Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible

by David Plotz

  chapter 23

  The chapter opens with probably the best paragraph I’ve ever read about justice:

  You must not carry false rumors; you shall not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness: You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty—nor shall you show deference to a poor man in a dispute.

  Judges should sew this passage into their robes.

  Later in the chapter, after a bunch of ceremonial laws, comes this: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Every Jew who has been denied the ineffable joy of the cheeseburger should gaze upon this sentence and weep. As any observant Jew will tell you, modern Jews are not biblical Jews; we are rabbinic Jews. In other words, modern Jewish practice is based on the rabbis’ traditional interpretations of scripture, rather than the actual words of the Bible. The law says only: No boiling a baby goat in its own mother’s milk. But after centuries of rabbinic debate and the Rube Goldberg mechanism of Jewish legal interpretation, this little acorn has grown into a giant oak of dietary restrictions: separate meat and dairy restaurants, multiple sets of household china, elaborate (and ferociously argued) rules about how long a child has to wait to have an ice cream cone after having eaten a hot dog (Hebrew National, of course). I understand how relying on rabbinic interpretation rather than the literal words of the scripture can insulate us from draconian biblical laws, but it does seem silly in this case. God is concerned only about baby goats. Why should this mean that little Sammy can’t eat a steak-and-cheese sandwich?

  chapter 24

  The events in the Bible that are most shocking are often not miracles or high drama—floods, plagues, incest—but moments of everyday ritual. Here’s one that jarred me. After writing down God’s laws and reading them to the Israelites, Moses decides to reinforce the statutes with a sacrifice. The Israelites kill some bulls, and then Moses takes the animal blood and fl ings it onto the people, declaring, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord now makes with you concerning all these commands.” Because the Bible is populated with characters who sometimes behave as we would, it’s easy to forget that they had a primitive, tribal, nomadic culture. This is about as old school as it gets—the prophet showering his flock with bull’s blood to guarantee God’s promise.

  Moses ends up spending forty days on Mount Sinai receiving the laws from God. Noah had forty days of rain. The Israelites wander forty years in the desert. (And doesn’t Jesus pass forty days in the wilderness?) What’s with forty? I understand seven as a magical number. Seven is small. Seven is indivisible. Seven days to make the world and rest. Seven times around Jericho till the walls fell. Seven brides for seven brothers. But forty has neither the mystical solidity of a prime number nor the satisfactory roundness of a number like 100. Forty is middle-aged. Forty is just—clumsy.

  chapters 25–31

  God: the first interior decorator. He issues incredibly detailed instructions about how to build His tabernacle. He has opinions about everything from the almond-blossom-shaped cups on the gold lamp stand to the silver sockets in each of the tabernacle’s planks to the exact posture of the cherubim on the ark’s cover: “The cherubim shall have their wings spread out above, shielding the cover with their wings. They shall confront each other.” At one point God even brings out samples of lamps for Moses to examine, telling his prophet: “Follow the patterns for them that are being shown you on the mountain.” He’s a pretty mean fashion designer too: in a chapter devoted to the high priest’s costume, God pays as much attention to the stitching as any contestant on Project Runway. Listen to how He describes the embroidery on a single garment: “A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, all around the hem of the robe.” The divine aesthetic presents us with a profound theological question: if God takes fashion and interior design so seriously, why are all synagogues so incredibly ugly? Discuss.

  As I slog through these chapters about tabernacle design, I find myself asking: what’s the point? Cain and Abel rated just a few verses. Why does it take twice as long merely to describe the clasps on the tabernacle’s cloth sides? I assume there are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the author of Exodus, like any good reporter, wrote what he knew. He presumably saw the tabernacle, or some descendant of it, and could write about it with exactitude. The second is that building and preserving the tabernacle were the most important tasks in the world for the Israelites. The tabernacle was literally where God visited them. As God tells Moses: “For there I will meet with you, and there I will speak with you, and there I will meet with the Israelites, and it shall be sanctified by my presence. . . . I will abide among the Israelites, and I will be their God.”

  I would be lying if I didn’t admit that these chapters are coma- inducingly dull—like a very long, ill-written furniture assembly manual. But they also have a practical consequence for the Israelites that the story of Cain and Abel didn’t. There was no more important job for them than getting that tabernacle right, making sure it was perfect so that God kept “abiding” among them. These chapters were how they stored the knowledge of the tabernacle for their heirs—for us.

  chapter 32

  Moses is still up on Mount Sinai, transcribing God’s architectural tips. Meanwhile, back at camp, the Israelites are getting restless. Tired of waiting for Moses, they demand that Aaron “make us a god.” Aaron,

  displaying all the willpower of feckless brothers everywhere, immediately agrees and casts a golden calf for them. The Israelites bow down to it and declare, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Aaron builds an altar to the calf and declares a festival for feasting and dancing. Moses descends from the mountain, sees the party, and explodes. He shatters the stone tablets of God’s laws. Then he burns the calf, grinds the ashes into powder, tosses the powder into water, and makes the Israelites drink the rank liquid. (This is a neat reversal of Moses’s aquatic rescues earlier in Exodus, when he turned bitter water sweet.) Moses begins to chastise his brother, but Aaron, typically spineless, shrugs the blame off on the masses: “Let not my lord be enraged. You know that this people is bent on evil.” Moses, possibly realizing that any more discussion with such a worm is pointless, doesn’t press Aaron further. (The episode of the golden calf reminds me powerfully of the scene in The Godfather when worthless brother Fredo Corleone lays on the champagne and hookers for Michael in Las Vegas. Michael, who’s in town to make a deal, sends the party away and rebukes his older brother. Aaron is the Fredo of Judea.)

  Moses is furious with his people, but he also knows he must protect them from God, who’s in a “kill ’em all, let Me sort ’em out” mood. God announces that He’s going to destroy His “stiffnecked people” because of the calf. Moses gets wily. He cannily exploits the Lord’s distaste for the Egyptians, telling God, “Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that He delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth.’ Turn from Your blazing anger, and renounce the plan to punish Your people.” Moses persuades the Lord to hold His fire. To appease Him, Moses has the Levites, the only tribe that remained loyal during the debacle of the calf, execute 3,000 idolaters, “brother, neighbor, and kin.” (But what happens to Moses’s own brother, the ringleader? Nothing. Aaron doesn’t even get his wrist slapped.)

  So the Israelites are saved again by God’s mercy. Still, I can’t help thinking that the po liti cal lesson of the golden calf is deeply disturbing. The story suggests that without an authoritarian leader like Moses, the Israelites will easily abandon God. Without a prophet and a dictator, our faith will fail.

  chapter 33

  God keeps seething about the golden calf. He won’t appear among the Israelites, because He knows He wouldn’t be able to control His rage: “If I were to go in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you.” To humble the Israelites more, God orders them to strip of
f their “finery.” They must remain dressed simply for the rest of their desert exile, as a penance. This reminds me of an interesting divide in religious practice. In some religions, you honor God by dressing as sumptuously as you can for him. (See: rococo papal outfits or the fl orid church hats worn by African-American women.) In other religions, you honor God by dressing down. (See the nearly naked Hindu sadhus or monks in hair shirts.) Being either gaudy or humble seems to work fi ne. What hasn’t caught on with the godly class—at least not till the rise of the mega-church—is business casual. Has a Franciscan ever gone to Mass in Dockers? Would you trust a rabbi in an Izod?

  A funny, sweet incident occurs late in Exodus 33. As usual, Moses is begging God to be merciful to the wretched Israelites. God isn’t interested. Instead, He changes the subject. Ignoring Moses’s entreaties for the Israelites, God distracts the prophet by saying He wants to grant Moses’s wish that he be allowed to see God. God says He can’t let Moses see His face, because “man may not see Me and live.” God has Moses stand in a rock crevice. God then carefully arranges Himself so Moses can see only His back. Or, to put it another way, God moons Moses.

  chapter 34

  Moses climbs Sinai again to collect a pair of stone tablets to replace the ones he smashed at the golden-calf orgy. While he’s up there, God comes to him and proclaims of Himself: “The Lord! The Lord! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness.” Now, I don’t want to quibble here, but does this sound like the God we’ve been reading about? Would you describe the God of Genesis and Exodus as gracious? As abounding in kindness and faithfulness? As slow to anger? After all, He flies off the handle before the Flood, is fairly merciless to Sodom and Gomorrah, and hardly abounds in kindness toward the Egyptians. He leaves the Israelites in bondage for 430 years, and has to be restrained by Moses from wiping out His Chosen People after they worship the golden calf. He’s got lots of wonderful qualities—He’s tough, clever, excitable, awesome, and forgiving—but not the ones He ascribes to Himself.

  At this point, the Bible issues its first proscription against intermarriage. God warns the Israelites against making friends with the Amorites and Canaanites they are about to conquer. If the Israelites let their boys marry these heathen girls, “their daughters will lust after their gods, and will cause your sons to lust after their gods.” Jews today are still profoundly anxious about intermarriage, and for exactly the reason expressed in Exodus: If you marry a shiksa, you’ll fall for her false god. But doesn’t this fear of intermarriage suggest that God lacks confidence in Himself? After all, He has just gotten done telling us how great He is. He has given us the world’s best laws, some fantastic holidays, and even a few good songs (though not as many as the Christians have, I admit). So, why is God so fearful that intermarriage would pull Israelites away from Him? Given God’s greatness, wouldn’t intermarriage do the opposite and attract more people to Him?

  We’ve been duped! We’ve been fed a bogus Ten Commandments! On his two new tablets, Moses rec ords “the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” The chapter lists these commandments, and they have nothing to do with the familiar “Thou shalt nots” from Exodus 20. The laws in Exodus 20 were never called the “Ten Commandments,” but these new laws are. The new ten include only two of the earlier commandments (keep the Sabbath; no false idols). The other eight commandments are such things as observing Passover (number three), bringing the first fruits of the harvest to the tabernacle (number nine), never appearing before God empty-handed (number five), not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (number ten). These are technical or procedural commandments, the Judean equivalent of not wearing white shoes after Labor Day. They are much, much less gripping than the ten “Thou shalt nots.” That is probably why these “Ten Commandments” were shunted aside and replaced with the much catchier laws of Exodus 20.

  chapters 35–39

  When you need to build a tabernacle, whom do you call? Bezalel, of course. Again and again, Moses talks up this guy, whom God endowed “with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft.” Bezalel and his sidekick Oholiab get more mentions in Exodus than anyone but Moses and Aaron. They’re only subcontractors, but God loves them. (Keep that in mind during your next renovation.) And they deserve His love. Bezalel builds nearly the entire tabernacle himself. He designs it. He constructs it. He does the fine metalwork. He mixes up the anointing oil and prepares the incense. It’s Extreme Makeover, Tabernacle Edition, and he’s Ty Pennington—the architect, engineer, carpenter, perfumer, sculptor, blacksmith, jeweler, and goldsmith.

  chapter 40

  God names feckless Aaron as his high priest and declares that Aaron’s descendants will be an “everlasting priesthood throughout the ages.” Couldn’t the Israelites do better? First of all, Aaron—Mr. Golden Calf—is probably the most incompetent and faithless man among them. If God had picked anyone at random—You, Uriah in the tribe of Asher, come over here and put on this sacral vestment—He would have been more likely to find a suitable priest. And even if Aaron were the holiest man in the Sinai desert, the inherited priesthood would still be a bad idea. Up until now, God has been big on competence: smart Jacob steals an inheritance; wily Joseph talks his way to power; Moses, who’s nobody’s son, rises to become a prophet. So it’s disheartening that a God who clearly believes in meritocracy over bloodlines suddenly establishes a priestly caste.

  This brings us to the end of Exodus. The Israelites are out of Egypt. They’re equipped with their basic framework of laws. They’re armed with God’s promise of land and conquest. And they’re back in God’s favor after a whole lot of heresy and complaint. What’s left to accomplish?

  THREE

  The Book of Leviticus

  Lovers and Lepers

  In which God issues laws about animal sacrifices, lepers, sex, lepers, food, lepers, justice, and lepers; He does a little smiting, too.

  ome of my friends doubted that my Bible reading would last past Exodus. Oh, it’s all thrills and giggles when you’re dealing with the ten plagues and the Tower of Babel—but wait till you get to Leviticus! They mentioned Leviticus in the same hushed, terrified way that mariners mutter, “Bermuda Triangle,” or Hollywood executives whisper, “Ishtar.” Leviticus, I was warned, makes even learned pastors weep with boredom, and turns promising young Talmudic scholars into babbling US Weekly subscribers. What would it do to an amateur like me?

  So it was with trepidation and a large cup of coffee that I opened Leviticus. I’m happy to report that it’s nowhere near as awful as advertised.

  chapters 1–7

  In his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote—with anti- Semitism, but respectful anti- Semitism—that

  Judaism was defined by its “peculiar distinction of days, of meat, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances.” Trivial and burdensome—that’s Leviticus!

  We begin with the “Complete Guide to Animal Sacrifi ce.” This section is perfectly useless for modern Christians and Jews, since Jews stopped sacrificing animals when the Temple was destroyed 2,000 years ago, and Christians never sacrificed them. But we’re stuck with seven chapters about sacrifices, so let’s make the best of them. If, by some Connecticut Yankee–type miracle, you ever find yourself in the Sinai desert, standing outside the “tent of meeting,” here are some Emily Post–style tips for sacrifice etiquette. Offer an animal that’s without blemish—God hates a scar. Don’t be alarmed when the priests fling the animal’s blood all over the altar. If it’s a bird (ideally a turtledove), the priest will “pinch off its head” and tear it open by the wings. If you’re bringing a grain offering, expect the priests to eat most of it themselves. That’s their “most holy portion.”

  When should you sacrifice an animal? Well, just about anytime is fine: when a priest does wrong, a chieftain does wrong; or the whole community does wrong; when you’ve given birth, or finished your period, or touched a corpse;
etc.

  chapters 8–10

  Here’s an episode they probably skip at your church. God, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet for the first chapters of Leviticus, returns with a vengeance. Moses ordains Aaron as priest—the ordination requires dabbing blood on “the ridge of Aaron’s right ear,” on his right thumb, and on his right big toe. Soon afterward, Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu, who are also priests, offer incense to the Lord. But rather than the prescribed incense, they give God “alien fire.” Boom! God incinerates them on the spot. More like a drug lord than a prophet, Moses tells Aaron his sons got what they deserved, and orders some cousins to drag the bodies away and drop them outside the camp. All they did was burn the wrong incense! Is the Lord really that petty? But maybe there’s an important lesson here: The rituals that seem so picayune and random really matter. A few verses later, God lectures Aaron: “You must distinguish between the sacred and the profane, between the impure and the pure; and you must teach the Israelites all the law which the Lord has imparted to them through Moses.” In other words, God seems to be saying that the deaths were not the merciless act of a vindictive deity. They were a warning to mind the details.

  chapter 11

  Leviticus moves on to dietary laws. Unlike the sacrificial rules, these are restrictions that observant Jews still follow today. Forbidden to eat: a lot! Off limits are animals that don’t chew their cud or don’t have true hooves, sea creatures without fins and scales, most insects, “great lizards of every variety,” pelicans, owls, bats, and more. As a pork-loving Jew, I notice two words especially. God says that the pig, because it doesn’t chew the cud, is “impure.” Understood. But then the Lord describes lots and lots of other animals—including lobster, shrimp, ostrich, and most insects—as “abominations.” “Abomination” is a much stronger word than “impure.” Does this imply that bacon, pork chops, pulled pork, and ham are less bad than lobster? Can it really be that eating pork is a minor dietary offense, the kashruth equivalent of a parking ticket? God, I hope so!