Reviling the Gods 

Idolatry is a matter of central concern to the Bible. It has been understood in the past to be central, even definitional, to Judaism:

"The ancient world regarded the Jews as atheists because of their refusal to worship visible gods: 'Whosoever denies idols is called a Jew' (Meg. 13a, b). To statements such as this the Jew responded: 'Whosoever recognizes idols has denied the entire Torah; and whosoever denies idols has recognized the entire Torah' (Sifre, Deut. 54 and parallel passages). 'As soon as one departs from the words of the Torah, it is as though he attached himself to the worship of idols.' (Sifre, Num 43)." (Jewish Encyclopedia, Article Idol, by Kaufmann Kohler, Ludwig Blau).

Recently, one of the TheoBros dismantled a statue of Baphomet in the Iowa State House which was made out of pool noodles. In discussions of this event or non-event, it turned out that some people are convinced the Bible directly commands such actions from all believers at all times:

"Christians must fear God over men and follow His laws first and foremost over all earthly powers. Men who do this follow in the footsteps of many heroes of the faith, like Phineas, Gideon, Josiah, and St. Boniface, all idol smashers in their own right, who chose to defend God's glory instead of sitting idly on their hands while pagans prevail." (William Wolfe, A Modern Gideon Arises: Christian Veteran Smashes Satanic Idol in Iowa State Capitol, Christian Post, December 20, 2023).

In other words, all Christians, everywhere, are under standing orders to destroy all idols, wherever found. Is this a plausible interpretation of the Bible? If it is true, why were Jesus and Paul so relaxed when interacting with a pagan culture? Did this live-and-let-live attitude just reflect prudential caution in world dominated militarily by an idol-worshipping people, or is someone proclaiming Biblical commands that can't actually be found in the Bible? Where exactly does the Bible say believers are to travel to Babylon, or Greece, and not preach the gospel, but rather smash the idols there? Are these volunteers from Thug Life really defending God's glory, or are they acting on their own authority?

The Verse

There is a verse in the law that turns up in some Bible versions. The King James Version of Exodus 22:28, for example, says that you should not revile the gods:

Modern translations are more likely to have 'Do not revile God' rather than the gods. The Hebrew word 'elohim' is plural in form when applied to the living God, but not plural in enumeration; there is only one God. However, the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures has 'gods':

"Thou shalt not revile the gods [θεους], nor speak ill of the ruler of thy people. (Exodus 22:28 Brenton Septuagint).

Is it 'God' or 'gods'? Who exactly is it you're not supposed to revile? Rulers we understand, but what would it mean not to revile the pagan gods, who are no gods? Some people, like Philo Judaeus, did understand the intended meaning to be the pagan gods.

True enough, concedes Philo, these gods are "falsely called gods," they have none of the true character of deity. Still, they are not to be reviled. If you revile the gods of the nations, who or what are you reviling? Beautiful features of the natural world, such as the sun, the moon, the stars, and the sea. These are not gods, but what did the sun ever do wrong that it deserves to be reviled? Or it may be an angel someone had encountered and mistook for a god, or perhaps a demon. Perhaps a fiction altogether, perhaps a reminiscence of an illustrious man who lived long ago. In any event, don't revile, if only because they are called (falsely) gods:

Is it possible this debateable decision by the Septuagint translators, which would tend to have the effect of toning down the polemic response to idolatry, played a role in encouraging a mild-mannered response to idolatry in that era?

Idol-Smashing

In the law of Moses, the children of Israel are commanded to break down the pagan idols when they enter into the land:

When and where is this idol-smashing to take place? In the holy land. Anywhere else? None mentioned. It is accompanied by a demand to kill the idolaters as well. Is this law limited in its application to the holy land, the holy congregation, or is it applicable world-wide? The rabbis would later interpret the law to require that any idol belonging to a Jew must be destroyed, wherever found, but not pagan idols belonging to pagans, as most of them do. It is characteristic of a popular false teaching of the present day, as exemplified for instance by Rousas Rushdoony, to make of the law of Moses a universal law code, applicable at all times and places, everywhere on earth at any time you please, to anyone at all. But if you keep to the letter of Moses' law, you find that not only is it not presented as universally binding on all people, it is not in its entirety even binding on Jews in all places; some provisions are exclusive to the holy land.

The Christian Nationalists assume every Jew in the world of the New Testament was to be a tireless, perpetually on-duty Taliban idol-smasher, who took sledge-hammer to property belonging to others wherever and whenever it was found. How that would have worked out in the multicultural environment of the Roman empire is unclear. But it is not even the case that such behavior was commanded, and only avoided for prudential reasons. It is not in fact commanded, not in the Bible, except in connection with the holy land, the temple, the camp assembled about the tabernacle. Jews were not commanded to go out into all the world and smash the idols.

In Rousas Rushdoony's revision of the law, every provision must be equally applicable in Duluth as in Grand Rapids. There can be no special holy place, as every place is the same. But the real-life law of Moses carves out special places to be kept holy. The Jews were not instructed to go out and conquer the world, nor to kill all the idolaters in the world, nor to smash all the idols in the world. But if you must universalize the law as these people are obliged to do, they must have been so instructed by implication, otherwise the law is not equipotent at all times and in all places, as it must be for Rushdoony and those who follow his system. So for 'Canaanites,' a particular people whom God had judged and found wanting, they substitute 'unbelievers' generally. But does this track with the New Testament? Compare the Christian Nationalists' expectations with Paul's demeanor when he visited Athens:

What idols did he smash as he strolled about the city? None of them. The city was filled with idols. He touched not a one. For that matter, what idols did Jesus destroy? Nazareth is only four miles from Sepphoris, a pagan city filled with idols. What idol-smashing expeditions does the New Testament record? It doesn't. Paul traveled all over the empire and strolled about the pagan cities, without once lifting a sledge-hammer, that we know of. Paul not infrequently quotes the Bible in the Septuagint translation; maybe he took seriously the command not to revile the gods contained in that version. Maybe he preferred to convert the idolaters rather than kill them, and win a brother in the transaction.

Was Paul's behavior eccentric for Jews of his time and place? Not really; people who lived in the Roman empire would inevitably encounter idolatry, though the Jews were of course supposed to keep themselves free from defilement by idols. It was not possible to avoid them altogether: "Mishnah. Proclos, son of a philosopher, put a question to R. Gamaliel in Acco when the latter was bathing in the bath of Aphrodite. He said to him, it is written in your Torah, and there shall cleave nought of the devoted thing to thine hand; why are you bathing in the Bath of Aphrodite?'" (Babylonian Talmud Abodah Zarah, 44b). Good question. There was a statue of Aphrodite presiding over this establishment, and there he is, caught with his pants down, so to speak. "When he came out, he said to him, 'I did not come into her domain, she has come into mine. Nobody says, 'the bath was made as an adornment for Aphrodite; but he says, Aphrodite was made as an adornment for the bath." (Babylonian Talmud, Abodah Zarah 44b). I think he is trying to say, he is there for a secular purpose, to take a bath; that Aphrodite is there too, in the same place and the same time, is her concern, not his.

What provision of the law were Paul and Gamaliel disregarding? None. There is no instruction that says go to the Iowa state capitol and smash idols. It isn't there. It's what some people imagine God would say if presented with the current situation. Some of the Rabbis of old times thought the best prophylactic against idolatry was to have nothing to do with Gentiles, but the Bible does not say to have nothing to do with Gentiles. And what will the idol-disassemblers desire to see next, that God commands the extirpation of their fellow Americans, just as He commanded the extirpation of the Canaanites millennia ago? At best it's an argument by analogy, at worst it's adding to the law, which is strictly forbidden. It is the Bible, from which they pretend to find support, that condemns them: ". . .If anyone adds to thee things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. . ." (Revelation 22:18).

The Mosaic law prescribes execution for the Israelite who worships an idol: "He who sacrifices to any god, except to the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." (Exodus 22:20). To whom does that apply: the Israelite, a member of the covenant people, who apostatizes, or to the entire population of India? Was it simply as a practical matter that the Jews overlooked their duty to exterminate the population of India, or was no such duty ever imposed on them?

When Paul says, to the Athenians, "Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked" (Acts 17:30), and the KJV has, "winked at," does "winked at" mean, He sentenced y'all to death, but did not have the willing manpower to carry it out? Does not the fact that He overlooked the offense imply that He did not impose the death penalty on them, at that time or for that crime, meaning that they fall outside the jurisdiction of Exodus 22:20? While they remained dead in Adam, Moses did not worsen their situation. Certainly the pagans would do well to take warning from the law, which is a universal warner and a pedagogue. They are not, however, people who escaped a valid legal sentence owing to a focus on prudential concerns by the designated executioners. Moses never said, smash all the idols and kill all the idolaters. They say that; he did not. Moses said there is a holy land and a holy people, a nation of priests.

As explicated in the Bible, the process by which the former inhabitants of Canaan were judged and held worthy of expulsion was essentially independent of the need of the Jews for a homeland:

"Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:  And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:  (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)  That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:24-28).

They were linked only by the divine command, that Israel was to be the means chosen by God to dispossess the former inhabitants. There is no universal command to slaughter idolaters and replace them with monotheists, nor to smash their idols, at all times and places. Still it is a wonder really that the Jews and Romans were able to co-exist, if not in peace, then at least not in open warfare, for as long as they did, long enough for the gospel to go out into the world. The Jewish Rebellion, and then after that was suppressed, the Bar Kochba revolt, left the holy land scorched earth, while the Roman overlords actively tried to suppress Judaism itself. If the Jews had really been as the Christian Nationalists portray them, each and every one an active terrorist trying to smash other people's property, then one could understand the way this turned out. How could anyone live at peace with such people? It would be like having a permanent BLM and Antifa redoubt in one's city, ready to go on the attack when opportunity presents itself. And, truth to tell, a few of the Zealots did lean in that direction. Modern readers, I've noticed, tend without question to concede the Biblical high ground of the first century to the Zealots, even though historically, neither Christians, nor Jews of the tendency that would produce the Talmud, agreed.

But what the Zealots brought to Israel was not salvation but ruin. Whoever was for them or against them, God did not favor their cause. They led Israel into disaster, a setback so devastating as almost to threaten the continued existence of Judaism. In the bitter aftermath of war, the persecuting Roman pagans tried to outlaw circumcision, and prevent rabbis from being ordained. They were trying to stamp out Judaism:

"'Forgotten'! Surely, they could be studied? — Nay, they would have been abolished; for the wicked Government of Rome issued a decree that he who ordains a Rabbi shall be slain, likewise he who is ordained shall be put to death, the town in which an ordination takes place shall be destroyed and the tehum in which the ordination is held shall be laid waste. What did R. Judah b. Baba do? He went and sat down between two mountains and between two large towns between two tehums, namely, between Usha and Shefar'am and there he ordained five elders: R. Meir, R. Judah [b. Il'ai]. R. Jose, R. Simeon and R. Eleazar b. Shammua (R. Awia adds also R. Nehemiah). On seeing that they were detected by the enemies, he said to them, 'Flee, my children!' but they said to him, 'And you, O Rabbi, what about you?' 'I,' he replied. 'will lie still before them, even as a stone that is not turned.' It was stated that the Romans did not move from there until they drove three hundred iron spears into his body and made his corpse like a sieve!" (Abodah Zarah 8b).

We have here, in Christian Nationalism, a lethal combination of two different things, neither of which is a threat to humanity in its original form. Christianity is by design a universal, global religion: "And He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.'" (Mark 16:15). The manner in which it is to be propagated, though, is by preaching, not by military conquest. Then we have the Israelites, ordered to take possession of Canaan by force. They were never ordered to conquer the world; they were not told to march into Babylon or Persia or Egypt and smash the idols there. That instruction is absent, or rather is deferred to the Messianic age. If you drop, from Christianity, the specified peaceful mode of propagation, and drop, from Judaism, the deliberately limited sphere, you come up with a new faith, similar to Islam, which is a mortal threat to everyone not currently convinced of its truth.

The Christian Nationalists proclaim a universal faith, but the manner in which they propose to establish it is military force. They look to figures of the Christian past involved in the forced Christianization of pagan northern Europe, which, unlike the conversion of the Mediterranean world, was not accomplished by preaching to individuals, for inspiration. Boniface, who cut down a sacred tree, is one of their heroes. They do not see the Dark Ages as an unfortunate, and mercifully temporary, eclipse of civilization, but as its brightest moment. One imagines, if they knew about the mass suicide of four thousand pagans at Pilenai, Lithuania, that would be their high point of world history.

They say history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. What a strange misfortune it would be if the Christian Nationalists succeeded in making of Christianity what Judaism really was not ever, except in the hands of the most extreme of Zealots: a standing threat to public order and property rights, the commissioning of a world-wide Taliban, a locust swarm that knows no law, no property rights, whose adherents, should they reside in your country, constitute sleeper cells. Jesus' way of peace is so much better, and it's a shame, at this late date, to leave it untried.

Covenant of One

They used to advertise the concept of an Army of One. This already seems a little nebulous; but who has ever heard of a covenant with only one party in assent? In the  Old Testament, God makes an offer to the people of Israel, which they accept. Thus they are constituted a theocracy.  Here's how it's done:

At any rate that's how they used to do it. God made a proffer, and the people accepted. This procedure has been stream-lined to suit our impatient modern era. Now any aspiring cult leader can proclaim a theocracy, and it will be one, too, because when man commands, can God fail to snap to attention? Certainly He cannot mute Moscow, Idaho's phone calls! After all, they have proclaimed Jesus to be eternally subservient, so it's not like He knows how to say no.

The results of the Israelite theocracy were decidedly mixed. There were more apostate kings than faithful ones. But a people were  prepared to receive the Messiah, as the Lord ordained. As a plan for a God-honoring civil commonwealth, the project failed; no doubt God knew from eternity past that it would do so. Recognizing this fact might induce caution in those enthusiasts peddling the product, if they had any common sense. It did occur to the apostles as an objection to universalizing the law: "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" (Acts 15:10). A law code only one man ever successfuly observed might not be suited, nor ever designed or intended, for universal roll-out.

Predictably as clockwork, somebody knocked down Baphomet and then set up a legal defense fund. Reportedly, he's raking in the cash. The vandal was described as a devout Christian, before it turned out he doesn't actually go to church or anything like that. Many are flocking round him in support, perhaps alive to the revenue opportunity.

What kind of god is Baphomet? A lonely god who cannot scare up believers. The atheists who promote him do not believe in him, neither that he is real nor that he is a god. Kind of ugly, too. His devotees are not stunned and hurt to see his fall, because he has no devotees. It's an atheist in-joke, basically. They used to say that the free-Masons worshipped Baphomet, but that seems to be mostly folklore. He has no worshippers; that you worship him is an accusation, nothing else, never a heart-felt confession.

Baphomet was invented by people who wanted to relieve the Knights Templars of their excess cash. Under the circumstances, it may be difficult to promote this to a hate crime, because Baphomet has no people, he shepherds no flock. Still I hope they throw the book at the man who sought fame and fortune by disassembling him. Who can doubt that, having cashed in on Baphomet, who has no real constituency, they'll move on to the Sikhs next. After that it will be elephant-headed Ganesh, guzzling milk from a bowl. The best way to preserve civic peace is just simply not to make use of tax-payer funded spaces for these displays. The government has no competence nor calling to winnow the false from the true and should consequently stay out.

Malum in Se

Malum in se is a phrase heard in legal theory that refers to those things which are wrong in themselves, not wrong by convention. For instance, stopping your car when you see an octagonal red sign that says 'Stop' is a  social convention. It's not inherently wrong to blow by such a sign, though the law may attach penalties to so doing. But identifying theft and murder as wrong is not a convention; rather, these are things which ought to be everywhere criminal; if they are not, there is something seriously wrong with the law code. Robert Lewis Dabney, Moscow Idaho's favorite unreconstructed Confederate, used to use the principle in his arguments in defense of slavery, purporting to show that, while local law codes might attach a penalty to owning saves if such was the pleasure of the legislature, owning slaves cannot be wrong in itself.

Now, how would we know if a thing is wrong in itself? Why, if God decrees it, for any reason, at any time, under any circumstances, then it cannot be wrong in itself. Surely you would not accuse the Judge of all the earth of wrong-doing! Anything God commands must be inherently innocent and righteous. And does God include captivity and slavery in His list of judicial punishments that He may, at His discretion, apply to mankind? Yes, He does. See, for example, the blessings and curses attached to the law, in Deuteronomy 28,

"And there you shall be offered for sale to our enemies as male and female saves, but no one will buy you." (Deuteronomy 28:18)

What could be more plain? The Lord intends to reduce to servitude those who defy Him; He Himself says as much. So therefore any Virginia plantation-owner who does the same, who reduces a man to servitude for his own convenience, is only doing what God does and such a thing cannot be wrong in itself, malum in se.

Now if you are Doug Wilson, you start back in astonishment at the brilliance of this argument, and imagine that all the abolitionists who faced Robert Lewis Dabney on the debate stage in the lead-up to the Civil War came away abashed, looking downward in confusion, too ashamed to meet R.L.'s commanding gaze. Well, maybe that never actually happened, but he did write a letter to the editor. And not only is this not a brilliant argument in defense of slavery or anything else, it's one of the worst arguments ever advanced with a straight face in defense of anything.

And you will hear similar arguments over and over again from Moscow, Idaho, Does the New Testament say the saints are not to use filthy language? It does. Oh, but the prophets do! Are you saying God did something wrong? The argument might be summarized as 'If God can do it, we can do it.' The concept, it's not wrong for Him, but it is wrong for you, is beyond their capacity to formulate. Are you saying the rules are different for Him than for you? That's not fair! The rules must be the same for all.

So, for example, does the judge on his bench deliver the sentence against the serial killer, that he is to be executed? Why, then, any incel living in his mom's basement can sentence someone to death, and go and carry it out, too! Our every breath is borrowed from God; if He ceases to believe in us, we cease to exist. Does His standing to deliberate whether our continued existence is warranted or not differ one iota from our own? I should think so, given the gulf between us; our fellow sinners do not owe their lives to us, as they do to God; every breath they've taken thus far in life is His gift, is it ours, too? Thus the Bible says, "Who are you to judge another's servant?" (Romans 14:4). For one finite, created being to look at another and say, 'you do not deserve to live,' is lese-majeste as well as murder. The conviction that we stand in the place of God to look down upon another of our fellow-servants is itself blasphemy.

Faced with the rebellion of humanity, God determined to drown all people on the earth save eight. Was this wrong? No; humanity is His project, He can terminate it if He wills and no one can complain. Meanwhile, if one of the 'kings' goes and attaches a few sticks of dynamite to the Hoover dam, he's going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Is this fair? Yes. The incel-king can have no right to kill anybody; He is not God. On top of attempted murder, he is also guilty of presumption in thinking He is God when He is not. He is just like the prince of Tyre, who magnified himself beyond his station.

God commanded that, not only the idols of the holy land be smashed, but that their proprietors, the idolaters, be killed. Both the idolaters and their paraphernalia were to meet the same fate. Whether these people intend to  graduate to that next level of presumption remains to be seen. Is God committing a crime in doing these things? Of course not. Are those who follow His direct, verified instructions in carrying them out committing a crime? No. Are the incel-kings committing a crime when they imitate God? You bet. May the prosecutors have the last word regarding the deconstruction of Baphomet.

There is no concept here of divine command; that God is empowered to direct us in how we are to behave. When the nominal 'Christians' of Moscow, Idaho insist on using filthy language, they are directly and intentionally doing what God told us not to do: ". . .neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks." (Ephesians 5:3). Their only conception of wrong, sin, or evil is that it is an inherent trait of the act itself, and that it really does not matter who is doing it. If it is wrong, they reason, it is 'malum in se;' thus it does not matter who is doing it, whether God, man, or devil. It would be equally wicked for God to do it as for man to do it, they imagine. Thus they reason, that if God does it, it cannot be wrong. What, like we have a double standard, or something? Yes, we do. If God does it, it cannot be wrong. That is certainly true, but has nothing to do with the instructions He has given to us, and which they ought to be following if they claim to be Christians.

Terms and conditions, such as the allowable length of servitude, though they might seem like small things in themselves, are ultimately really important in differentiating between oppression and lawful employment. They still are to this day. God does not say that employment in and of itself is 'malum in se,' that it is inherently evil; but it can certainly become exploitive, and He acted to forestall that. People who love Him are obliged to agree with Him. Let's try a thought experiment. Start with what is conceded by all to be a lawful, innocuous situation: one man contracts voluntarily to work for another man. We start off with reasonable, conventional work hours; then begin adding 15-minute segments to his work week. At the start, we were OK; when do we get into trouble? It's hard to pinpoint, but by the time the man is held to an 80-hour work week, the prosecutors want to talk to him. Which 15-minute segment broke the donkey's back? How did this 15-minute segment differ from the others? It didn't, but the employer has landed in jail, where he didn't used to be. Not because employment is 'malum in se,' it isn't, but because oppression is malum in se.

What Went Wrong?

The Bible goes into great detail about God's case against Canaan, the idolatrous pre-Israelite inhabitants of the holy land who God ordered to be extirpated, and their idols smashed. If all that was needed was to say 'they were idolaters,' one wonders why all this ink needed to be spilled. Do idolaters hold worthless title to their lands and possessions? Are they people ever and always under a death sentence? In the absence of any reliable succession of prophets, can would-be dispossessors be sure they are hearing God's verdict, over their own desires? Is Israel, whoever may answer to that name, under standing orders to kill and dispossess all idolaters at all times and in all places? Or was Israel never commanded to conquer the world, and the 'alls' which have been inserted into the Bible need to be deleted, because something very particular has been generalized without warrant?:

The Jews were understandably horrified by this, and mercifully it never happened. The Zealots did have some legitimate complaints, though it is always a surprise the way Christians are willing to take that viewpoint as legitimate, when it never was the Christian viewpoint, and was not the mainstream Jewish sentiment either. Realizing that taking the tack they did resulted in the utter ruin of the Jewish nation, you would expect it to be an unpopular viewpoint. But evidently a small sect which can't stop praising the Confederacy, even though they lost big, is able to brush aside the catastrophe of 70 A.D. and insist that smashing idols is always the right way to go. The Christians, meanwhile, preferred converting the idolaters rather than killing them.