Jowett on Research

 I found this anecdote regarding Benjamin Jowett to be amusing and perplexing. 

As is well known, the modern emphasis on research was unwelcome to Jowett. "Research!" the Master exclaimed. "Research!" he said. "A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value." 

This is from p. 18 of James Barr, “Jowett and the Reading of the Bible ‘Like Any Other Book’” Horizons in Biblical Theology 4 (1982): 1–44. Barr cites as his source this account. 

Reaction to Christ in the Rubble

I have now finished Munther Isaac's book Christ in the Rubble, which I mentioned earlier. Should you read it? Hmm, it depends on what you want from a book on Palestine. This book should probably not be your introduction to the situation in Gaza; I think you'd be confused because Isaac is not explaining things for complete newbies, and also Isaac is not attempting to represent the opposing viewpoints. In his mind, there is the right viewpoint and the pro-genocide viewpoint. 

The book is like an extended sermon. There is no bibliography at the end, no index; the book just ends. There is an epilogue, brief acknowledgments, and then the back cover. There are footnotes along the way, almost always to news articles or YouTube videos from the past couple years.

It's an advocacy book. It's not an attempt to give an objective account of the situation, a dispassionate run down of both sides. Munther mentions many times that he is writing from anger. He is not in the mood to give Israel credit for much of anything, or to heap much blame on Palestinians, whether the people or their leaders. Whereas many people who talk about Israel and Palestine use the word "complexity," Isaac insists that what he wants to talk about is not complex at all; it's simple and obvious. Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people in broad daylight, caught on video and in the mouths of their leaders. Israel is an apartheid state. For 76 years, Israel has been committing crimes against the Palestinian people. All of this is obvious to Isaac, and, he thinks, to anyone who is not a racist. 

I'll provide some more content from Isaac below, but let me go ahead and point you to a couple of podcast episodes that I found helpful and balanced, both featuring a Palestinian American activist interviewed by an American here (here and here). I think it gives a nice Palestinian complement—or contrast—to Isaac.

Now for my own priors. I don't have a personal stake in the issue of Israel and Palestine, meaning I don't know people in the region and I've never been there. I have not been a part of a group—a church or a political group—that is known for prizing its support for Israel or for Palestinians. I am mostly ignorant about the situation and the issue. I probably know more than the average American, but that's not a high bar when it comes to international affairs.  Since the latest round of the conflict began in October 2023—no, not the conflict itself, but the American reaction to the conflict—I have wanted to try to gain at least a layman's understanding of how these matters (better than "issue"? maybe worse) should be perceived politically and theologically. 

To be more specific about myself: in terms of religion, for all my life I have been a part of a group called the Churches of Christ. In my experience, this has entailed zero attention to conflicts in the Middle East. People at church do not talk about Jews as God's chosen people. They are not Christian Zionists. They do not think that the formation of the state of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with God's plan. They are vaguely aware that some Christians could be characterized in these ways. I have not perceived at church much antisemitism, either—at least, not directed at modern Jews. Plenty of biblical interpretation that I have encountered could be considered antisemitic in relation to those bad ole Pharisees or whatever. Perhaps my co-religionists have transported these negative thoughts about ancient Jews to the modern people, but I don't recall that such a transposition was ever made overt. 

For all of my life, I have been basically politically conservative. My main news source these days is The Dispatch, which I highly recommend. In the conflict between Israel and Palestine, The Dispatch has been definitely in the pro-Israel camp. I think they (the authors and administrators of The Dispatch) would agree with that characterization. They consider Hamas to be evil terrorists (as opposed to, ya know, the other kind of terrorists). They seem to think it's a reasonable and moral aim for Israel to use military force to destroy Hamas. They seem to think that while Israel has perhaps not been as careful in executing their legitimate war aims as they should have been, much of the blame for civilian deaths in Gaza lands on Hamas, who has intentionally embedded themselves in civilian populations specifically to increase civilian casualties in a cynical ploy to win the hearts of western liberals. I'm not telling you that this is the right way to look at the war, but I am saying that it is my impression of my main news source's take on the war. So I come to Isaac's book without already being convinced that Israel is committing genocide. 

By the way, on the issue of Hamas using human shields, I mentioned last time something that Isaac said about that; he's not convinced. 

Isaac's book begins in medias res, in the middle of things—meaning, again, that this is not an introduction to the issue. Isaac starts in the middle of a conversation, no doubt one that he's been having all of his adult life. He assumes that the reader is familiar with the basic facts, at least as they have been reported in western media. He assumes that the reader is a Christian who at least leans toward Israel's side in the war and has accepted or at least heard many of the pro-Israel talking points. What Isaac provides is the pro-Palestinian position, the pro-Palestinian take on the history of the region over the last century, the pro-Palestinian take on the current situation in Israel. What I'm saying is that Isaac does not provide a balanced portrait, and he's not trying to. He assumes you know one side of the issue, so he's giving you the other side. So, again, it's not a good introduction to the conversation, and I kept wondering how an Israeli Jew might respond to some of Isaac's points, especially in regard to Israel as an apartheid state, for instance. 

And, as I critique this Palestinian pastor from the comfort of my American ivory tower, I know what Isaac would say about me: "He writes from a noticeable distance, and from a place not just of comfort but of superiority and power" (p. 148). Here Isaac is criticizing the editor of Christianity Today, but of course the same characterization is relevant to me. On the other hand, even Isaac himself is writing from a place (Bethlehem) of relative safety, at least in relation to Gaza, as he acknowledges. 

I do not claim to even come close to the experience of those in Gaza, or those who experienced October 7. I do not claim to know what it is like to live in the midst of a genocide. I cannot imagine being in the shoes of those in Auschwitz, Namibia, Armenia, Syria and Iraq, or Rwanda. (p. 220)

Isaac, in the West Bank, does say that he lives in an apartheid state and is a member of the oppressed class, but only Gaza has experienced the genocide. But he voices a fear that it's coming to the West Bank. 

Will this book convince you that Israel is committing genocide? Or is a settler colonialist or apartheid state? Well, Isaac does make an argument for each of these propositions, but if you're not convinced of these points already, Isaac probably won't convince you, and there are probably better places to go to encounter a more robust and tightly-argued case. 

He repeatedly criticizes Christian Zionism. That's what chapter 5 is about, "Theology of Genocide." He also criticizes Zionism (without the "Christian" modifier). On p. 244, he summarizes his critique that Zionism is all about settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide. A couple pages later, he repeats: "Israel has committed war crimes, indeed, a genocide. Its military occupation of Palestine is apartheid. Zionism is racism. Israel is a settler-colonial entity. We must call things by name" (p. 246). 

He gives different dates for the term of Palestine's suffering. Often he mentions 76 years, for which the reference point is 1948, the Nakba that accompanied the creation of the modern state of Israel. But the catastrophe has become more severe in recent decades, apparently, so that he asserts: "Gaza has cried out to the world for the last seventeen years, and in particular for the last twelve months, for justice and compassion" (p. 231). The reference to twelve months obviously refers to the recent war in the wake of October 7, 2023, but what about the reference to seventeen years? Here Isaac is calling to mind the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which began in June 2007 in response to the election of Hamas.

The election of Hamas took place a couple years after the so-called "disengagement," in which Israel dismantled Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and gave control of the region over to the Palestinians. Israel considers this act to be the end of its occupation of the Gaza Strip, though the UN says that Israel still effectively occupies the territory (see here). Even in this instance, Isaac is not willing to credit Israel with a positive move in respect to Palestinians. He talks about it in terms of "a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli security forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip. ... Israel and its allies continue to present this disengagement as a positive gesture whereby Israel handed over land to the Palestinians, claiming that since 2005 Gaza is no longer occupied" (p. 78). Of course, Isaac and others believe that Gaza is still occupied, but also he cites this analysis from the PLO that argues that the disengagement was part of an Israeli plan to thwart the peace process (with a damning statement quoted from Dov Weisglass; see here).

In his discussion of the "Theology of Genocide," Isaac quotes from this SBC resolution and comments, "This resolution manifests appalling racism" (p. 150). A couple thoughts on this charge of racism. First, like in the case of Biden's statement mentioned last time, I am not convinced that racism is the right category. I mean, sure, yes, it could be racism, but I don't think racism is the inevitable explanation for the wording of the resolution. So, sometimes Isaac's arguments fall flat—on me, at least—because I feel like he overreaches. He uses these very broad terms, or what might strike some readers as "liberal speak," when a more restrained critique of his opponents would have been more persuasive (I think). Secondly, on this resolution, once again the critique from Isaac—the very fact that he sees racism here—demonstrates that if you're writing a resolution, it would be valuable to show a draft of it to all parties involved (i.e., Palestinians and Israelis) just to see what a reaction would be. (Maybe the SBC did this?)

In the later chapters of the book, there is a lot of repetition of his basic point: Israel is committing genocide; the Palestinian people are suffering in front of the eyes of the world. Much of these later chapters is taken up with quotations of Isaac's sermons and speeches from late 2023 and 2024. The sermon that gave its title to the book was preached on December 23, 2023, and is available at YouTube.

Another example: in February 2024, Isaac went to London and preached at the Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.

In chapter 6 of his book, Isaac quotes a long section of this London sermon (p. 182, beginning at the 12:40 of the video). Near the end of the quoted section of the sermon, Isaac has a few paragraphs which provide a good synopsis for the entire argument of the book.

Dear friends: Gaza is indeed today the moral compass of the world. This war, I truly believe, has clearly divided the world; and maybe this is a good thing. Gaza is the moral compass of the world. Either you side with power and ruthlessness, with the lords of war, and with those who justify and rationalize the killing of children; or you side with the victims of oppression and injustice, and those who are besieged and dehumanized by the forces of empire and colonization. It is really a simple choice: you either support a genocide, turn a blind eye or justify a genocide, or you cry out: No! Not in our name. 

I call the church in the United Kingdom: as churches that seek justice and righteousness, in obedience to the commandment of Christ, we must have the courage to speak out and call things by name! This is not a conflict; Israel is not exercising its right of self-defense. Rather, Israel is the colonizer; Israel is a settler-colonial entity. We live under apartheid. What is happening in Gaza is a genocide and ethnic cleansing. Continuing to repeat the empires's narrative only serves to empower the aggressors. 

On the basis of the foregoing, we must no longer speak in our churches of "peace," or even of the resolution of conflict—but of an end to tyranny and injustice. Vocabulary is important. We are not talking about a struggle between equal forces. This is not simply about a ceasefire; but putting an end to seventy-six years of ethnic cleansing. And today, ending a genocide in Gaza. (p. 188)  

Is there a solution? This is not a major emphasis of Isaac in this book; he definitely majors in indictment, of Israel, America, and the western church. But he does spend a few pages near the end of the book on a possible path forward (pp. 253–58). The basic idea is a two-state solution, preceded by the acknowledgement of the major crimes of Israel: apartheid, settler colonialism, genocide. 

At the beginning of this section (pp. 253–54), Isaac mentions the vote in the Israeli Knesset in July 2024 rejecting the formation of a Palestinian state, so that a two-state solution is not in the cards at the moment. This is another time that Isaac seems to me a little unfair to Israel, because he seems to lay the blame for the failure of the two-state solution on this vote from Israel in 2024, as if there haven't been decades of talks about this issue. Maybe since he lives in Bethlehem and this situation has been a constant feature of international news for decades, he expects his readers will know this history. But he does not mention the waffling on the two-state solution that both sides have engaged in over the decades (see wikipedia for a rundown). There have been times that Arabs and/or specifically Palestinians have rejected a two-state solution. There have been times that Israel was willing to entertain the possibility of a two-state solution—especially, I believe, in the year of its own formation (1948). If Israel is now opposed to the two-state solution, and if the evidence for this opposition is a vote taken in the Knesset last summer, then it would seem to be a very recent phenomenon and not a long-standing policy, and it would probably behoove us to ask why the Knesset decided to take that vote and why the vote turned out the way it did. The answer cannot be that Israel has been a racist and settler colonialist and apartheid government for 76 years (even if all of those things are true), because there have been times in those 76 years that Israel has been willing to talk about a two-state solution. Maybe the reason for the current Israeli opposition to that solution is Netanyahu, or a rightward turn in Israeli politics, or the ongoing war, or something else. I don't know enough about the situation to say. But what I can say from reading the book is that I feel like I'm not getting the full story. 

What Isaac does succeed in driving home is that the fate of the Palestinians is a major moral issue of our time (as has been true for decades), and that Israel is killing too many of them right now—and, as Isaac would say, for decades past. He does not convince me that the right term for this is genocide, and I think that focusing so heavily on that particular term distracts from his argument. It may have been better to talk about reckless or indiscriminate killing, a charge that is still disputable (I have heard it disputed) but less so. Of course, saying it as I have done—that Israel is killing too many Palestinians—provokes the question, what is the right number of Palestinians to kill?—certainly a cynical and cruel question. But it is also a question that arises when one considers what a proper response to October 7 would have been, a point that Isaac doesn't really address, except to say that October 7 was itself a response to previous Israeli crimes. Isaac also succeeds in arguing that Christians should not voice support for the indiscriminate killing (or genocide) or Palestinians. If there are simple issues in the struggle between Israel and Palestine, these are the ones. But that leaves a lot of room for complexity. 

McWhorter on Honestly

The podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss is sometimes worth listening to. Sometimes, when the episode is on politics, it's a little too ... well, nevermind. And when it's not about politics, I'm often not interested. But I was interested to listen to John McWhorter on pronouns, discussing his new book. Here's the episode. 

One of the main things Weiss thinks will be controversial about the book is McWhorter's argument for using "they" as a singular pronoun. As he points out in the episode, this was been occurring in certain ways for a very long time. I think he says since Chaucer. McWhorter gives an example, something like: "Each student needs to pick up their paper at the end of class." McWhorter is right that few people—but there are some!—would object to such a usage of singular "their." As he recognizes, that's a different thing than the way "they/them" is being used now as a gender-neutral pronoun. McWhorter doesn't define that difference (not in this podcast, as far as I remember, but probably he does in his book), but I guess it would be that "they" has long been used as a gender-neutral pronoun for an indefinite antecedent. What is now happening is that some definite human beings are identifying as themselves gender-neutral, and they are claiming the gender-neutral "they" as their pronoun. It is this type of usage that has provoked criticism or resistance, and I myself find it grammatically awkward and confusing. I'm sure that McWhorter is right that given time and practice, such awkwardness and confusion would disappear. 

But I also find McWhorter's surmise interesting—or maybe "surmise" is the wrong word; his wondering? it's not a prediction—that perhaps in movies made in the 2050s, this use of "they" for a single and definite person will be used to signal that the story takes place in the 2020s. In other words, perhaps this new singular "they" won't catch on and will just be a passing fad. We'll see. 

Weiss says at one point in the episode that using "he/him" for a biological female or "she/her" for a biological male is a much bigger deal than using singular "they/them." And I see her point, but I find it much easier to do. With the caveat that I have known very few transgender people in my time, I have little problem using preferred pronouns. I see it as a matter of courtesy. But singular "they/them" is different, in my mind, because of the grammatical issue. I guess in a way it's like singular elohim in Hebrew, which happens all over the Hebrew Bible (e.g., the first verse of Genesis). But it's a little different, also, because singular elohim takes a singular verbal form, whereas in English singular "they" takes a plural verbal form: "they are" rather than "they is." 

McWhorter says a lot of interesting things in this episode; I just wish I could remember them all. Should have written them down. 

One thing I do remember is the discussion about how everyone is bisexual these days. This comes at about 45:00 in the video. McWhorter simply mentions the fact as an interesting new phenomenon, and Weiss (who is married to a woman) suggests that being bisexual is simply the "in" thing these days, something that accrues social-capital. She may be somewhat frustrated by this phenomenon, because at one point she jokingly compares it to "stolen valor" from homosexuals. I myself wonder, though, whether she's being a little too cynical. Well, actually, no: cynicism is almost always warranted when it comes to human motivations. But I do wonder whether, without a constraining force (such as religion or some other ethical system prohibiting certain behaviors), people would naturally feel no reason to preliminarily limit to a particular class the kinds of people to whom they may be attracted. Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant-past, many people in America would have preliminarily limited their potential romantic partners to people exhibiting a particular skin color, but that idea has mostly waned by now. In some contexts, people limit their potential romantic partners (not necessarily sexual partners) to a particular social class, but in other contexts (societies) that is not much of a concern. (Maybe I'm being naive; maybe social class is always a concern.) In the context of sexuality, I think about ancient Greece and Rome. Of course, for the most part I think they (Socrates, for example) would not have identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual because they didn't think about sexuality as an identity-issue. 

These are just thoughts. I have read neither Foucault nor Dover. 

A Note Halfway through a New Book on Palestine

I'm halfway through Munther Isaac's new book Christ in the Rubble, released last week. I wanted to read the book because it represents the viewpoint with which I am less familiar, the pro-Palestinian side in the ongoing conflict—to use a word Isaac does not like—between Israel and the Palestinians. When I say I'm less familiar with this viewpoint, I mean I haven't read much thoughtful analysis from this side of things. I come at the issue from the other side, and so I was skeptical when I got my hands on Isaac's book, skeptical but curious. He has managed to soften me. I should also say that this has not been one of my passions, that is, reading up on Israel and Palestine, so I come at this somewhat ignorant. Perhaps I'll have more to say about the book once I'm done with it. 

For now I'm going to highlight a few consecutive passages in the middle of his fourth chapter, in a section that argues that western support for Israel is (among other things) a product of racism against Arabs. Having read his argument, I'm not convinced, but I wouldn't argue against the thesis, either. 

The first thing I want to highlight is Isaac's response to this set of comments from Nikki Haley, in which she talks about Egypt and other "pro-Hamas" Arab countries taking in Palestinian refugees, and rather she laments that this is not happening. Here is Isaac: 

Calls for Arab countries to receive Palestinian refugees are essentially calls for ethnic cleansing. We cannot be fooled by their pretended humanitarian concern. Such calls ignore Palestinians' rootedness in the land and their national identity; such calls are not in the interest of Gazans. Why don't Nikki Haley and others who make such calls instead ask why the United States or western European countries don't open their borders to take in Israeli Jews? The idea that Palestinians are mere numbers that can be moved from one place to another while Israelis take more and more Palestinian land embraces the logic of ethnic cleansing, dehumanizes Palestinians, and denies their right to self-determination in their homeland. (p. 122)

There's a lot here. Some of this is not carefully worded, such as the first sentence quoted above. And (later) the reason no one is calling on western countries to take in Israeli Jews is because Israeli Jews are not refugees. But the reason I highlight this statement from Isaac is because of his comment about "Palestinians' rootedness in the land" and his later statement about "homeland." I'm not sure I feel this same sentiment about land, and I'm just wanting to think about this idea some more. Perhaps reading more Wendell Berry would help; does he feel what Isaac thinks the Palestinians feel? As a biblical scholar, I think of Brueggemann's book on The Land, which I haven't read either. I like the idea of rootedness in a place, but I grew up in Kentucky and now live in Alabama and could very much see myself in several other places of the world, if the situation were right (i.e., job and family). Connection to land doesn't really come into for me, I think. So I'm just signaling here a point at which I think I am failing to properly evaluate a concern that many people consider weighty. 

The very next paragraph: 

Other instances of the racist logic that has dominated imperial discourse about the war in  Gaza can be seen in the discourse surrounding human shields and hostages. The Israeli army first claimed that Hamas uses civilians as human shields without providing any evidence, and the West has repeated the charge at length. Even if this claim were true, would it justify the killing of children sheltering in a school or families in a hospital? If a serial killer were to escape police custody in Dallas, for example, and take a hundred children as hostages while hiding out in a school, would the United States argue for bombing the school to kill this serial killer? (p. 122)

This was one of the things I wanted to see Isaac address, because I have heard the charge about the human shields many times, and the charge seems very plausible to me. But I think Isaac's example about the serial killer was helpful. 

A couple paragraphs later: 

Responding to a question about the high number of Gazan civilians killed by Israeli airstrikes, US president Joe Biden said that he had "no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using." This remark, which can be characterized as racist, minimizes the scale of death of Palestinians in Gaza and discredits the ability for Palestinians to report on the scale of catastrophe they are experiencing. (p. 123)

The remark quoted from President Biden is cited by Isaac from a Reuters story dated to October 25, 2023. I suppose it's true that Biden's remark "can be characterized as racist," but I'm not sure that that's the most helpful way of characterizing the remark. I do recall in the early days of the war that many westerners were questioning the numbers of casualties reported by the ... uh, wasn't it the Ministry of Health in Palestine? And the reason given for questioning the credibility of these numbers was because this organization was run by Hamas, which had an interest in inflating the numbers, in order to win sympathy to their cause. I'm not sure whether the numbers provided by that Ministry of Health have been fully validated by this point, but at any rate I hear less questioning of their credibility. But I don't think Biden's remark gives very good evidence for Isaac's thesis about racism, or I would like to see more argumentation substantiating the link Isaac is claiming between racism and this statement. 

That gives you some idea of the type of material you'll find in this book, and my reaction to it. Some of it I would describe as helpful (e.g., the serial killer example), some less helpful (the characterization of Biden's remark as racist), and some presenting a mindset that is different from mine and that I need to consider (thinking here of the first point about the land).