Blogging the Bible

When I was a Freshman in college, I decided to read the Bible for myself. As a newly minted atheist, I was partly convinced that it was actually quite tolerable and it was the priesthood that screwed everything up by trying to monopolize power. In other words, I was willing to give agnosticism another go if there was some hint that god might really, objectively exist and it was religion's fault the worked was so messed.

The experiment ended a few months later with me firmly and irrevocably in the atheist camp, Having read the Bible, it seem completely unarguable that it was written by humans trying to justify their rule over other humans by playing on their fears and prejudices. Yeah, Jesus had some good ideas waaaaay ahead of his time, but he was really the first Homo Sapiens among the Cro-Magnon.

This is an interesting passage in Slate’s Blogging the Bible series that illustrates the point perfectly.

This may be the first recorded example of what has become the fundamental conflict in all religions: religious elite vs. the people. (See, for example, the pope vs. Martin Luther.) Korah asks an essential question: Why should the few priests and prophets monopolize God? What's so great about them that they control access to the divine? In the 3,500 years since, many religions have come down on Korah's side of this question, deciding that God belongs to the masses, not an anointed elite. But the Bible doesn't. It rules emphatically—smitingly—for Moses and Aaron, for the few rather than the many.

Moses challenges the rebels to a divine duel. Korah and his 250 followers are to show up (at dawn, of course) with their firepans. Then, Moses says, the Lord will choose who is holy. The next morning, they all gather outside the Tabernacle—not just the 250 rebels, but also the entire Israelite community, which now supports them. This is a very bad mistake on the Israelites' part. Again, the Chosen People face the prospect of being seriously Un-Chosen. The Lord cautions Moses and Aaron, "Stand back from the community that I may annihilate them in an instant." But Moses once more steps in to save them, rebuking God exactly as Abraham did about Sodom: "When one man sins, will You be wrathful to the whole community?" God agrees not to kill everyone but orders the Israelites to stand back from the tents of Korah and two other rebel leaders.

No question about it. Humans writing for other humans. Nothing divinely inspired here. It reminds me of a version of the crypto adage, “Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple stupidity”, in this case, “Never ascribe to the Divine what can be explained by the Corrupt”