was king of Israel, and oppressed Moab during many days, and Chemosh was angry with his aggressions. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab. In my days he said, Let us go, and I will see my desire upon him and his house, and Israel said, I shall destroy it for ever. Now Omri took the land of Madeba, and occupied it in his day, and in the days of his son, forty years. And Chemosh had mercy on it in my time. And I built Baal-meon and made therein the ditch, and I built Kiriathaim. And the men of Gad dwelled in the country of Ataroth from ancient times, and the king of Israel fortified Ataroth. I assaulted the wall and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the city for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and Moab, and I removed from it all the spoil, and offered it before Chemosh in Kirjath; and I placed therein the men of Siran, and the men of Mochrath. And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against Israel, and I went in the night and I fought against it from the break of day till noon, and I took it: and I killed in all seven thousand men, but I did not kill the women and maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar-Chemosh; and I took from it the vessels of Jehovah, and offered them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel fortified Jahaz, and occupied it, when he made war against me, and Chemosh drove him out before me, and I took from Moab two hundred men in all, and placed them in Jahaz, and took it to annex it to Dibon. I built Karchah the wall of the forest, and the wall of the Hill. I have built its gates and I have built its towers. I have built the palace of the king, and I made the prisons for the criminals within the wall. And there were no wells in the interior of the wall in Karchah. And I said to all the people, ‘Make you every man a well in his house.’ And I dug the ditch for Karchah with the chosen men of Israel. I built Aroer, and I made the road across the Arnon. I took Beth-Bamoth for it was destroyed. I built Bezer for it was cut down by the armed men of Daybon, for all Daybon was now loyal; and I reigned from Bikran, which I added to my land. And I built Beth-Gamul, and Beth-Diblathaim, and Beth Baal-Meon, and I placed there the poor people of the land. And as to Horonaim, the men of Edom dwelt therein, on the descent from old. And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, and take it. And I assaulted it, And I took it, for Chemosh restored it in my days.

If you read carefully, you'll notice how Chemosh (the god of the Moabites) blessed or cursed the Moabites in precisely the same way we read of Jahweh doing to the Israelites in the Jewish Scriptures. (Chemosh, it seems, also likes women and maidens captured from the enemy, too. ;) ) In the wording and explanation of the history, there is no appreciable difference. 

Now...imagine that you saw this inscription's translation first, then you saw what comes to us through now-ancient tradition with the Bible. What would you think of how the Bible laid out events?

This type of worship is called henotheism, in case you're wondering. It's a form of theism in which a god is worshipped and possibly even considered superior to other gods, but the existence of those other gods is not denied. Also, the god is more or less tied to the land, if not an object that can be taken with the people (such as the Ark of the Covenant). When the people are outside their god's land (in the case of the children of Israel, away from Mt. Sinai), the power of their god weakens, unless they are capable of taking that god with them in some way. 

There is good reason that Naaman asked for "two mules burden of earth" (2 Kings 5) to take with him once he decided Yahweh was most powerful among the gods. If he wasn't on "Yahweh's soil," his sacrifices to the god would be pointless. 

Back to Mesha of Moab (2 Kings 3), who sacrifices his eldest son to his god (Chemosh) so Israel would turn back, and it works. According to the Jewish histories in 2 Kings, it works. But...why would it, unless the Israelites themselves believed that his god was stronger in his land, and his god having just received the most precious sacrifice of all--the heir to the throne--would thoroughly destroy them? 

It seems clear that the Moabite Stone, just like the Old Testament, are written from the perspective that whatever befalls the people, it's because their god is pleased or angry with them. Why, then, do we elevate one to "holy scripture" while relegating the other to "superstitious nonsense"? 

Unless we're predisposed to believe, all evidence and reason aside, that one is "inspired of God" while the other is mere mythmaking on the part of an ignorant people, I mean. 

d