Judges 1-7 - Times have changed. Or not.

The readings - Days 77-79 - Judges 1-7

I suppose there's something worth addressing, now that we're in the books of the Old Testament normally categorized under the heading of "history."

While these works contain decidedly more detailed and intentionally historical documentation of events, etc, and therefore ought to be treated as more accurately depicting events/people/places/etc than other portions of the OT (IE the Psalms or bits of the Pentateuch), there's something that still strikes as odd about using these books in the same way that we would use a modern history text.



For example, I recently completed an absolutely astonishing and incredibly well-written and researched trilogy on the rise and fall of the Third Reich by a Cambridge historian by the name of Richard J. Evans.

It was meticulously detailed, drew on primary sources from all sides, including personal diaries as well as official documents of state, and presented the events in question in a readable yet consistently cool, academic and reserved tone. It was, as far as I can see as a purely amateur historian (if that), an exemplary work, and one that follows precisely all of the rules expected of a 20th (or 21st) century historian.

However, if you take the time to read through some of the more ancient histories (Plutarch or Herodotus, for example) of Classical Greece or Rome, you'll find yourself reading something quite different entirely. "Histories" were things that put much more emphasis on the "stories" portion of the word than we would find acceptable now. They were sort of written with the general pervasive understanding that everybody has a bias, so of course a history would be written with certain prejudices. There was no real need to apologize or even acknowledge them.

All this is to simply (well... not simply, I guess) say that what counts as a "history" has changed significantly over time.

Can you imagine, for instance, if a history student today were to turn in an essay that put a famous historical figure's death later in the paper than a description of events that followed it? Probably a lot of frowning at the very least, but that's exactly what happens right off the bat in Judges.

We get a run-down of some stuff done by Israel after Joshua's death (all of chapter 1) and then the story of Joshua's death (2:6-10)

Huh...

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Judges is a book of rhythm, and an annoying one at that. Israel begins an almost incredible cycle of screwing up, paying for it and being rescued by a hero brought around by God, only to repeat it again and again and again.

I think the following image does justice to what God must have felt during the historical period presented in Judges. In this recreation, God is played by Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Over and over again. It's ridiculous.

So we get a few of these heroes ("judges" as they're called) in these first few chapters, some warranting more expansive description and narrative, and others simply getting a nod in their general direction. Deborah becomes an interesting figure, both because she gets more airplay than her predecessors, but also because she's a she. She was destined to become not only the saviour of Israel, but a go-to person in discussions between chauvinistic traditional Christians and those who think that God's probably okay with women holding positions of clerical (and other) authority.

The really interesting thing for me in these chapters, though, is the story of Gideon. He shows up in chapters 6-7, and his exploits occupy a fair-to-middling place in the general Bible Stories canon of Sunday school and common life-long-churched-people knowledge.

The thing that really hit me this time around, though, were the signs that he gets from God. We've already begun to transition out of the face-to-face meetings with God that were staples of the stories of Abraham-through-Moses, with prophets playing an increasingly important part, but here we have Gideon being called by God to go out and whomp some Midianite oppressors.

Gidian gets this message from an old-school Angel-Or-Maybe-God-Himself messenger person, but he still asks for a special sign to prove that this command is actually coming from God and not Gary from down the street (Gary was well known in Judah for his general tricksterdom*). Gideon asks the messenger to stay put while he goes and prepares an offering to bring to him. So the angel says "fine, go get your stuff, I'll be here" and Gideon runs off to prepare and entire meal. This isn't a "stay here while I run and get my keys" time frame, it's an "I have to roast and entire goat" type of thing.

Sure enough, the angel's still there. Sign accomplished.

But more than just that, the angel tells Gideon to put the meat and bread down on a rock, touches the rock with a stick and the whole thing explodes. And then he disappeared instantly.


Now, reading this, I couldn't help but think, "man... if we got signs like that now, how easy would all this faith stuff be?" I mean, the guy blew up a meal with a stick and then vanished!

But then I keep reading, and it turns out that even this wasn't enough for Gideon, even though he immediately did have a fairly appropriate reaction to the whole thing.

Later on, when he's called to actually go into battle, he makes God perform further tricks with a bit of fleece.

Gideon: "Look, God, I know you blew up my food and all, and I totally believe it's you talking, but... can you make this fleece wet without making the ground wet?"

God: *sigh* "Okay."

Gideon: "Hey, that's just swell... But... uh... can you do it again, only this time make the ground wet and keep the fleece dry?"

God: *facepalm* "Fine. Yes. Here you go. Wet ground, dry fleece. Can we please get on with it now?"

Seriously, Gideon. Come on.

Although it does kinda make you wonder how many signs we pass off as other things when they ought to appear completely obvious to us. I'm not convinced that times have changed that much, actually...


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*not an actual fact. There probably wasn't even anyone named Gary in Israel at the time.