An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part V (The Milieu of the Gospels and Apocalypticism)

It is important to first understand the society during Biblical times. 

Around the eighth century BCE, according to the Tanakh, the Jewish people were divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Around 720 BCE Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and deported most of the inhabitants while subjugating the southern kingdom of Judah as a vassal kingdom. Around 150 years later the Neo-Babylonian Empire defeated Judah and there ceased to be an independent Jewish state until the brief interregnum of the Hasmonaeans. At the time of Jesus the Romans had taken over Judea via the client kingdom of the Herod family. Many Jews were extremely unhappy with being under the thumb of yet another foreign nation, especially after independence was still within living memory. 

The religious environment was tied closely to the political. After centuries of military defeats and rule by foreigners, after the destruction of their temple, and things generally just not going their way, a fatalistic view took hold: apocalypticism. The apocalyptic view was that it was futile to try to change the world through human efforts; that the world itself was under the power of evil and that the only way things were going to change was if God directly intervened and overthrew the existing order and ushered in a "Kingdom of God".  There were various strains of apocalypticism during this time, with characters such as "The Son of Man" and "The Messiah", references to reestablishing the Davidic monarchy and descriptions of what the "End of Days" would be like. This was the milieu in which Jesus lived and preached. If you read the Gospels like an historian it's fairly obvious that this is what Jesus preached as well. 

If you focus on the actions that Jesus told people that they needed to do to gain the "Kingdom of Heaven" (or "Kingdom of God", or sometimes simply "The Kingdom") it was very clear that it was the actions, and not believing in him, or accepting him, that got you into the Kingdom. I'm aware that there are sections that focus on believing in order to attain eternal life. A good case can be made that the later Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, represent a later development among the Christian Church, and were not what the historical Jesus taught. What Jesus taught was that pretty soon, within the lifetime of those he was preaching to, God would intervene in the world, throw down the kingdoms of the world, and establish God's kingdom on Earth. His comments about rejecting family, rejecting worldly goods, and especially riches makes sense in this context. It made no sense to to plan for the long term because he didn't think there would be a long term. He wasn't out to make the world a better place, because he didn't think "the world" was going to be around long enough to be made better. He gave instructions to his followers to change their ways so that they would make the cut when the Godly New World Order came to pass. Anyone who didn't straighten up and fly right would be outside gnashing their teeth before getting vaporized by destroying fire. 

Did I mention that he thought that this would happen soon?

This doesn't mean that loving your neighbor and living the way Jesus told people to live isn't a good thing, but the reason Jesus gave for living that way turned out to be mistaken. God didn't overthrow the kingdoms of the world and establish his kingdom within Jesus' generation...or ever. Jesus was wrong.

Oops.

Start at the beginning: Part I

Workin' Man - Part XI - Consultants, Management Time and The Answer Man, Oh My

Well, I get up at seven, yeah

And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here

I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson 

I have learned over the decades to be extremely suspicious of consultants. They generally don't know as much as they think that they do, they make extravagant promises and make sure to feed you enough information to keep you interested and willing to keep bringing them back. I don't recall the name of this consultant, but what he was pitching was process improvement. In general I think process improvement is a good idea. In short, what it involves is looking at your the way you do things for anything that is superfluous and analyzing the steps and handoffs involved. Are there steps that are unnecessary or don't add value? Is it generating paper that doesn't go anywhere? Are unnecessary people involved? 

The program started off with a weekend retreat at Mahoney State Park attended by representatives from all of the company's divisions. We were supposed to hash out a plan to implement a process improvement program, based on guidance from the consultant. What we came up with was a grass roots, from the bottom up, methodology for  implementing change in the company. According to the plan, a core group of people would go around to all the departments, interview the staff, and map out the processes involved in their jobs. Once this was all done, a team of any four people could implement a change to any department after putting together a detailed plan. Coaches, who had undergone training by the consultant, who be available to guide and advise the change teams. So far do good. Or so we thought. 

The problems started right away. The unionized sections of the company refused to participate. Other areas like the reporters didn't have a specific procedure that they followed, at least not one that could be reduced to simple steps. I was one of the coaches, and stayed busy training teams on how to implement change according to the program. But more problems cropped up when teams that had no real understanding of how divisions of the company worked were making changes to those divisions without the permission, or even the input, of the affected managers. I don't remember anything actually getting done. Ever. Eventually the Publisher (newspaper-speak for CEO) got tired of the whole thing and fired the consultant. My skepticism of consultants continues to this day. 

I was one of those people who volunteered for everything. And got volunteered for everything. One of the more fun things that I signed up for was being on staff for the Omaha World-Herald carrier newsletter. Every month I wrote an article called "The Answer Man". My non de plume was Dlarehd L. Rowahamo - which is Omaha World-Herald spelled backwards. The premise was that Dlarehd was either from another planet, or perhaps another dimension or timeline, and didn't quite understand what was going on. He constantly got things backwards, but ended up covering things that needed to be covered, like sales contests and changes in subscription price, in a humorous manner. The first few issues were a battle to stop the editors from spell checking me, since I made up a lot of words! 

I was once involved in a seminar where the facilitator was trying to demonstrate the value of consensus in putting together a mission statement, rather than simply a vote of the majority. My thinking was that the bigger the group, the less likely it is that consensus could be achieved. So during this consensus building exercise, I decided that I would be a contrarian and refuse to agree to the nascent consensus. The moderator tried to negotiate with me, but I dug in my heels and wouldn't agree to anything. Was I being a jerk? Absolutely, but I also effectively debunked his idea of the inevitability of consensus. I believe they abandoned consensus and decided to outvote me! 

One of the things I learned participating in all of those committees was that there is an ideal number of people on a committee. Too few and you get groupthink; too many and you never come to a conclusion. Once a committee gets too big the best thing that can be done is break it up into subcommittees. Have that subcommittee do the work of crafting a plan, then present it to the larger group and have them vote on it. 

There were a lot of other projects and committees that I volunteered for, but despite all the work I was putting into these activities that were adjacent to my regular job description, they weren't really valued by management. Every year State Circulation had an annual meeting where awards were given out for outstanding achievement. There were cash awards given out in conjunction with these recognitions as well. One particular year I was sure I'd be recognized for something like team player, (for which there was an award) or for all the committees I was recruited for. Every award, like every other year, went to the sales reps whose sales went up the most. I had an epiphany. I realized that I was spending hours upon hours every week on projects that simply weren't valued and resulted in no reward or even recognition. Not even a pat on the back. The next day I resigned from every single committee and program that I was involved in and spent my time on the things that would bring me recognition, and more importantly, more money!

The most interesting thing I was involved in was an 18-month management training course. At least part of it was interesting. Honestly I can't remember most of what they covered, but we would be at training two-three days a week a couple of times a month. One class that stood out was one where we were supposed learn how to let go of our stress and to relax by means of guided meditation. I didn't get much out of it, but one of my fellow trainees fell asleep and was snoring loudly. I guess he was relaxed!

 The part that I learned the most from, and have carried to this day, was a week-long class called Managing Management Time. I had taken my share of time management courses before, including one that was a thinly disguised front for a company selling pocket calendars. (This was well before the days when everyone had a multi-purpose supercomputer in their pocket) Managing Management Time was a theory of management that I had never heard before. The premise was that management was a skill like any other, and separate from the skills of the people that were being managed, the ranks of whom the manager had presumably arrived from. The time management tips were really corollaries to spending your time as a manager, not just another one of the guys. One of the main nuggets of wisdom was the saying "The job of a manger is not to do things, but to get things done.  The course covered a lot of the management fallacies. One was the "Pride of Craft" fallacy, where a new manager was so attached to her pre-management job, that she would spend a large portion of her work week doing the job that she had just been promoted out of. This was in addition to all the new management responsibilities. This was why many new managers end up working 60-70 hour weeks! Other topics included the responsibility of a manager to train his subordinates to do their jobs independently, instead of micromanaging them; and knowing what things were actually her responsibility - knowing who the "monkey" belonged to! A piece of practical advice included procrastination: if nobody follows up on that task you were given, it probably wasn't that important! The main nugget of wisdom was that there was management time and vocational time. As managers we were being paid to manage, not to do the tasks that we were paying other people to do. Your subordinates might think you were a cool guy for getting your hands dirty working side by side with them, and occasionally that might serve as a morale builder, but it wasn't your job. I still have the book from this class on my bookshelf and have applied the principles consistently over the years. 

As I mentioned in the previous installment, after my demotion, my old manager Dave was once again my manager. He was much easier to work with this time around. Maybe he had mellowed with experience. Maybe he was thankful he had a veteran like myself on his team. Whatever the reason, it was considerably better this time around. After I had been back in my old district for a while, Dave decided to make a change. Dodge County, which included the city of Fremont, had recently been detached from its district in Region 4 and added to our region. Fremont had two busy distributorships as well as a number of large motor routes, both seven-day and Sunday only, as well as routes in all of the smaller towns. Dave asked me if I would consider taking over that district, along with a decent raise. I agreed. On my first Sunday in the county Dave and I both were out delivering papers in a blizzard! I also had my first visit to South Dakota when I was assigned to convert all the vending machines in the  South Dakota border counties to new settings after a price change. 

Outside of Dodge County, things were changing in State Circulation. A lot of the managers who had been in charge were leaving the company. The last several State Circulation Managers had risen through the ranks within the newspaper, but one by one they were being promoted into Metro, transferred to one of our subsidiaries, or leaving the company altogether. The new State Manager was from outside the company and had already brought in a few of his friends from his previous newspaper as Region Managers. Like many new executives, he was keen to shake things up and make changes. He and Dave did not get along. The friction got so bad that Dave eventually resigned. It was funny - after Dave left a lot of the other sales reps asked me if I was worried since "my buddy" had left, not realizing that Dave and I were far from "buddies"! 

Jerry, the new Region Manager had come from our competitor, The Lincoln Journal-Star. He convinced me to transfer districts again, this time back to the Lincoln Office as the Single Copy Manager. (Single Copy encompassed all sales other than home delivery, i.e. vending machines, stores and school sales) This time around I also had some responsibility for single copy throughout all regions of the state.  This involved putting together an inventory of every rack in the state (outside of the Omaha metro area) and ordering and delivering new racks when needed. I conducting training classes on rack repair and changing pricing mechanisms. It was amazing how many sales reps had no idea where the racks were in their districts or in what shape they were in. In dealing with the Region Manager and his sales reps in the Western Nebraska Region I also got a taste of how small town Nebraskans viewed people from the urban areas - with barely concealed disdain. I remember trying to get an address for a storage facility in Kearney so I could deliver some new racks and being told that this wasn't the big city, we don't have addresses out here. (Spoiler: there was an address)

Around this time, in order to pay off my credit card debt I took a part-time job working the night stocking crew at the Super Saver on Cornhusker Highway. I'll discuss that job more in a future article. I got the job because one of the guys who worked on my crew at Food 4 Less was a manager there. He introduced me to his Store Director whose only question was "Can you work nights?" - I was hired. 

As Single Copy Manager I was always looking for ways to sell more papers. I hustled around town looking for new locations for racks, and worked on maximizing the number of papers in each location, paying attention to sales and returns. On Husker Football Game Days we rented a parking stall at the old Greyhound Station and parked a pickup truck there full of papers. We sold a paper-spirit card combo for the price of a paper (then 25¢) which counted as paid circulation. The big win was when I convinced downtown restaurants to commit to paying for hundreds of papers at a reduced rate that I would give away at the stadium with a map to the restaurant stapled to the sports section. We did this for every Lincoln sporting event and it was a great success. My circulation numbers skyrocketed. Since increased circulation was one of the things that our bonus was based on, I was making some extra money!

Like at many places, when you succeed, you're expected to keep succeeding. In an industry where a 2% increase was almost unheard of (I used to say exceeding 2% will result in a temple being built, devoted to your worship) I achieved a 20% annual increase in paid circulation. The company set my goal the following year for another 20%. I achieved a only 10% increase (still, 30% greater than 2 years previously) but received no bonus, even though sales reps with 1% and 2% increases did. I was extremely unhappy. By this time, there was a new State Circulation Manager (again), this time a transplant from the Lincoln Journal Star who Jerry didn't get along with, so I got a new, new boss, a guy named Kevin. Kevin was able to get me a salary increase, (no bonus recalculation though) but I thought it was a case of too little, too late, and resigned to take a management job with Super Saver. This meant that I needed to quit my part-time job with Super Saver and get a new part-time job to pay off my debt. I took a part-time job with the Omaha World-Herald!

Start with Part I

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part IV (Inconsistencies)

In the first installment of "An Agnostic's Look at The Bible" I discussed the proposition that the Gospels were historical documents and how this position would surprise many people. The counter-argument that there are no contemporary references to Jesus, or that the Gospels were written 40-70 years after his ministry, or that there are contradictions, or that the writers had an agenda is somewhat irrelevant. Not because we should accept everything that's in the New Testament at face value, but that the problems that skeptics often identify are not uncommon. Many of our historical records were written well after the events that they describe and are often written at the behest of a ruler who wanted his bona fides polished up a bit. But looking at the Bible the way an historian would enables us to sift through it and take a reasonable stab at what really happened. Or if it happened at all. 

To view The Bible as an historical document, or more accurately, as a collection of historical documents, one must reject the assumption that it is perfect and internally consistent. A theologian, or a believer, will attempt to harmonize contradictory sections. For example, all the Gospels describes two criminals crucified with Jesus. In two Gospels, both revile Jesus as they are dying; while in another Gospel, only one does so, while the second does not. One explanation that I have seen suggests that there were actually four crucified with him in two pairs. In one pair both reviled him, in the second pair, only one. A similar "solution" explains why the various descriptions of Peter's three denials differ so much from each other - easy! SIX denials! In no Gospel are there more than two criminals or three denials mentioned, yet in order to make them fit we are to believe that "what really happened" can only be deduced by taking bits and pieces from different sources. It becomes more problematic when the discrepancies are between doctrinal extremes, like when Jesus declares that no man has seen God at any time and in another place that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. I'll be writing about the evolution of the Trinity in a later edition - a textbook example of attempts at harmonization gone wild!

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that even after the Gospels were written they were subject to copyists' errors. Some were honest mistakes, but others (this really surprises some people) were the result of attempts to make the scriptures fit the predominant theology of the day. How to find out what was originally written, and even if what was originally written reflects what the historical Jesus really said or did is not a job for the fainthearted. The fact that the first Gospel that is included in The Bible, Mark, was written around forty years after the events that it purportedly describes suggests that the author got his information either from other written sources, or from oral traditions. Assume that the basics of the Gospel accounts are true, i.e. Jesus was an itinerant preacher who attracted a following, offended the authorities and was executed, and that some of his followers at least believed that he rose from the dead. If so it is natural that both stories and legends would be passed along by his followers and that no contemporary written records would have been made since his earliest followers were likely illiterate. It was only later, as Christianity spread due to the missionary efforts of Paul and others, that the desire to create written records arose. 

After Mark, others wrote their versions of the life and mission of Jesus. Three others were included in the New Testament, two of them, Matthew and Luke without a doubt used Mark as source material. There is consensus that they both used a second source, which Biblical scholars call "Q", as well. The Gospel of John seems to have developed independently of the other three. Others survived but are viewed as apocryphal and still others have been lost and no trace of them survives. If we do not assume, as a believer would, that the four Gospels were inspired by God, and are therefore inerrant and consistent with each other, then it would be natural to expect inconsistencies and discrepancies, or even errors. 

Histories, while usually written by the winners, will also reflect the differing priorities and agendas of the writers and their intended audience. A modern history book about the American Civil War written by a Confederate sympathizer would look different than one written by a proponent of Critical Race Theory. Even in 2025 what happened on January 6, 2021 is described in wildly different terms depending on one's political orientation. It should be no surprise therefore when individual books of The Bible do not agree with one another. They have been written by different people who may have had different ideas about who Jesus was, what his ministry was about, what was the purpose of his death. There are passages in the Gospels that seem to have the purpose of addressing or debunking positions that differ from the author's. Every book has its own agenda, which seeks to advance the author's view of what is orthodox and what is heretical. 

We should expect differences, not be surprised by them.

Start at the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part V

Manager Part XI - Training

How do you get your subordinates out of Levels 1 and 2 and become more self directed?

(Refer to Part X for explanation of the 5 levels)

As a manager you can't just show up to work and expect that your subordinates will automatically aspire to Level 4 or 5 independence. You have to actually train them! And once you've trained them, you have to follow up in order to assure yourself that your subordinates really know what they're doing. Just telling a subordinate that you expect them to work independently and make their own decisions doesn't mean that they will. (And we're talking here about ability and understanding, insubordination is a completely different subject). And even after a subordinate has been instructed in the expectations of the job, doesn't mean that they have been trained. And even after you are sure that they fully understand all aspects of the job and have the ability to carry them out, being fully trained means that they are actually doing it. If you don't follow up and ensure that the work is being done you run the risk of your subordinate deciding on his own what his job should be, and that might be very different than what you expect!

Back when I managed grocery stores we had a position called Grocery Clerk. This was an entry-level position and was almost always filled by high school kids who had never held a job before. The clerks had two main jobs: retrieve carts from the parking lot and "pull cardboard". They had other duties as well, but those are the two main ones. Pulling cardboard involved methodically going through an aisle, section by section, and removing any cardboard boxes that were less than half full and then "facing", pulling all the product forward on the shelf. (This was what was called a "warehouse" store, most product was put on the shelf in the case that in came in, with the front and top cut off.) The purpose of this was to keep the shelves orderly and make it easy for the customers to see the products. Something called a "cardboard bin", a wheeled, plastic container, 4'x4'x4' was utilized to throw the cardboard in. This was mind-numbingly, boring work, but it had to be done. It was also extremely simple to master, but it was almost never done correctly.

The problem was training. What should have been done was that each new grocery clerk be teamed up with a manager for half of a shift, released for a few hours to work on his own, and then back with the manager for follow up. For the first few weeks the clerk's work should have been checked by a manager until it was assured that proper training had taken place. What did happen was that the new clerk was teamed up with an "experienced" clerk who probably was doing things incorrectly himself, ensuring that the cycle of incompetence would continue. Look in on most grocery clerks allegedly pulling cardboard and you'll see two of them strolling down an aisle, chatting (grocery clerks are almost never supposed to be working two-by-two, pulling cardboard is a one-person job), pulling the occasional box off the shelf, without a cardboard bin, then strolling to the back room to throw out the small amount of cardboard that they can hold in their arms. And there is rarely, if ever, a manager checking up on them.

A few years ago I conducted an experiment. I watched as a grocery clerk exited an aisle that he had supposedly just got done pulling cardboard in. (He had a cardboard bin). I entered the same aisle and pulled cardboard and faced the correct way. I piled all the cardboard on the floor in front of each section and then called him back to show him what he had missed. He was not happy, but he did learn what was expected of him.

The nature of the training is critically important to the ultimate achievement of higher level competence. During my final 10 years before retirement I worked for the state revenue department. My training was a bewildering hodgepodge of regulations, definitions, and statutes in a Power Point presentation. During training my mind raced, trying to keep track of all the information that was being shot at me. Most of it made no sense to me, since it was completely without context. What I wasn't being presented with was the practical information that I needed in order to do my job. After training was over and began my assigned tasks another new trainee and I figured out the actual requirements of the job by trial and error. We learned to focus on what we really needed to do the job and pretty much ignore the rest. Over the years I heard from other new hires how confusing and useless the training was. 

Eventually I was promoted to a position where I was responsible for training the new people. With my manager's permission I completely revamped the training program so that it focussed on how to do the job, with the regulations, definitions and other details presented as an adjunct to the practical instruction. I revised a checklist so that a new hire could methodically carry out their assigned tasks. The new training program was practical rather than theoretical and was key to getting employees to the goal of working independently. 

Sometimes the lesson managers get from the Five Levels of Management Freedom is that everybody should be at Level 4 or 5 and that they are just supposed to sit back and watch everyone work. (Presumably with their feet up on their desks). That is the wrong lesson! Subordinates at Levels 4 and 5 doesn't free managers from work, it frees them from other people's work so they can concentrate on managerial work. 

Getting everyone to at least Level 3 and ideally Levels 4 and 5 is the goal; but how do you accomplish that goal? Not by wishful thinking or by simply telling people to manage themselves, but by putting in the hard work of training subordinates to be not just "hard workers", but independent thinkers and problem solvers.

Training can be very time-consuming, but the result is worth the time.

Start with Part I

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part III (Prophecy...Or Is It?)

Recently a Jewish friend commented about Christians stealing her book. She was, of course, referring to the way the Tanakh (what Christians call the Old Testament) had been coopted by Christians and how sections were reinterpreted to fit with real or legendary aspects of Jesus' life. According to the writers of the Gospels, the Tanakh was full of prophecies, foretelling Jesus' ministry. 

An objective reading of the Tanakh will reveal the surprising fact that actual prophesy is pretty thin on the ground throughout. An apt example is Isaiah 7:14 (KJV) "Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel". Most Christians, or even non-Christians living in a majority-Christian culture, will recognize this verse as the supposed prophecy referenced in  Matthew 1:23 (KJV) - which an angel tells Joseph after he found out his wife-to-be was pregnant without his assistance: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, "God with us". There are a number of things wrong with this. Nobody, as far as The Bible records, ever called Jesus (or his name) Emmanuel. The second thing is that the word that is translated from the Hebrew as "virgin", almah, means "young woman". It could refer to a virgin, who were typically young women, but apparently no one in pre-Christian Judaism interpreted the word as virgin. Thirdly, if you read the context, it is referring, not to a future messiah, but to a contemporary event - the loss of "both their kings" (Isaiah 7:16) - referring to both Israel (the Northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom). It's a prophecy to Ahaz, King of Judah, that both he and the King of Israel will be dead before the child Emmanuel is old enough to discern good from evil. Additional confusion arises due to the tendency of some of the Gospel writers to use the Septuagint Greek translation of the Tanakh, where Hebrew almah is translated into Greek as parthenos, which does mean "virgin. The Gospels are full of examples. 

One of the things about so-called prophecies is they're easy to fake. Look at the virgin birth prophecy that I unrolled in the previous paragraph. Nowhere else in the Gospels or anywhere else in the New Testament is Jesus' alleged virgin birth brought up. I'll be discussing the evolution of the concept of Jesus as the son of God, as well as God The Son in a later installment, but as an agnostic I'm skeptical of any supernatural claims -  virgin birth is one of those. It's easy to imagine a Gospel writer scouring the Septuagint looking for promising passages that can double as prophecies. "Ooh, look, this Greek Old Testament (and the Gospel writers were without a doubt Greek-speaking) mentions a virgin conceiving a child - claiming good ol' Jesus was born of a virgin ought to polish up his divine credentials!" Pile on references to Bethlehem in Micah and Egypt in Hosea and you have an unlikely tale of a pregnant woman hiking all the way to another district for a census because their distant ancestors came from there and fleeing to Egypt. A skeptic would wonder whether these stories in the Gospels actually happened, or they were put together in order to make these older passages seem like prophecies. 

As I said in Part Two, the Tanakh was written to and for a specific people, the Hebrews/Israelites/Judeans/Jews. Despite Jesus' Jewishness and Christianity originating in the capitol of Judea, Jerusalem, it very quickly became a separate religion with no real continuity with Judaism. The early Christians included the Tanakh as part of their scriptures to wash away the taint of newness that was problematic not only among the Jewish population, but among mainstream Roman society. The Torah and the rest of the Tanakh became, in Christian hands, starting with the writers of the New Testament, merely a run-up and prelude to what they considered the main event - Jesus' life.

Start at the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part IV

Columbus Day

Look, I'm not going to quibble about whether we can call Columbus stumbling across the Americas a "discovery" or not. However, I think that asserting that "Columbus didn't discover anything; there were already people here" is the wrong argument to make.

The Europeans didn't know it was there, so from their point of view, they discovered someplace that they didn't already know about. Whatever the previous landings by Vikings or the Irish accomplished, it didn't dawn on Europeans, especially not seagoing explorers and traders, that there were two huge continents in between Europe's western shores and the east shores of Asia. Of course, initially he had no idea what he had found, and didn't actually find the mainland (Central America) until his fourth voyage. 

The history of humankind is one long slog of the weak being conquered by he strong, or at least those with superior war-making technology subduing those with inferior defensive capabilities. This wasn't a brand new development by Europeans in the 1500s, but describes the expansion of the Roman Empire, the spread of the Caliphate, the dominance of the Huns and Mongols, China's imperial footprint, not to mention thousands of smaller polities jumping on any advantage, no matter how insignificant, to swallow up their neighbors. Even among the peoples that the Europeans colonized, wars of conquest, retribution or plunder were not unheard of, and in certain regions were a way of life. This is why I'm not comfortable with the term "stolen" when describing the European (and later American) nations taking over lands that were already occupied. It's no more accurate than labelling the Saxons defeating the Britons, the Normans in turn defeating the Saxons, the Franks absorbing the Gauls and all the other displacements, as stolen land, when it's just another in a long line of the powerful conquering the weaker groups. Conquest happens. 

The key difference is that in the fifteenth century the various European kingdoms looked at each other somewhat as peers. There were still wars of expansion, and the wars of religion were just around the corner, but a king who looked with lust upon his neighbor's natural resources still viewed the subjects of the neighboring kingdom as people. All of the various European nations, kingdoms and empires were on par technologically, were all the same religion and were broadly similar culturally. Upon encountering people who were not as advanced technologically, and whom had never heard of Christianity, the Europeans looked down on these nations, tribes and peoples in the Americas and Africa as savages, not even worthy of consideration. Europeans might steal produce from an indigenous tribe, or kill someone, or rape a woman, or even encroach on land that belonged to the tribe, but would be absolutely flabbergasted that the natives would retaliate, and act as if they were the aggrieved party. Even with the millions of people already living in the Americas, there was undoubtedly still plenty of land on which the Europeans could settle, if they only respected the rights of those who were here first. But the Europeans wanted it all. 

I'm not even sure that it was a racial animus as we understand the term today. The history of "whiteness" is long and complicated and calls for a whole 'nother blog post, but as a concept and identifier, no one would think of themselves as "white" for another 150-200 years. Europeans were certainly aware of people whose skin was darker than theirs, contact with south-of-Sahara Africa went back to Roman times, as well as with what we now Eurocentrically call the Middle East. Even within Europe the pale blond far northern Scandinavians and the darker Italians and Spaniards around the Mediterranean are opposite ends of a continuum of skin tone. No, the reason Europeans looked own upon the people they encountered in the Americas was their perceived level of civilization. To the Europeans they lacked any of the technological "advancements" that were common in Europe (such as gunpowder & steel swords), they didn't have cities (at least they didn't encounter any early on), their culture didn't seem to acknowledge individual ownership of land, and they weren't Christians...fair game!

Spreading Christianity was a major pretext for the European invasion. Conversion of the "heathens" to Christianity had been a goal of since the early days of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Now they had a whole new continent (two!) in which to "spread the Gospel". 

Eventually, the concept of "whiteness" took hold. The Europeans were "White", the American natives were Red, the Africans were Black. They were "other", and "other" meant inferior. Of course they were viewed as inferior, no high technology, and more importantly, no Jesus. Why were they so technologically and spiritually inferior? They weren't white, and white equaled superior in their minds; everything else was inferior. Everything that followed: land grabs, forced conversions and assimilation, sequestration on reservations, breaking treaties - it now all went back to the belief in the racial inferiority of the natives. 

What if Columbus hadn't made it to the islands off North America? What would have changed? Probably little. Someone was going to eventually bump into the large landmass in between Europe and Asia. From all accounts Columbus was a horrible person, but he was a man of his time and very little would have changed if another captain had found America first. The kingdoms in Europe would have still been run by the same people who would look down on the inhabitants. Whiteness would have still emerged as a construct that resulted in White Supremacy and racism. 

No matter. From the point of view of the descendants of the people that Columbus and other early colonizers encountered, the coming of Columbus was a horrible tragedy, the beginning of centuries of genocide and the wiping out of culture. Not a day to celebrate. 

At least not to celebrate Columbus.

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part II (Inerrancy & Canon of Scripture)

Back when I was involved in a Christian-esque cult, we used to sign a green card when we registered for its foundational, introductory class. The card listed a number of supposed benefits of this class - one of them was "explains apparent Bible contradictions". We believed, as do most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, that the Bible is inerrant, i.e. it contained no errors, and therefore couldn't contain any contradictions. So what seemed like a contradiction was really our own lack of understanding or a mistranslation. Lack of understanding might include lack of knowledge of the customs of the Biblical era and milieu, it could be that the meaning of English words had changed since the Bible version that we were reading had been published, or we hadn't properly looked at the immediate and remote context. The cult that I was in had some interesting ways of harmonizing it all, sometimes bending the words into a metaphorical pretzel to get it all to fit, but if you are familiar with the evolution of the doctrine of the Trinity, it wasn't too unusual. If you are going to insist that the Bible is without error and internally consistent that's what you're going to have to do. There are parts that blatantly contradict each other. There are parts that seem to describe Jesus in one way and other sections paint him with an entirely different brush. To make it all fit, including the Old Testament, a lot of mental gymnastics will have to be involved. 

If you read the Bible, not as "a" book, but as a collection of books, which it undeniably is, then the need to explain away contradictions disappears. Or at least the need becomes less urgent. 

Most of the New Testament outside the Gospels is credited to the Apostle Paul, while the Old Testament has a more diverse cast. What Christians call the Old Testament can be divided in a number of ways. There's the torah, the Law, the first five books; there's the prophets; and there's the other writings which include books of alleged history as well as "poetic" books like Psalms and Proverbs. The first five books are traditionally credited to Moses, Psalms to King David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes & The Song of Solomon to King Solomon. The various books of the prophets usually are considered eponymous. Various others round out the team. 

The first book, is called Genesis by Christians, or Bereshith in Hebrew.  Although it is included as part of  "The Law", it actually is comprised of a creation myth and a legendary account of the origins of the people of Israel. This is not unusual, most cultures have, or had, creation myths and legends about the foundation of their nations. Within Genesis you'll find many of what we think of as "Bible stories": Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah's Ark, Abraham almost sacrificing his son, Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt and finally Joseph and his family's sojourn in Egypt. It is self-evidently a book written to a for a specific tribal group, the Hebrews. Most of the Hebrew Bible does not read as universally applicable either. So how did it become part of the holy book of the Christians?

Things were a bit jumbled in Christianity's early days. 

Although Jesus in the Gospels quotes the Old Testament, and refers to "the scriptures", and his follower Paul does the same, some Christians noted that there was a stark difference in how God was portrayed between the Old and New Testaments, almost as if they weren't the same God. Some went beyond the "as if" and declared unambiguously that they weren't the same god. Marcion was the most well known and influential of these. He completely rejected the entire Old Testament as being about an evil God of this world, while Jesus represented the "true" God. He was the first to compile a "canon of scripture" which viewed Paul as the ultimate authority. His "New Testament" included the epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke, all heavily edited to remove theology that Marcion did not approve of. Although Marcionite Christianity was later condemned as a heresy, Marcionite Christian churches at one time outnumbered Orthodox/Catholic churches. Christianity could have very easily become a brand new thing, totally divorced from the culture and religion from which it sprang. 

But during Christianity's early days there was a Roman cultural bias toward religions that were "ancient" and a suspicion, if not an outright prohibition, of new religious movements. Christianity got around this by claiming the Old Testament as its own. Sections of it were reinterpreted as prophesies of the Messiah in ways that would have (and did) surprise Jews then and now. By piggybacking this new faith on the ancient religion of the Jews, the Christians could have the best of both worlds. 

Start at the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part III