Apocalypse: Et si le christianisme était bien la source de tous nos maux ? (Think not that I am come to send peace on earth)

Ne croyez pas que je sois venu apporter la paix sur la terre; je ne suis pas venu apporter la paix, mais l’épée. Car je suis venu mettre la division entre l’homme et son père, entre la fille et sa mère, entre la belle-fille et sa belle-mère; et l’homme aura pour ennemis les gens de sa maison. Jésus (Matthieu 10 : 34-36)

Vous entendrez parler de guerres et de bruits de guerres: gardez-vous d’être troublés, car il faut que ces choses arrivent. Mais ce ne sera pas encore la fin. Une nation s’élèvera contre une nation, et un royaume contre un royaume, et il y aura, en divers lieux, des famines et des tremblements de terre. Tout cela ne sera que le commencement des douleurs. Alors on vous livrera aux tourments, et l’on vous fera mourir; et vous serez haïs de toutes les nations, à cause de mon nom. Jésus (Matt. 24: 6-9)

Je te loue, Père, Seigneur du ciel et de la terre, de ce que tu as caché ces choses aux sages et aux intelligents, et de ce que tu les as révélées aux enfants. Jésus (Matthieu 11: 25)

Nous prêchons la sagesse de Dieu, mystérieuse et cachée, que Dieu, avant les siècles, avait destinée pour notre gloire, sagesse qu’aucun des chefs de ce siècle n’a connue, car, s’ils l’eussent connue, ils n’auraient pas crucifié le Seigneur de gloire. Paul (1 Corinthiens 2, 6-8)

Et maintenant vous savez ce qui le retient, afin qu’il ne paraisse qu’en son temps. Paul (2 Thessaloniciens 2: 6)

Il n’y a plus ni Juif ni Grec, il n’y a plus ni esclave ni libre, il n’y a plus ni homme ni femme; car tous vous êtes un en Jésus Christ. Paul (Galates 3: 28)

Par exemple, ils disent que les femmes sont les égales des hommes dans tous les domaines, sauf dans les cas qui contredisent la loi islamique. Mais alors la loi islamique permet aux hommes de discipliner leurs épouses. C’est scandaleux : je ne peux pas battre et presque tuer ma femme et ensuite vous dire qu’il s’agit de discipline. Ce n’est pas de la discipline : c’est de l’abus et de la folie. Ali Ahmed (écolier de 12 ans, Le Caire, 19 octobre 2012)

La nature d’une civilisation, c’est ce qui s’agrège autour d’une religion. Notre civilisation est incapable de construire un temple ou un tombeau. Elle sera contrainte de trouver sa valeur fondamentale, ou elle se décomposera. C’est le grand phénomène de notre époque que la violence de la poussée islamique. Sous-estimée par la plupart de nos contemporains, cette montée de l’islam est analogiquement comparable aux débuts du communisme du temps de Lénine. Les conséquences de ce phénomène sont encore imprévisibles. A l’origine de la révolution marxiste, on croyait pouvoir endiguer le courant par des solutions partielles. Ni le christianisme, ni les organisations patronales ou ouvrières n’ont trouvé la réponse. De même aujourd’hui, le monde occidental ne semble guère préparé à affronter le problème de l’islam. En théorie, la solution paraît d’ailleurs extrêmement difficile. Peut-être serait-elle possible en pratique si, pour nous borner à l’aspect français de la question, celle-ci était pensée et appliquée par un véritable homme d’Etat. Les données actuelles du problème portent à croire que des formes variées de dictature musulmane vont s’établir successivement à travers le monde arabe. Quand je dis «musulmane» je pense moins aux structures religieuses qu’aux structures temporelles découlant de la doctrine de Mahomet. Dès maintenant, le sultan du Maroc est dépassé et Bourguiba ne conservera le pouvoir qu’en devenant une sorte de dictateur. Peut-être des solutions partielles auraient-elles suffi à endiguer le courant de l’islam, si elles avaient été appliquées à temps. Actuellement, il est trop tard ! Les «misérables» ont d’ailleurs peu à perdre. Ils préféreront conserver leur misère à l’intérieur d’une communauté musulmane. Leur sort sans doute restera inchangé. Nous avons d’eux une conception trop occidentale. Aux bienfaits que nous prétendons pouvoir leur apporter, ils préféreront l’avenir de leur race. L’Afrique noire ne restera pas longtemps insensible à ce processus. Tout ce que nous pouvons faire, c’est prendre conscience de la gravité du phénomène et tenter d’en retarder l’évolution. André Malraux (1956)

Nous sommes encore proches de cette période des grandes expositions internationales qui regardait de façon utopique la mondialisation comme l’Exposition de Londres – la « Fameuse » dont parle Dostoievski, les expositions de Paris… Plus on s’approche de la vraie mondialisation plus on s’aperçoit que la non-différence ce n’est pas du tout la paix parmi les hommes mais ce peut être la rivalité mimétique la plus extravagante. On était encore dans cette idée selon laquelle on vivait dans le même monde: on n’est plus séparé par rien de ce qui séparait les hommes auparavant donc c’est forcément le paradis. Ce que voulait la Révolution française. Après la nuit du 4 août, plus de problème ! René Girard

L’inauguration majestueuse de l’ère « post-chrétienne » est une plaisanterie. Nous sommes dans un ultra-christianisme caricatural qui essaie d’échapper à l’orbite judéo-chrétienne en « radicalisant » le souci des victimes dans un sens antichrétien. (…) Jusqu’au nazisme, le judaïsme était la victime préférentielle de ce système de bouc émissaire. Le christianisme ne venait qu’en second lieu. Depuis l’Holocauste, en revanche, on n’ose plus s’en prendre au judaïsme, et le christianisme est promu au rang de bouc émissaire numéro un. René Girard

Ceux qui considèrent l’hébraïsme et le christianisme comme des religions du bouc émissaire parce qu’elles le rendent visible font comme s’ils punissaient l’ambassadeur en raison du message qu’il apporte. René Girard

Il y a deux grandes attitudes à mon avis dans l’histoire humaine, il y a celle de la mythologie qui s’efforce de dissimuler la violence, car, en dernière analyse, c’est sur la violence injuste que les communautés humaines reposent. (…) Cette attitude est trop universelle pour être condamnée. C’est l’attitude d’ailleurs des plus grands philosophes grecs et en particulier de Platon, qui condamne Homère et tous les poètes parce qu’ils se permettent de décrire dans leurs oeuvres les violences attribuées par les mythes aux dieux de la cité. Le grand philosophe voit dans cette audacieuse révélation une source de désordre, un péril majeur pour toute la société. Cette attitude est certainement l’attitude religieuse la plus répandue, la plus normale, la plus naturelle à l’homme et, de nos jours, elle est plus universelle que jamais, car les croyants modernisés, aussi bien les chrétiens que les juifs, l’ont au moins partiellement adoptée. L’autre attitude est beaucoup plus rare et elle est même unique au monde. Elle est réservée tout entière aux grands moments de l’inspiration biblique et chrétienne. Elle consiste non pas à pudiquement dissimuler mais, au contraire, à révéler la violence dans toute son injustice et son mensonge, partout où il est possible de la repérer. C’est l’attitude du Livre de Job et c’est l’attitude des Evangiles. C’est la plus audacieuse des deux et, à mon avis, c’est la plus grande. C’est l’attitude qui nous a permis de découvrir l’innocence de la plupart des victimes que même les hommes les plus religieux, au cours de leur histoire, n’ont jamais cessé de massacrer et de persécuter. C’est là qu’est l’inspiration commune au judaïsme et au christianisme, et c’est la clef, il faut l’espérer, de leur réconciliation future. C’est la tendance héroïque à mettre la vérité au-dessus même de l’ordre social. René Girard

Et immédiatement, le centre sacrificiel se mit à générer des réactions habituelles : un sentiment d’unanimité et de deuil. […] Des phrases ont commencé à se dire comme « Nous sommes tous Américains » – un sentiment purement fictif pour la plupart d’entre nous. Ce fut étonnant de voir l’unité se former autour du centre sacré, rapidement nommé Ground Zero, une unité qui se concrétisera ensuite par un drapeau, une grande participation aux cérémonies religieuses, les chefs religieux soudainement pris au sérieux, des bougies, des lieux saints, des prières, tous les signes de la religion de la mort. […] Et puis il y avait le deuil. Comme nous aimons le deuil ! Cela nous donne bonne conscience, nous rend innocents. Voilà ce qu’Aristote voulait dire par katharsis, et qui a des échos profonds dans les racines sacrificielles de la tragédie dramatique. Autour du centre sacrificiel, les personnes présentes se sentent justifiées et moralement bonnes. Une fausse bonté qui soudainement les sort de leurs petites trahisons, leurs lâchetés, leur mauvaise conscience. James Alison

Un des grands problèmes de la Russie – et plus encore de la Chine – est que, contrairement aux camps de concentration hitlériens, les leurs n’ont jamais été libérés et qu’il n’y a eu aucun tribunal de Nuremberg pour juger les crimes commis. Thérèse Delpech

Je crois aux principes affirmés à Nuremberg en 1945 : ’Les individus ont des devoirs internationaux qui transcendent les obligations nationales d’obéissance. Par conséquent, les citoyens ont à titre privé le devoir de violer les lois domestiques pour empêcher des crimes contre la paix et l’humanité d’avoir lieu.’ Edward Snowden

S’il veut rester ici, la condition, c’est qu’il cesse ses activités visant à faire du tort à nos partenaires américains, peu importe que cela puisse paraître étrange venant de ma part. Vladimir Poutine

Selon l’anthropologue René Girard, les sociétés humaines seraient, depuis la nuit des temps, fondées sur un mécanisme sacrificiel qui aurait permis d’assurer la cohésion du groupe en canalisant sa violence contre une victime, accusée de tous les maux, et dont l’immolation rituelle ramènerait la paix dans le groupe, pour autant que le mécanisme en question reste méconnu et que personne ne reconnaisse un « bouc émissaire ». Nous sommes les dignes héritiers de ces sociétés sacrificielles au sens où nous sommes tout autant portés à ces consensus accusateurs. La seule différence, mais elle est de taille, c’est que nous avons progressivement acquis la capacité à reconnaître l’existence de boucs émissaires, c’est-à-dire de victimes chargées d’une culpabilité qui n’est pas la leur dans le but de réconcilier le groupe. Cette capacité est précisément ce qui fait dérailler le processus sacrificiel car, en reconnaissant l’accusé comme victime, en n’acceptant pas l’accusation dont il fait l’objet et, en étant, en quelque sorte, témoins de son innocence, nous empêchons le consensus de se former. Lorsque l’accusation n’est pas unanime, lorsque certains se solidarisent avec la victime, la violence ne peut plus être expulsée par la mise à mort, elle reste dans le groupe. Le mécanisme sacrificiel ne peut s’accomplir et les accusés nous apparaissent alors pour ce qu’ils sont, des victimes, des boucs émissaires destinés à rassembler ou à mobiliser une communauté en détournant son attention des véritables coupables. Par exemple, l’historien Tacite raconte qu’en l’an 64 de notre ère, pour se défendre de la rumeur qui le rendait responsable de l’incendie de Rome, l’empereur Néron aurait accusé les chrétiens qui ont alors été suppliciés par la population. À l’heure actuelle, nous reconnaissons aisément ces chrétiens comme les boucs émissaires de Néron et des Romains parce que nous n’adhérons pas aux accusations portées contre ce qui était alors une secte détestée « pour ses abominations… [et sa] … haine pour le genre humain. » Par contre, lorsque notre capacité de reconnaissance des boucs émissaires est prise en défaut, nous participons à une accusation qui nous semble légitime, parce que unanime. Dans ce cas, le mécanisme sacrificiel fonctionne comme il l’a toujours fait. Luc-Laurent Salvador

C’est le système protecteur des boucs émissaires que les récits de la Crucifixion finiront par détruire en révélant l’innocence de Jésus, et, de proche en proche, de toutes les victimes analogues. Le processus d’éducation hors des sacrifices violents est donc en train de s’accomplir, mais très lentement, de façon presque toujours inconsciente. René Girard

(Le 11 septembre,) je le vois comme un événement déterminant, et c’est très grave de le minimiser aujourd’hui. Le désir habituel d’être optimiste, de ne pas voir l’unicité de notre temps du point de vue de la violence, correspond à un désir futile et désespéré de penser notre temps comme la simple continuation de la violence du XXe siècle. . Je pense, personnellement, que nous avons affaire à une nouvelle dimension qui est mondiale. Ce que le communisme avait tenté de faire, une guerre vraiment mondiale, est maintenant réalisé, c’est l’actualité. Minimiser le 11 Septembre, c’est ne pas vouloir voir l’importance de cette nouvelle dimension. (…) Mais la menace actuelle va au-delà de la politique, puisqu’elle comporte un aspect religieux. Ainsi, l’idée qu’il puisse y avoir un conflit plus total que celui conçu par les peuples totalitaires, comme l’Allemagne nazie, et qui puisse devenir en quelque sorte la propriété de l’islam, est tout simplement stupéfiante, tellement contraire à ce que tout le monde croyait sur la politique. (…) Le problème religieux est plus radical dans la mesure où il dépasse les divisions idéologiques – que bien sûr, la plupart des intellectuels aujourd’hui ne sont pas prêts d’abandonner.(…) Il s’agit de notre incompréhension du rôle de la religion, et de notre propre monde ; c’est ne pas comprendre que ce qui nous unit est très fragile. Lorsque nous évoquons nos principes démocratiques, parlons-nous de l’égalité et des élections, ou bien parlons-nous de capitalisme, de consommation, de libre échange, etc. ? Je pense que dans les années à venir, l’Occident sera mis à l’épreuve. Comment réagira-t-il : avec force ou faiblesse ? Se dissoudra-t-il ? Les occidentaux devraient se poser la question de savoir s’ils ont de vrais principes, et si ceux-ci sont chrétiens ou bien purement consuméristes. Le consumérisme n’a pas d’emprise sur ceux qui se livrent aux attentats suicides. (…) Allah est contre le consumérisme, etc. En réalité, le musulman pense que les rituels de prohibition religieuse sont une force qui maintient l’unité de la communauté, ce qui a totalement disparu ou qui est en déclin en Occident. Les gens en Occident ne sont motivés que par le consumérisme, les bons salaires, etc. Les musulmans disent : « leurs armes sont terriblement dangereuses, mais comme peuple, ils sont tellement faibles que leur civilisation peut être facilement détruite ».

L’avenir apocalyptique n’est pas quelque chose d’historique. C’est quelque chose de religieux sans lequel on ne peut pas vivre. C’est ce que les chrétiens actuels ne comprennent pas. Parce que, dans l’avenir apocalyptique, le bien et le mal sont mélangés de telle manière que d’un point de vue chrétien, on ne peut pas parler de pessimisme. Cela est tout simplement contenu dans le christianisme. Pour le comprendre, lisons la Première Lettre aux Corinthiens : si les puissants, c’est-à-dire les puissants de ce monde, avaient su ce qui arriverait, ils n’auraient jamais crucifié le Seigneur de la Gloire – car cela aurait signifié leur destruction (cf. 1 Co 2, 8). Car lorsque l’on crucifie le Seigneur de la Gloire, la magie des pouvoirs, qui est le mécanisme du bouc émissaire, est révélée. Montrer la crucifixion comme l’assassinat d’une victime innocente, c’est montrer le meurtre collectif et révéler ce phénomène mimétique. C’est finalement cette vérité qui entraîne les puissants à leur perte. Et toute l’histoire est simplement la réalisation de cette prophétie. Ceux qui prétendent que le christianisme est anarchiste ont un peu raison. Les chrétiens détruisent les pouvoirs de ce monde, car ils détruisent la légitimité de toute violence. Pour l’État, le christianisme est une force anarchique, surtout lorsqu’il retrouve sa puissance spirituelle d’autrefois. Ainsi, le conflit avec les musulmans est bien plus considérable que ce que croient les fondamentalistes. Les fondamentalistes pensent que l’apocalypse est la violence de Dieu. Alors qu’en lisant les chapitres apocalyptiques, on voit que l’apocalypse est la violence de l’homme déchaînée par la destruction des puissants, c’est-à-dire des États, comme nous le voyons en ce moment. Lorsque les puissances seront vaincues, la violence deviendra telle que la fin arrivera. Si l’on suit les chapitres apocalyptiques, c’est bien cela qu’ils annoncent. Il y aura des révolutions et des guerres. Les États s’élèveront contre les États, les nations contre les nations. Cela reflète la violence. Voilà le pouvoir anarchique que nous avons maintenant, avec des forces capables de détruire le monde entier. On peut donc voir l’apparition de l’apocalypse d’une manière qui n’était pas possible auparavant. Au début du christianisme, l’apocalypse semblait magique : le monde va finir ; nous irons tous au paradis, et tout sera sauvé ! L’erreur des premiers chrétiens était de croire que l’apocalypse était toute proche. Les premiers textes chronologiques chrétiens sont les Lettres aux Thessaloniciens qui répondent à la question : pourquoi le monde continue-t-il alors qu’on en a annoncé la fin ? Paul dit qu’il y a quelque chose qui retient les pouvoirs, le katochos (quelque chose qui retient). L’interprétation la plus commune est qu’il s’agit de l’Empire romain. La crucifixion n’a pas encore dissout tout l’ordre. Si l’on consulte les chapitres du christianisme, ils décrivent quelque chose comme le chaos actuel, qui n’était pas présent au début de l’Empire romain. (..) le monde actuel (…) confirme vraiment toutes les prédictions. On voit l’apocalypse s’étendre tous les jours : le pouvoir de détruire le monde, les armes de plus en plus fatales, et autres menaces qui se multiplient sous nos yeux. Nous croyons toujours que tous ces problèmes sont gérables par l’homme mais, dans une vision d’ensemble, c’est impossible. Ils ont une valeur quasi surnaturelle. Comme les fondamentalistes, beaucoup de lecteurs de l’Évangile reconnaissent la situation mondiale dans ces chapitres apocalyptiques. Mais les fondamentalistes croient que la violence ultime vient de Dieu, alors ils ne voient pas vraiment le rapport avec la situation actuelle – le rapport religieux. Cela montre combien ils sont peu chrétiens. La violence humaine, qui menace aujourd’hui le monde, est plus conforme au thème apocalyptique de l’Évangile qu’ils ne le pensent.

(la Guerre Froide est) complètement dépassée. (…) Et la rapidité avec laquelle elle a été dépassée est incroyable. L’Union Soviétique a montré qu’elle devenait plus humaine lorsqu’elle n’a pas tenté de forcer le blocus de Kennedy, et à partir de cet instant, elle n’a plus fait peur. Après Khrouchtchev on a eu rapidement besoin de Gorbatchev. Quand Gorbatchev est arrivé au pouvoir, les oppositions ne se trouvaient plus à l’intérieur de l’humanisme. (…) Cela dit, de plus en plus de gens en Occident verront la faiblesse de notre humanisme ; nous n’allons pas redevenir chrétiens, mais on fera plus attention au fait que la lutte se trouve entre le christianisme et l’islam, plus qu’entre l’islam et l’humanisme. Avec l’islam je pense que l’opposition est totale. Dans l’islam, si l’on est violent, on est inévitablement l’instrument de Dieu. Cela veut donc dire que la violence apocalyptique vient de Dieu. Aux États-Unis, les fondamentalistes disent cela, mais les grandes églises ne le disent pas. Néanmoins, ils ne poussent pas suffisamment leur pensée pour dire que si la violence ne vient pas de Dieu, elle vient de l’homme, et que nous en sommes responsables. Nous acceptons de vivre sous la protection d’armes nucléaires. Cela a probablement été la plus grande erreur de l’Occident. Imaginez-vous les implications. (…) Nous croyons que la violence est garante de la paix. Mais cette hypothèse ne me paraît pas valable. Nous ne voulons pas aujourd’hui réfléchir à ce que signifie cette confiance dans la violence. (Avec un autre événement tel que le 11 Septembre) Je pense que les gens deviendraient plus conscients. Mais cela serait probablement comme la première attaque. Il y aurait une période de grande tension spirituelle et intellectuelle, suivie d’un lent relâchement. Quand les gens ne veulent pas voir, ils y arrivent. Je pense qu’il y aura des révolutions spirituelles et intellectuelles dans un avenir proche. Ce que je dis aujourd’hui semble complètement invraisemblable, et pourtant je pense que le 11 Septembre va devenir de plus en plus significatif.  René Girard

Et si le christianisme était bien la source de tous nos maux ?

En ces temps étranges où, en une sorte de guerre froide à l’envers et à fronts renversés, l’ex-agent du KGB et maitre ès chaises musicales nous la joue dorénavant défenseur des libertés fondamentales …

Et où au centre du débat et sur fond d’une guerre plus féroce que jamais avec le terrorisme islamique, le nouveau Sakharov venu cette fois des Etats-Unis en appelle au principe de Nuremberg dont ni ses actuels hôtes russes ni leurs prédécésseurs chinois n’ont probablement jamais entendu parler …

Pendant que dans le Pays autoproclamé des droits de l’homme on accorde l’asile politique et un nouveau timbre à une tronçonneuse de croix aux seins nus et que ne reconnaissant plus leurs enfants, nombre de pays à majorité musulmane le font payer à leurs chrétiens …

Retour, avec un entretien de 2007 de René Girard …

Sur la nouveauté proprement apocalyptique, post-11 septembre, de la situation actuelle …

Pourtant étrangement non repérée par athées autant que croyants …

Victimes convergentes, dans la logique du châtiment de l’ambassadeur pour le  message qu’il apporte, de la même illusion d’optique …

Les uns percevant bien les effets effectivement déstabilisateurs et source de violence du christianisme mais pour en faire le nouveau bouc émissaire mondial …

Alors que pointant les apports indéniablement libérateurs du christianisme mais aveugles à l’évidence d’une violence purement humaine et pour la première fois de portée proprement planétaire, les autres s’en remettent à l’annonce apocalyptique d’une violence divine …

La pensée apocalyptique après le 11 Septembre : entretien avec René Girard

Robert DORAN

Revue des Bernardins

28 janvier 2013

Cet entretien a eu lieu, en anglais, le 10 février 2007 au domicile américain de R. Girard à Stanford, en Californie. Complété par un bref entretien le 8 août 2007, au même endroit. Il a déjà été publié en anglais : « Apocalyptic Thinking after 9/11 : An Interview with René Girard », SubStance vol. 37, n° 1, Cultural Theory After 9/11 : Terror, Religion, Media (2008), p. 20-32.

Robert Doran : Peu de temps après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, vous avez accordé une interview au Monde, où vous avez déclaré : « ce qui se joue aujourd’hui est une rivalité mimétique à l’échelle planétaire [1] ». Cette observation paraît encore plus vraisemblable aujourd’hui. Les faits semblent démontrer une continuité et une intensification du conflit mimétique : les guerres en Irak et en Afghanistan ; les bombes dans les transports publics à Madrid et à Londres ; les voitures incendiées dans les banlieues parisiennes ne semblent pas sans rapport. Rétrospectivement, comment percevez-vous les événements du 11 Septembre ?

René Girard : Je pense que votre remarque est juste. Mais je voudrais commencer par faire quelques commentaires. J’ai l’impression que beaucoup de gens ont oublié le 11 Septembre – pas complètement, mais ils l’ont réduit à une espèce de norme tacite. Quand j’ai donné cet entretien au Monde, l’opinion générale pensait qu’il s’agissait d’un événement inhabituel, nouveau, et incomparable. Aujourd’hui, je pense que beaucoup de gens seraient en désaccord avec cette remarque. Malheureusement, l’attitude des Américains face au 11 Septembre a été influencée par l’idéologie politique, à cause de la guerre en Irak. Le fait d’insister sur le 11 Septembre est devenu « conservateur » et « alarmiste ». Ceux qui aimeraient mettre une fin immédiate à la guerre en Irak tendent donc à le minimiser. Cela dit, je ne veux pas dire qu’ils ont tort de vouloir terminer la guerre en Irak, mais avant de minimiser le 11 Septembre, ils devraient faire très attention et considérer la situation dans sa globalité. Aujourd’hui, cette tendance est très répandue, car les événements dont vous parlez – qui ont eu lieu après le 11 Septembre et qui en sont, en quelque sorte, de vagues réminiscences – sont incomparablement moins puissants et ont beaucoup moins de visibilité. Par conséquent, il y a tout le problème de l’interprétation : qu’est-ce que le 11 Septembre ?

RD : Vous voyez vous-même le 11 Septembre comme une sorte de rupture, un événement déterminant ?

RG : Oui, je le vois comme un événement déterminant, et c’est très grave de le minimiser aujourd’hui. Le désir habituel d’être optimiste, de ne pas voir l’unicité de notre temps du point de vue de la violence, correspond à un désir futile et désespéré de penser notre temps comme la simple continuation de la violence du XXe siècle. Je pense, personnellement, que nous avons affaire à une nouvelle dimension qui est mondiale. Ce que le communisme avait tenté de faire, une guerre vraiment mondiale, est maintenant réalisé, c’est l’actualité. Minimiser le 11 Septembre, c’est ne pas vouloir voir l’importance de cette nouvelle dimension.

RD : Vous venez de faire référence à la guerre froide. Comment comparez-vous les deux menaces envers l’Occident ?

RG : Les deux sont similaires dans la mesure où elles représentent une menace révolutionnaire, une menace globale. Mais la menace actuelle va au-delà de la politique, puisqu’elle comporte un aspect religieux. Ainsi, l’idée qu’il puisse y avoir un conflit plus total que celui conçu par les peuples totalitaires, comme l’Allemagne nazie, et qui puisse devenir en quelque sorte la propriété de l’islam, est tout simplement stupéfiante, tellement contraire à ce que tout le monde croyait sur la politique. Il faudrait beaucoup y travailler, car il n’y a pas de vraie réflexion sur la coexistence des autres religions, et en particulier du christianisme avec l’islam. Le problème religieux est plus radical dans la mesure où il dépasse les divisions idéologiques – que bien sûr, la plupart des intellectuels aujourd’hui ne sont pas prêts d’abandonner. En deçà de ces visions idéologiques, nos réflexions sur le 11 Septembre resteront superficielles. Nous devons réfléchir dans le contexte plus large de la dimension apocalyptique du christianisme. Celle-ci est une menace, car la survie même de la planète est en jeu. Notre planète est menacée par trois choses qui émanent de l’homme : la menace nucléaire, la menace écologique et la manipulation biologique de l’espèce humaine. L’idée que l’homme ne puisse pas maîtriser ses propres pouvoirs est aussi vraie dans le domaine biologique que dans le domaine militaire. C’est cette triple menace mondiale qui domine aujourd’hui.

RD : Je reviendrai à la dimension apocalyptique dans un instant. Dans un livre récent, Zbigniew Brzezinski (conseiller personnel du Président Carter pour la sécurité nationale) écrit que « derrière pratiquement chaque acte terroriste se cache un problème politique. […] Pour paraphraser Clausewitz, le terrorisme est la continuation de la politique par d’autres moyens [2] ». Le terrorisme n’est-il pas toujours en partie politique puisque, quelle qu’en soit la cible, il est finalement toujours orienté contre les gouvernements ?

RG : Le terrorisme est une forme de guerre, et la guerre est la continuation de la politique par d’autres moyens. En ce sens, le terrorisme est politique. Mais le terrorisme est la seule forme possible de guerre face à la technologie. Les événements actuels en Irak le confirment. La supériorité de l’Occident, c’est sa technologie, et elle s’est révélée inutile en Irak. L’Occident s’est mis dans la pire des situations en déclarant qu’il transformerait l’Irak en une démocratie jeffersonienne ! C’est précisément ce qu’il ne peut pas faire. Il est impuissant face à l’islam car la division entre les sunnites et les chiites est infiniment plus importante. Alors même qu’ils combattent l’Occident, ils parviennent encore à lutter l’un contre l’autre. Pourquoi l’Occident devraitil s’investir dans ce conflit interne à l’islam alors que nous ne parvenons même pas à en concevoir l’immense puissance au sein du monde islamique lui-même ?

RD : S’agirait-il de notre incompréhension face au rôle de la religion ?

RG : Il s’agit de notre incompréhension du rôle de la religion, et de notre propre monde ; c’est ne pas comprendre que ce qui nous unit est très fragile. Lorsque nous évoquons nos principes démocratiques, parlons-nous de l’égalité et des élections, ou bien parlons-nous de capitalisme, de consommation, de libre échange, etc. ? Je pense que dans les années à venir, l’Occident sera mis à l’épreuve. Comment réagira-t-il : avec force ou faiblesse ? Se dissoudra-t-il ? Les occidentaux devraient se poser la question de savoir s’ils ont de vrais principes, et si ceux-ci sont chrétiens ou bien purement consuméristes. Le consumérisme n’a pas d’emprise sur ceux qui se livrent aux attentats suicides. L’Amérique devrait y réfléchir, car elle offre au monde ce que l’on considère de plus attrayant. Pourquoi cela ne fonctionne- t-il pas vraiment chez les musulmans ? Est-ce par ressentiment ou ont-ils, contre cela, un système de défense bien organisé ? Ou bien, leur perspective religieuse est-elle plus authentique et plus puissante ? Le vrai problème est là.

RD : Votre interprétation d’origine était que le 11 Septembre était dû au ressentiment.

RG : Je suis bien moins affirmatif que je ne l’étais au moment du 11 Septembre sur l’idée d’un ressentiment total. Je me souviens m’être emporté lors d’une rencontre à l’École Polytechnique lorsque je me suis mis d’accord avec Jean-Pierre Dupuy sur l’interprétation du ressentiment du monde musulman. Maintenant, je ne pense pas que cela suffise. Le ressentiment seul peut-il motiver cette capacité de mourir ainsi ? Le monde musulman pourrait-il vraiment être indifférent à la culture de consommation de masse ? Peut-être qu’il l’est. Je ne sais pas. Il serait sans doute excessif de leur attribuer une telle envie. Si les islamistes ont vraiment pour objectif la domination du monde, alors ils l’ont déjà dépassée. Nous ne savons pas si l’industrialisation rapide apparaîtra dans le monde musulman, ou s’ils tenteront de gagner sur la croissance démographique et la fascination qu’ils exercent. Il y a de plus en plus de conversions en Occident. La fascination de la violence y joue certainement un rôle.

RD : Mais, selon votre pensée, l’interprétation sur le ressentiment semblait logique.

RG : Il y a là du ressentiment, évidemment. Et c’est ce qui a dû émouvoir ceux qui ont applaudi les terroristes, comme s’ils étaient dans un stade. C’est cela le ressentiment. C’est évident et indéniable. Mais est-ce qu’il représente l’unique force ? La force majeure ? Peut-il être l’unique cause des attentats suicides ? Je n’en suis pas sûr. La richesse accumulée en Occident, comparée au reste du monde, est un scandale, et le 11 Septembre n’est pas sans rapport avec ce fait. Si je ne veux donc pas complètement supprimer l’idée du ressentiment, il ne peut pas être l’unique explication.

RD : Et l’autre force ?

RG : L’autre force serait religieuse. Allah est contre le consumérisme, etc. En réalité, le musulman pense que les rituels de prohibition religieuse sont une force qui maintient l’unité de la communauté, ce qui a totalement disparu ou qui est en déclin en Occident. Les gens en Occident ne sont motivés que par le consumérisme, les bons salaires, etc. Les musulmans disent : « leurs armes sont terriblement dangereuses, mais comme peuple, ils sont tellement faibles que leur civilisation peut être facilement détruite ». C’est ce qu’ils pensent et ils n’ont peut-être pas complètement tort. Il me semble qu’il y a quelque chose de juste dans ce propos. Finalement, je crois que la perspective chrétienne sur la violence surmontera tout, mais ce sera une épreuve importante.

RD : Jean-Pierre Dupuy considère le 11 Septembre comme « un vrai sacrifice dans le sens anthropologique du terme [3] ». Le 11 Septembre peut-il être pensé selon une logique du sacrifice ?

RG : La réponse à cette question doit être prudente. Il faut faire attention à ne pas justifier le 11 Septembre en le qualifiant de sacrificiel. Je pense que Jean-Pierre Dupuy ne le dit pas. Il maintient une sorte de neutralité. Mais ce qu’il dit sur la nature sacrée de Ground Zero au World Trade Center est, je pense, parfaitement justifié. Je me permets de citer un essai pertinent de James Alison, qui a écrit :

Et immédiatement, le centre sacrificiel se mit à générer des réactions habituelles : un sentiment d’unanimité et de deuil. […] Des phrases ont commencé à se dire comme « Nous sommes tous Américains » – un sentiment purement fictif pour la plupart d’entre nous. Ce fut étonnant de voir l’unité se former autour du centre sacré, rapidement nommé Ground Zero, une unité qui se concrétisera ensuite par un drapeau, une grande participation aux cérémonies religieuses, les chefs religieux soudainement pris au sérieux, des bougies, des lieux saints, des prières, tous les signes de la religion de la mort. […] Et puis il y avait le deuil. Comme nous aimons le deuil ! Cela nous donne bonne conscience, nous rend innocents. Voilà ce qu’Aristote voulait dire par katharsis, et qui a des échos profonds dans les racines sacrificielles de la tragédie dramatique. Autour du centre sacrificiel, les personnes présentes se sentent justifiées et moralement bonnes. Une fausse bonté qui soudainement les sort de leurs petites trahisons, leurs lâchetés, leur mauvaise conscience [4].

Je pense que James Alison a raison de parler de la katharsis dans le contexte du 11 Septembre. La notion de katharsis est extrêmement importante. C’est un mot religieux. En réalité, cela veut dire « la purge » au sens de purification. Dans l’Église orthodoxe, par exemple, katharos veut dire purification. C’est le mot qui exprime l’effet positif de la religion. La purge est ce qui nous rend purs. C’est ce que la religion est censée faire, et ce qu’elle fait avec le sacrifice. Je considère l’utilisation du mot katharsis par Aristote comme parfaitement juste. Quand les gens condamnent la théorie mimétique, ils ne voient pas l’apport d’Aristote. Il ne semble parler que de tragédie, mais pourtant, le théâtre tragique traite du sacrifice comme un drame. On l’appelle d’ailleurs « l’ode de la chèvre [5] ». Aristote est toujours conventionnel dans ses explications – conventionnel au sens positif. Un Grec très intelligent cherchant à justifier sa religion, utiliserait, je pense, le mot katharsis. Ainsi, ma réponse mettrait l’accent sur la katharsis au sens aristotélicien du terme.

RD : La dimension spectaculaire du 11 Septembre fait certainement penser au théâtre. Mais le 11 Septembre, nous avons tous été témoins d’un événement réel.

RG : Oui, pour le 11 Septembre, il y avait la télévision qui nous rendait présents à l’événement, et intensifiait ainsi l’expérience. L’événement était en direct, comme nous le disons en français. On ne savait pas ce qui allait advenir par la suite. Moi-même, j’ai vu le deuxième avion frapper le gratte-ciel, en direct. C’était comme un spectacle tragique, mais réel en même temps. Si nous ne l’avions pas vécu dans le sens le plus littéral, il n’aurait pas eu le même impact. Je pense que si j’avais écrit La Violence et le Sacré après le 11 Septembre, j’y aurais très probablement inclus cet événement [6]. C’est l’événement qui rend possible une compréhension des événements contemporains, car il rend l’archaïque plus intelligible. Le 11 Septembre représente un étrange retour à l’archaïque à l’intérieur du sécularisme de notre temps. Il n’y a pas si longtemps, les gens auraient eu une réaction chrétienne vis-à-vis du 11 Septembre. Aujourd’hui, ils ont une réaction archaïque, qui augure mal de l’avenir.

RD : Revenons-en à la dimension apocalyptique. Votre pensée est généralement considérée comme pessimiste. Considérezvous le 11 Septembre comme une étape vers un avenir apocalyptique  ?

RG : L’avenir apocalyptique n’est pas quelque chose d’historique. C’est quelque chose de religieux sans lequel on ne peut pas vivre. C’est ce que les chrétiens actuels ne comprennent pas. Parce que, dans l’avenir apocalyptique, le bien et le mal sont mélangés de telle manière que d’un point de vue chrétien, on ne peut pas parler de pessimisme. Cela est tout simplement contenu dans le christianisme. Pour le comprendre, lisons la Première Lettre aux Corinthiens : si les puissants, c’est-à-dire les puissants de ce monde, avaient su ce qui arriverait, ils n’auraient jamais crucifié le Seigneur de la Gloire – car cela aurait signifié leur destruction (cf. 1 Co 2, 8). Car lorsque l’on crucifie le Seigneur de la Gloire, la magie des pouvoirs, qui est le mécanisme du bouc émissaire, est révélée. Montrer la crucifixion comme l’assassinat d’une victime innocente, c’est montrer le meurtre collectif et révéler ce phénomène mimétique. C’est finalement cette vérité qui entraîne les puissants à leur perte. Et toute l’histoire est simplement la réalisation de cette prophétie. Ceux qui prétendent que le christianisme est anarchiste ont un peu raison. Les chrétiens détruisent les pouvoirs de ce monde, car ils détruisent la légitimité de toute violence. Pour l’État, le christianisme est une force anarchique, surtout lorsqu’il retrouve sa puissance spirituelle d’autrefois. Ainsi, le conflit avec les musulmans est bien plus considérable que ce que croient les fondamentalistes. Les fondamentalistes pensent que l’apocalypse est la violence de Dieu. Alors qu’en lisant les chapitres apocalyptiques, on voit que l’apocalypse est la violence de l’homme déchaînée par la destruction des puissants, c’est-à-dire des États, comme nous le voyons en ce moment.

RD : Mais cette interprétation permet à la violence de continuer à un autre niveau.

RG : Oui, mais pas en tant que force religieuse. À la fin, la force religieuse est du côté du Christ. Cependant, il semblerait que la vraie force religieuse soit du côté de la violence.

RD : À quoi ressembleront les choses lorsque les puissances seront vaincues ?

RG : Lorsque les puissances seront vaincues, la violence deviendra telle que la fin arrivera. Si l’on suit les chapitres apocalyptiques, c’est bien cela qu’ils annoncent. Il y aura des révolutions et des guerres. Les États s’élèveront contre les États, les nations contre les nations. Cela reflète la violence. Voilà le pouvoir anarchique que nous avons maintenant, avec des forces capables de détruire le monde entier. On peut donc voir l’apparition de l’apocalypse d’une manière qui n’était pas possible auparavant. Au début du christianisme, l’apocalypse semblait magique : le monde va finir ; nous irons tous au paradis, et tout sera sauvé ! L’erreur des premiers chrétiens était de croire que l’apocalypse était toute proche. Les premiers textes chronologiques chrétiens sont les Lettres aux Thessaloniciens qui répondent à la question : pourquoi le monde continue-t-il alors qu’on en a annoncé la fin ? Paul dit qu’il y a quelque chose qui retient les pouvoirs, le katochos (quelque chose qui retient). L’interprétation la plus commune est qu’il s’agit de l’Empire romain. La crucifixion n’a pas encore dissout tout l’ordre. Si l’on consulte les chapitres du christianisme, ils décrivent quelque chose comme le chaos actuel, qui n’était pas présent au début de l’Empire romain. Comment le monde peut-il finir alors qu’il est tenu si fortement par les forces de l’ordre ?

RD : La révélation chrétienne serait-elle ambivalente dans la mesure où elle a des conséquences positives et négatives ?

RG : Pourquoi négatives ? Fondamentalement, c’est la religion qui annonce le monde à venir ; il n’est pas question de se battre pour ce monde. C’est le christianisme moderne qui oublie ses origines et sa vraie direction. L’apocalypse au début du christianisme était une promesse, pas une menace, car ils croyaient vraiment en un monde prochain.

RD : Peut-on dire que vous êtes a priori pessimiste ?

RG : Je suis pessimiste au sens actuel du terme. Mais en fait, je suis optimiste si l’on regarde le monde actuel qui confirme vraiment toutes les prédictions. On voit l’apocalypse s’étendre tous les jours : le pouvoir de détruire le monde, les armes de plus en plus fatales, et autres menaces qui se multiplient sous nos yeux. Nous croyons toujours que tous ces problèmes sont gérables par l’homme mais, dans une vision d’ensemble, c’est impossible. Ils ont une valeur quasi surnaturelle. Comme les fondamentalistes, beaucoup de lecteurs de l’Évangile reconnaissent la situation mondiale dans ces chapitres apocalyptiques. Mais les fondamentalistes croient que la violence ultime vient de Dieu, alors ils ne voient pas vraiment le rapport avec la situation actuelle – le rapport religieux. Cela montre combien ils sont peu chrétiens. La violence humaine, qui menace aujourd’hui le monde, est plus conforme au thème apocalyptique de l’Évangile qu’ils ne le pensent.

RD : Ne pouvons-nous pas dire que nous avons fait un progrès moral ?

RG : Les deux sont possibles. Par exemple, nous avons moins de violence privée. Comparé à aujourd’hui, si vous regardez les statistiques du XVIIIe siècle, c’est impressionnant de voir la violence qu’il y avait.

RD : Je pensais plutôt à quelque chose comme le mouvement pacifiste, qui aurait été inconcevable ne serait-ce qu’il y a cent ans.

RG : Oui, le mouvement pacifiste est totalement chrétien, qu’il l’avoue ou non. Mais en même temps, il y a un déferlement d’inventions technologiques qui ne sont plus retenues par aucune force culturelle. Jacques Maritain disait qu’il y a à la fois plus de bien et plus de mal dans le monde. Je suis d’accord avec lui. Au fond, le monde est en permanence plus chrétien et moins chrétien. Mais le monde est fondamentalement désorganisé par le christianisme.

RD : Ce que vous dites est en opposition avec la perspective humaniste d’un Marcel Gauchet, qui dit que le christianisme est la religion de la sortie de la religion [7].

RG : Oui, la pensée de Marcel Gauchet résulte de toute l’interprétation moderne du christianisme. Nous disons que nous sommes les héritiers du christianisme, et que l’héritage du christianisme est l’humanisme. Cela est en partie vrai. Mais en même temps, Marcel Gauchet ne considère pas le monde dans sa globalité. On peut tout expliquer avec la théorie mimétique. Dans un monde qui paraît plus menaçant, il est certain que la religion reviendra. Le 11 Septembre est le début de cela, car lors de cette attaque, la technologie n’était pas utilisée à des fins humanistes mais à des fins radicales, métaphysico-religieuses non chrétiennes. Je trouve cela incroyable, car j’ai l’habitude d’observer les forces religieuses et humanistes ensemble, et non pas en opposition. Mais suite au 11 Septembre, j’ai eu l’impression que la religion archaïque revenait, avec l’islam, d’une manière extrêmement rigoureuse. L’islam a beaucoup d’aspects propres aux religions bibliques à l’exception de la compréhension de la violence comme un mal non pas divin mais humain. Il considère la violence comme totalement divine. C’est pour cela que l’opposition est plus significative qu’avec le communisme, qui est un humanisme même s’il est factice et erroné, et qu’il tourne à la terreur. Mais c’est toujours un humanisme. Et tout à coup, on revient à la religion, la religion archaïque – mais avec des armes modernes. Ce que le monde attend est le moment où les musulmans radicaux pourront d’une certaine manière se servir d’armes nucléaires. Il faut regarder le Pakistan, qui est une nation musulmane possédant des armes nucléaires et l’Iran qui tente de les développer.

RD : Ainsi, vous considérez la Guerre Froide comme étant dépassée à la fois en portée et en importance par le radicalisme islamique ?

RG : Complètement dépassée, oui. Et la rapidité avec laquelle elle a été dépassée est incroyable. L’Union Soviétique a montré qu’elle devenait plus humaine lorsqu’elle n’a pas tenté de forcer le blocus de Kennedy, et à partir de cet instant, elle n’a plus fait peur. Après Khrouchtchev on a eu rapidement besoin de Gorbatchev. Quand Gorbatchev est arrivé au pouvoir, les oppositions ne se trouvaient plus à l’intérieur de l’humanisme. Les communistes voulaient organiser le monde pour qu’il n’y ait plus de pauvres. Les capitalistes ont constaté que les pauvres n’avaient pas de poids. Les capitalistes l’ont emporté.

RD : Et ce conflit sera plus dangereux parce qu’il ne s’agit plus d’une lutte au sein de l’humanisme ?

RG : Oui, bien qu’ils n’aient pas les mêmes armes que l’Union Soviétique – du moins pas encore. Le monde change si rapidement. Cela dit, de plus en plus de gens en Occident verront la faiblesse de notre humanisme ; nous n’allons pas redevenir chrétiens, mais on fera plus attention au fait que la lutte se trouve entre le christianisme et l’islam, plus qu’entre l’islam et l’humanisme.

RD : Vous voulez dire un conflit entre une conscience de la violence comme étant humaine et une conscience de la violence comme divine ?

RG : Oui. Avec l’islam je pense que l’opposition est totale. Dans l’islam, si l’on est violent, on est inévitablement l’instrument de Dieu. Cela veut donc dire que la violence apocalyptique vient de Dieu. Aux États-Unis, les fondamentalistes disent cela, mais les grandes églises ne le disent pas. Néanmoins, ils ne poussent pas suffisamment leur pensée pour dire que si la violence ne vient pas de Dieu, elle vient de l’homme, et que nous en sommes responsables. Nous acceptons de vivre sous la protection d’armes nucléaires. Cela a probablement été la plus grande erreur de l’Occident. Imaginez-vous les implications.

RD : Vous faites référence ici à la logique du suicide mutuel (MAD : Mutual Assured Destruction).

RG : Oui, la dissuasion nucléaire. Mais il s’agit de faibles excuses. Nous croyons que la violence est garante de la paix. Mais cette hypothèse ne me paraît pas valable. Nous ne voulons pas aujourd’hui réfléchir à ce que signifie cette confiance dans la violence.

RD : Comment concevez-vous l’effet d’un autre événement tel que le 11 Septembre ?

RG : Je pense que les personnes deviendraient plus conscientes. Mais cela serait probablement comme la première attaque. Il y aurait une période de grande tension spirituelle et intellectuelle, suivie d’un lent relâchement. Quand les gens ne veulent pas voir, ils y arrivent. Je pense qu’il y aura des révolutions spirituelles et intellectuelles dans un avenir proche. Ce que je dis aujourd’hui semble complètement invraisemblable, et pourtant je pense que le 11 Septembre va devenir de plus en plus significatif.

RD : Votre vision du rôle de la violence dans le christianisme at- elle changé ?

RG : Il y a des erreurs dans Des Choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde [8]. le refus d’utiliser le mot sacrificiel dans un sens positif, par exemple. Il y a trop d’opposition entre le sacrificiel et le non-sacrificiel. Dans le christianisme, tous les actes sacrificiels sont censés éloigner la violence, pour que l’homme en finisse avec sa propre violence. Je pense que le christianisme authentique sépare complètement Dieu de la violence ; cependant, le rôle de la violence dans le christianisme est une question complexe.

RD : Lors de la parution des Choses cachées vous disiez que le christianisme était une religion non-sacrificielle.

RG : Le christianisme a toujours été sacrificiel. Il est vrai que j’ai donné trop d’importance à l’interprétation non sacrificielle, pour rester sur mes positions avant-gardistes. Je devais être contre l’Église d’une certaine manière. Cette attitude était naturelle, puisque toute ma formation pédagogique s’appuyait sur le surréalisme, l’existentialisme, qui sont tous des courants anti – chrétiens. C’était probablement une bonne chose, car le livre n’aurait sans doute pas eu le même succès.

RD : Et si vous aviez paru plus orthodoxe ?

RG : Si j’avais paru plus orthodoxe, on m’aurait immédiatement fait taire, par le silence des médias.

RD : Quel est votre point de vue actuel sur le sacrifice dans le christianisme ?

RG : Il faut distinguer entre le sacrifice des autres et le sacrifice de soi. Le Christ dit au Père : « Vous ne vouliez ni holocauste, ni sacrifice ; moi je dis : “Me voici” » (cf. He 10, 6-7). Autrement dit, je préfère me sacrifier plutôt que de sacrifier l’autre. Mais cela doit toujours être nommé sacrifice. Lorsque nous utilisons le mot « sacrifice » dans nos langues modernes, c’est dans le sens chrétien. Dieu dit : « Si personne d’autre n’est assez bon pour se sacrifier lui plutôt que son frère, je le ferai. » Ainsi, je satisfais à la demande de Dieu envers l’homme. Je préfère mourir plutôt que tuer. Mais tous les autres hommes préfèrent tuer plutôt que mourir.

RD : Qu’en est-il de l’idée du martyr ?

RG : Dans le christianisme, on ne se martyrise pas soi-même. On n’est pas volontaire pour se faire tuer. On se met dans une situation où le respect des préceptes de Dieu (tendre l’autre joue, etc.) peut nous faire tuer. Cela dit, on se fera tuer parce que les hommes veulent nous tuer, non pas parce qu’on s’est porté volontaire. Ce n’est pas comme la notion japonaise de kamikaze. La notion chrétienne signifie que l’on est prêt à mourir plutôt qu’à tuer. C’est bien l’attitude de la bonne prostituée face au jugement de Salomon. Elle dit : « Donnez l’enfant à mon ennemi plutôt que de le tuer. » Sacrifier son enfant serait comme se sacrifier elle-même, car en acceptant une sorte de mort, elle se sacrifie elle-même. Et lorsque Salomon dit qu’elle est la vraie mère, cela ne signifie pas qu’elle est la mère biologique, mais la mère selon l’esprit. Cette histoire se trouve dans le Premier Livre des Rois (3, 16-28), qui est, à certains égards, un livre assez violent. Mais il me semble qu’il n’y a pas de meilleur symbole préchrétien du sacrifice de soi par le Christ.

RD : Concevez-vous ceci en contraste avec le concept du martyr en Islam ?

RG : Je vois en cela le contraste du christianisme avec toutes les religions archaïques du sacrifice. Cela dit, la religion musulmane a beaucoup copié le christianisme et elle n’est donc pas ouvertement sacrificielle. Mais la religion musulmane n’a pas détruit le sacrifice de la religion archaïque comme l’a fait le christianisme. Bien des parties du monde musulman ont conservé le sacrifice prémusulman.

RD : Cependant le lynchage spontané dans le Sud des États-Unis n’était-il pas un exemple de sacrifice archaïque ?

RG : Oui, bien entendu. Il faut lire les romans de William Faulkner. Bien des gens croient que le sud des États-Unis est une incarnation du christianisme. Je dirais que le sud est sans doute la partie la moins chrétienne des États-Unis en termes d’esprit, bien qu’il en soit la plus chrétienne en termes de rituel. Il n’y a pas de doute que le christianisme médiéval était beaucoup plus proche du fondamentalisme actuel. Mais il y a beaucoup de manières de trahir une religion. En ce qui concerne le sud, cela est évident, car il y a un grand retour aux formes les plus archaïques de la religion. Il faut interpréter ces lynchages comme une forme d’acte religieux archaïque.

RD : Que pensez-vous de la façon dont les gens emploient le terme de « violence religieuse » ?

RG : Le terme de « violence religieuse » est souvent employé d’une manière qui ne m’aide pas à résoudre les problèmes que je me pose, à savoir ceux d’un rapport à la violence en mouvement constant et également historique.

RD : Serait-il juste de dire que selon votre pensée, toute violence religieuse est nécessairement archaïque ?

RG : Je dirais que toute violence religieuse implique un degré d’archaïsme. Mais certains points sont très compliqués. Par exemple, lors de la première guerre mondiale, est-ce que les soldats qui acceptaient d’être mobilisés pour mourir pour leur pays, et beaucoup au nom du christianisme, avaient une attitude vraiment chrétienne ? Il y a là quelque chose qui est contraire au christianisme. Mais il y a aussi quelque chose de vrai. Cela ne supprime pas, à mon avis, le fait qu’il y a une histoire de la violence religieuse, et que les religions, surtout le christianisme, au fond, sont continuellement influencées par cette histoire, bien que son influence soit, le plus souvent, pervertie.

Robert DORAN Traduit de l’anglais par Caroline VIAL, révisé par Sabine de BEAUGRENIER

[1] Entretien avec Henri Tincq, Le Monde, le 6 novembre 2001.

[2] Zbigniew BRZEZINSKI, The Choice : Global Domination or Global Leadership, New York, Basic Books, 2004, p. 28.

[3] Jean-Pierre DUPUY, « Anatomy of 9/11 : Evil, Rationalism, and the Sacred », SubStance vol. 37, n° 1, Cultural Theory After 9/11 : Terror, Religion, Media (2008), p. 33-51.

[4] James ALISON, « Contemplation in a World of Violence : Girard, Merton, Tolle » http://www.thecentering.org/Alison_… %world%20of%20violence.html, dernier accès le 8 août 2007.

[5] Le mot grec tragoidia vient de tragos (chèvre) et ode (chanson) : « chanson de chèvre » ou « la chanson livrée au sacrifice de la chèvre ».

[6] René GIRARD, La Violence et le Sacré, Paris, Grasset, 1971.

[7] Cf. Marcel GAUCHET, Le Désenchantement du monde. Une histoire politique de la religion, Paris, Gallimard, 1985.

[8] René GIRARD, Des Choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde, Paris, Grasset, 1978.

Voir encore:

Apocalyptic Thinking after 9/11: An Interview with René Girard1

Robert Doran

SubStance #115, Vol. 37, no. 1

2008

Robert Doran: Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001 you participated in an interview with the French news daily Le Monde, in which you stated that “what is occurring today is a mimetic rivalry on a planetary scale.”2 This observation now appears truer than ever. All evidence points to a continuation and intensification of mimetic conflict: wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; transit bombings in Madrid and London; even the car burnings in the Paris suburbs are not unrelated. How do you see the events of 9/11 in retrospect?

René Girard: I think that your statement is right. And I would like to begin by making a few comments on that very point. It seemed impossible at the time, but I think that many people have forgotten 9/11—not completely forgotten, but they have reduced it to some kind of unspoken norm. When I did that interview with Le Monde, everyone agreed that it was a most unusual, new, and incomparable event. And now I think that many people wouldn’t agree with that statement. Unfortunately, in the United States, because of the war in Iraq, the attitude towards 9/11 has been affected by ideology. It has become “conservative” and “alarmist” to emphasize 9/11. Those who want to put an immediate end to the war in Iraq tend to minimize it. Now, I don’t want to say that they are wrong in wanting to end the war in Iraq, but they should be very careful and consider the situation in its entirety before they deemphasize 9/11. Today this tendency is very general, because the events that you are talking about—which have taken place after 9/11 and which are in some way vaguely reminiscent of this event—have been incomparably less powerful, striking, and so forth. And therefore there is a whole problem of interpretation: what is 9/11?

RD: You yourself see 9/11 as a kind of rupture, a seminal event?

RG: Yes, I see it as a seminal event, and it is fundamentally wrong to minimize it today. The normal desire to be optimistic, to not see the uniqueness of our time from the point of view of violence, is the desire to grab any straw to make our time appear as the mere continuation of the violence of the twentieth century. I personally think that it represents a new dimension, a new world dimension. What communism was trying to do, to have a truly global war, has happened, and it is real now. To minimize 9/11 is to try to avoid thinking the way I do about the importance of this new dimension.

RD: You just made reference to the Cold War. How would you compare the two threats to the West?

RG: The two are similar in that they represent a revolutionary threat, a global threat. But the current threat goes beyond even politics, since there is a religious aspect. Therefore the idea that there could be a more total conflict than the one conceived by the totalitarian peoples, like Nazi Germany, that it would become in some way the property of Islam, is just such an amazing thing, so contrary to what everybody believed about politics. This demands an immense amount of thought, for there is no corresponding reflection about the coexistence of other religions with Islam and in particular Christianity. The religious problem is the most radical one in that it goes beyond the ideological divides—which of course most intellectuals today are not willing to let go of. And if this is the case, then our reflections will remain superficial with respect to 9/11. We must be willing to think in a wider context, and in my view this wider context is the apocalyptic dimension of Christianity. The apocalyptic dimension of Christianity is a threat because the very survival of the planet is at stake. Our planet is threatened by three things, all of which are the creation of man: the nuclear threat, the ecological threat, and the biological manipulation of the human species. The idea that man cannot be trusted with his powers is as true in the biological field as it is in the military field. So it is a triple threat of global proportions that has taken shape over the last century.

RD: I will return to the apocalyptic dimension in a moment. In a recent book, Zbigniew Brzezinski (National Security Advisor to President Carter) writes that “behind almost every terrorist act lurks a political problem. […] To paraphrase Clausewitz, terrorism is politics by other means.”3 Though it may have other motivations, is terrorism not always in part political, to the extent that, no matter the actual target, it is always ultimately directed toward governments?

RG: Well I think that it is not even by other means. Terrorism is a form of war, and war is politics by other means. In that sense, terrorism is political. But terrorism is the only possible form of war in the face of technology. The greatest mystery of what is going on now in Iraq is the confirmation of this immensely important fact. The superiority of the West is its technology, and it proves to be nothing in Iraq. Of course they put themselves in the worst possible situation by saying that we were going to turn Iraq into a Jeffersonian democracy, which was the stupidest thing to say! This is precisely what they cannot do; they are powerless before Islam. The divide between the Sunni and the Shia is infinitely more important. They manage to fight each other at the very moment when they are fighting against the West, which is truly amazing. Why should the West involve itself in this conflict within Islam? We don’t even understand it. It appears to us like a reemergence of the quarrel between the Jansenists and the Jesuits. We don’t see how enormously powerful it is in the Islamic world.

RD: Is it our incomprehension of the role of religion?

RG: It is incomprehension of the role of religion, and the incomprehension of our own world, of the weakness of the things that bind us together; for when we invoke our democratic principles, are we talking about things like equality and elections, or are we talking about capitalism, consumption, free trade and so on? One can say that in the coming years the West is going to be tried. The question is how the West will react: strongly or weakly? Will it dissolve itself? The West should start thinking about whether it really has principles, whether they are Christian or purely consumerist. Consumerism has no hold on those who engage in these suicide attacks. This is what America should be thinking about, because America has been expanding in the world, giving everyone what we consider more seductive than anything else. Does it really not work on the Muslim people? In other words, do they pretend that it doesn’t work; is it resentment? Do they have a well-organized defense mechanism against it? Or is their religious view in some way more authentic and powerful? This is the real problem.

RD: Your original interpretation was that 9/11 was due to resentment.

RG: I’m much less affirmative than I was at the time of 9/11 that the reason was total resentment. I remember that I got carried away at a meeting held at the Ecole Polytechnique when I agreed one hundred percent with Jean-Pierre Dupuy about the resentment interpretation of the Muslim world. But now I do not think it is sufficient. Can resentment motivate this ability to die like that? Could the Muslim world really be indifferent to the culture of mass consumption? Perhaps they are. I don’t know. It is thus perhaps too excessive to attribute to them an envy of that. If the Islamists are really on a world domination kick, then they are beyond that. We don’t know if there will appear something like rapid industrialization in the Muslim world, or if they will try to win on the basis of population growth and the fascination they exert. There are more and more conversions in the West. The fascination of violence certainly plays a role.

RD: But the resentment interpretation seemed logical in view of your thought.

RG: There is resentment there, of course. And this is what must have moved those who applauded the terrorists, as if they were in a stadium. That is resentment. This is obvious and undeniable. But is that the only force? Is that the main force? Can it by itself lead to the suicide attacks we see? I’m not sure. It is also true that the accumulated wealth in the West as compared with the rest of the world is a huge scandal, and that 9/11 in not unrelated to this fact. Thus I do not want to completely suppress the idea of resentment. There is certainly a strong element of resentment, but it cannot be the entire explanation.

RD: And the other force?

RG: The other force would be religious. Allah is against consumerism and so forth. What the Muslim really sees is that religious prohibition rituals are a force that keeps the community together, which has totally disappeared or is on the way out in the West. People in the West are united only by consumerism, good salaries, etc. The Muslims say: “their weapons are terribly dangerous but as a people they are so weak that their civilization can easily be destroyed.” This is the way they think, and they may not be totally wrong. I think there is something right about it. Ultimately, I believe that the Christian view of violence will overcome everything, but we might consider this a great test.

RD: In his contribution to this volume, Jean-Pierre Dupuy calls 9/11 “a true sacrifice in the anthropological sense of the term.”4 Can 9/11 be thought according to a logic of sacrifice?

RG: I want to be very prudent in answering this question. One must be careful not to justify 9/11 by calling it sacrificial. I think that Jean-Pierre Dupuy doesn’t do that. He maintains a kind of neutrality. What he says about the sacred nature of Ground Zero is, I think, perfectly justified. I would, however, like to quote from an insightful essay by James Alison, who has written on this very subject:

And immediately the sacrificial centre began to generate the sort of reactions that sacrificial centres are supposed to generate: a feeling of unanimity and grief. […] Phrases began to appear to the effect that “We’re all Americans now”—a purely fictitious feeling for most of us. It was staggering to watch the togetherness build up around the sacred centre, quickly consecrated as Ground Zero, a togetherness that would harden over the coming hours into flag waving, a huge upsurge in religious services and observance, religious leaders suddenly taken seriously, candles, shrines, prayers, all the accoutrements of the religion of death. […] And there was the grief. How we enjoy grief! It makes us feel good, and innocent. This is what Aristotle meant by catharsis, and it has deeply sinister echoes of dramatic tragedy’s roots in sacrifice. One of the effects of the violent sacred around the sacrificial centre is to make those present feel justified, feel morally good. A counterfactual goodness which suddenly takes us out of our little betrayals, acts of cowardice, uneasy consciences.5

I think that James Alison is right to speak about katharsis in the context of 9/11. The notion of katharsis is tremendously important. People think that it is an Aristotelian word. This is not true. It’s a religious word. It really means “the purge” as purification. In the Orthodox Church, for instance, katharos means purification. It’s the word that expresses the positive effect of religion. The purge makes you pure. This is what religion is supposed to do, and it does it with sacrifice. I consider Aristotle’s use of the word katharsis to be pure genius. When people condemn the mimetic theory, they don’t see what formidable support it has in Aristotle. Aristotle seems to be only speaking about tragedy, but tragic theater is nothing but sacrifice reenacted as drama. This is why it is called “the ode of the goat.”6 Aristotle is always conventional in his explanations— conventional in the best sense. A very intelligent Greek seeking to justify his religion would, I think, use the word katharsis. Thus my answer to this question would place a great emphasis on katharsis and on Aristotle’s understanding of the term.

RD: Certainly the spectacular aspect of 9/11 suggests an analogous relation to theater. But with 9/11 we could all be witnesses to a real event as it happened.

RG: Yes, with 9/11 there was television. Television makes you present at the scene, and thus it intensifies the experience. The event was en direct, as we say in French. You didn’t know what was going to happen next. I saw the second plane hit the building not as a replay but as a live event. It was like a tragic spectacle, but real at the same time. If we hadn’t lived it in the most literal sense, it would not have had the same impact. I think that if I had written Violence and the Sacred after 9/11, I would have most probably included 9/11 in this book.7 This is the event that makes possible an understanding of the modern event, for it renders the archaic more intelligible. 9/11 represents a strange return of the archaic within the secularism of our time. Not too long ago people would have had a Christian reaction to 9/11. Now they have an archaic reaction, which does not bode well for the future.

RD: Let us return to the apocalyptic dimension. Your thought is generally considered pessimistic. Do you see 9/11 as a signpost on the way toward an apocalyptic future?

RG: The apocalyptic future is not something historical. It is something religious, and as such it is something that you cannot do without. This is what modern Christians don’t understand. Because in the apocalyptic future, the good and the bad are mixed in such as way that from a Christian point of view, you cannot talk about pessimism. It is just being Christian. It is saying that all of the texts are part of the same totality. In order to understand this, you only have to quote the First Letter to the Corinthians: if the powers, meaning the powers of this world, had known what would happen, they would have never crucified the Lord of Glory— because it meant their destruction. Because when you crucify the Lord of Glory, the trick of the powers, which is the scapegoat mechanism, is revealed. To show the crucifixion as the killing of an innocent victim is to show the collective murder and to make it possible for people to understand that it is a mimetic phenomenon. Therefore the powers are ultimately going to perish from this truth. And all of history is simply the realization of this prophecy. Those who say that Christianity is anarchistic are somewhat right. The Christians are destroying the powers of this world, in the sense that they are destroying the legitimacy of all violence. From the point of view of the State, Christianity is a force of anarchy. Anytime it recaptures its old spiritual strength, this reappears in a way. Thus the conflict with the Muslims is really much more significant than even the fundamentalists believe. The fundamentalists think that the apocalypse is the violence of God. But if you read the apocalyptic chapters, you’ll see that the apocalypse is the violence of man unleashed by the destruction of the powers, that is, of the states, which is what we’re seeing now.

RD: But this understanding makes it possible for violence to continue on another level.

RG: Yes, but not as a religious force. The religious force is on the side of Christ, ultimately. However, it appears as though the real religious force were on the side of violence.

RD: What will it look like when the powers are defeated?

RG: Well, when the powers are defeated, violence will become such that the end will come. If you take the apocalyptic chapters, this is what they announce to you. There will be revolution and wars. State will rise against state, nation against nation. These are the doubles. This is the power of anarchy we have now, with forces capable of destroying the whole world. So you can see the coming of the apocalypse in a way that wasn’t previously possible. In the early days of Christianity, there was something magical about the apocalypse. The world is going to end; we’ll all be in paradise, and everything will be alright. The “mistake” of the first Christians was to believe that the apocalypse was going to be an instant affair. The first Christian texts, chronologically speaking, are the Letters to the Thessalonians, and they are an answer to the question: why is the world continuing when you announced its end? Paul says that there is something holding back the powers, the katochos (something that holds back). The most common interpretation is that it is the Roman Empire. The crucifixion has not yet dissolved all order. If you look at the apocalyptic chapters of Christianity, they describe something like the present chaos, which wasn’t there in the beginning of the Roman Empire. How can the world end when it is held so tightly by the forces of order?

RD: Then Christian revelation is ambivalent in that it has both positive and negative consequences?

RG: Why negative? Fundamentally it is religion that announces the world to come; it is not about fighting for this world. It is modern Christianity that forgets its origins and its real direction. The apocalypse at the

beginning of Christianity was a promise, not a threat, because they really believed in the next world.

RD: Then could one say that you are pessimistic in an a priori sense?

RG: I am pessimistic in the sense that everybody understands the word pessimism. But I’m optimistic in the sense that if one looks at the present world, it already verifies all the predictions. You can see the shape of the apocalypse increasing every day: the power capable of destroying the world, ever more lethal weapons, and the other threats that are multiplying under our eyes. We still believe that all of these problems are manageable by man, but if you take them all together you can see that this is not the case. They acquire a kind of supernatural value. Like the fundamentalists, many readers of the Gospels are reminded of the world situation when they read these apocalyptic chapters. But the fundamentalists believe that the ultimate violence comes from God, so they don’t really see the relevance of what is going on now—the religious relevance. That shows how unchristian they are on a certain level. It is human violence that is threatening the world today; and this is in greater conformity to the apocalyptic theme in the Gospels than they realize.

RD: Can’t we say that we have made moral progress?

RG: But the two are possible together. For example, we have less private violence. If you look at statistics from the eighteenth century, it was amazing how much violence there was compared with today.

RD: I was thinking about something like the peace movement, which would have been inconceivable just a hundred years ago.

RG: Yes, the peace movement is totally Christian, whether it knows it or not. But at the same time there is an unleashing of technological inventions that are no longer restrained by any cultural force. Jacques Maritain said that there is more good and more bad in the world all the time. I think this is an excellent formula. In other words, the world is both more Christian and less Christian, constantly. But it is fundamentally disorganized by Christianity.

RD: What you’re saying, then, is in opposition to the humanist perspective of someone like a Marcel Gauchet, who says that Christianity is the religion of the end of religion.8

RG: Yes, Marcel Gauchet is the result of the whole modern interpretation of Christianity. We say that we are the heirs of Christianity, and that the legacy of Christianity is humanism. This is partly true. But at the same time, Marcel Gauchet does not look at the world at large. You can keep everything together with the mimetic theory. As the world looks more threatening, religion is sure to return. And in a way, 9/11 is the beginning of this, for in this attack technology was used not for humanistic ends but for radical, metaphysico-religious ends, which are not Christian. That is why it is such an amazing thing for me, because I’m used to considering religious forces and humanistic forces together, not as if one were true and the other false; and then suddenly archaic religion is coming back in an incredibly forceful way with Islam. Islam has many aspects of the Biblical religions minus the revelation of violence as bad, as not divine but human; it makes violence totally divine. This is why the opposition is more significant than with communism, which is a humanism. It is a bogus humanism, the last and most incredibly foolish form, which results in terror. But it is still humanism. And suddenly we’re back in religion, in archaic religion—but with modern weapons. What the world is waiting for is the moment when the Muslim radicals will somehow be able to use nuclear weapons. And the point you have to look at on the map is Pakistan, which is a Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons. And Iran is trying to develop them.

RD: Thus you see the Cold War as being superseded both in scope and importance by the conflict with Islamic radicalism?

RG: Totally superseded, yes. And the speed with which it was superseded was just something unbelievable. The moment the Soviet Union revealed that they were human is when they didn’t try to force Kennedy’s blockade, and from that time on they didn’t scare anybody anymore. After Khrushchev you had to get to Gorbachev fairly quickly. The moment when Gorbachev came to power was the moment when the oppositions were no longer inside humanism. The communists had wanted to organize the world so that there wouldn’t be any more poor people, and the capitalists had said that the poor were insignificant. The capitalists have prevailed.

RD: And this conflict will be more dangerous because it is no longer a struggle within humanism?

RG: Yes, though they do not have the same weapons as the Soviet Union— at least not yet. Things change so fast. However, more and more people in the West are going to see the weakness of our humanism; we are not going to become Christian again, but there will be more attention to the fact that the fight is really between Christianity and Islam, more than between Islam and humanism.

RD: You mean a conflict between the consciousness that violence is human and the consciousness that violence is divine?

RG: Yes, with Islam I think the opposition is total. In Islam, if you are violent you are inevitably an instrument of God. Thus it is really saying that the apocalyptic violence comes from God. In the United States the fundamentalists say that, but the big churches do not. However, they are not coherent enough thinkers to say that if violence does not come from God then it comes from man, and therefore we are responsible for it. We accept to live under the protection of nuclear weapons. This has probably been the West’s greatest sin. Think of its implications.

RD: You’re referring to the logic of mutual assured destruction.

RG: Yes, nuclear deterrence. But these are lame excuses. We are putting our faith in violence; we believe that violence will keep the peace. But this assumption is inevitably false. We are trying not to think radically today about what this confidence in violence means.

RD: What do you think the effect of another 9/11-like event would be?

RG: I think that more people would become more aware. But it would probably be like the first attack. There would be a period of great spiritual and intellectual tension followed by a slow relaxation. When people don’t want to see something, they are pretty good at not seeing it. I think that there are going to be spiritual and intellectual revolutions in the not too distant future. What I’m talking about now seems totally mad, and yet I think that 9/11 is going to become more meaningful all the time.

RD: Has your view of the role of violence in Christianity changed?
RG: There are mistakes in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World:9

the refusal to use the word sacrificial in a good way, for example. There was too much opposition between the sacrificial and the non-sacrificial. In Christianity, all sacrificial acts are intended to render violence more distant, to make it possible for man to do away with his own violence. I think that authentic Christianity completely separates God from violence; however, the role of violence in Christianity is a complex thing.

RD: At the time of Things Hidden you said that Christianity was a non- sacrificial religion.

RG: Christianity has always been sacrificial. It’s true I gave the non- sacrificial interpretation too much importance—in order to be heretical. That is what was left of the avant-gardist attitude in me. I had to be against the Church in some way. The attitude was instinctive, since my whole intellectual training came out of surrealism, existentialism and so forth, which were all anti-Christian. It was probably a good thing, for the book might not otherwise have been successful.

RD: If you had appeared more orthodox?
RG: If I had appeared orthodox, I would have been silenced immediately, by the silence of the media.

RD: What is your current view of sacrifice in Christianity?

RG: One has to make a distinction between the sacrifice of others and self-sacrifice. Christ says to the Father: “you wanted neither holocaust nor sacrifice; then I said: ‘Here I am.’ ” In other words: I prefer to sacrifice myself than to sacrifice the other. But this still has to be called sacrifice. When we say “sacrifice” in our modern languages it has only the Christian sense. Therefore the passion is entirely justified. God says: If nobody else is good enough to sacrifice himself rather than his brother, I will do it. Therefore I fulfill God’s requirement for man. I prefer to die than to kill. But all other men prefer to kill than to die.

RD: But what about the idea of martyrdom?

RG: In Christianity you are not martyring yourself. You’re not volunteering to be killed. You place yourself in a situation in which the observance of God’s precepts (turn the other cheek, etc.) will get you killed. But you will be killed because men want to kill you, not because you volunteered. This is not like the Japanese notion of the kamikaze. The Christian notion means you’re ready to die rather than to kill. This is the attitude of the good prostitute in the judgment of Solomon. She says: Give the child to my enemy rather than kill him. Sacrificing her child is like sacrificing herself, for in accepting the equivalent of death, she sacrifices herself. And when Solomon says that she is the real mother, this does not even mean that she is the mother according to biology, but according to the spirit. This story is from the Book of Kings, which in some ways is quite a savage book. But I would say that there is no pre- Christian symbol of Christ’s self-sacrifice that is superior to this one.

RD: Do you see this in contrast to the concept of martyrdom in Islam?

RG: I see it as contrasting Christianity with all archaic religions of sacrifice. Now, since the Muslim religion has copied Christianity more than anything, it is not openly sacrificial. But the Muslim religion has not destroyed the sacrifice of archaic religion the way Christianity has. No part of the Christian world has retained pre-Christian sacrifice. Many parts of the Muslim world have retained pre-Muslim sacrifice.

RD: Wouldn’t spontaneous lynchings in the South be examples of archaic sacrifice?

RG: Yes, of course. You have to go to Faulkner to find the truth about this—to a novelist. Many people believe that Christianity is embodied by the South. I would say that the South is perhaps the least Christian part of the United States in terms of spirit, although it is the most Christian in terms of ritual. There is no doubt that Medieval Christianity was much closer to what fundamentalism has remained. But there are many ways to betray a religion. In the case of the South, it is very obvious, because there is such a return to the most archaic forms of religion. You must define these lynchings as a kind of archaic religious act.

RD: What do you think about the way in which people use the term “religious violence”?

RG: People use the term “religious violence” in ways that do not clear up the problems that my thinking is trying to clear up—that of a constantly moving relationship to violence, which is also historical.

RD: Would it be fair to say that according to your thinking any religious violence is necessarily archaic?

RG: Well, I would say that any religious violence includes a degree of archaism. But some aspects are so complicated. For example, in the First World War, what was Christian in the soldiers who accepted to be drafted in order to die for their country, many of them in the name of Christianity? There is something in this that is untrue to Christianity. But there is also something that is true. This does not, in my view, invalidate the fact that there is a history of religious violence, and that deep down, religions, especially Christianity, are continually influenced by this history, though its influence is perverted most of the time.

Notes

1. This interview took place, in English, on February 10, 2007 at Professor Girard’s home in Stanford, California. A brief follow-up interview was conducted on August 8, 2007, also at Girard’s home.

Interview with Henri Tincq, Le Monde, November 6, 2001.
Zbigniew Brezezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, (New York:

Basic Books, 2004), 28.
4. Jean-Pierre Dupuy, “Anatomy of 9/11: Evil, Rationalism, and the Sacred,” included in

this volume.
5. James Alison, “Contemplation in a World of Violence: Girard, Merton, Tolle,”

[http://www.thecentering.org/Alison_Contemplation%20in%20a%20world%20 of%20violence.html], accessed August 8, 2007.
6. The Greek word tragoidia is a combination of tragos (goat) and ode (song): “goat

song” or “the song delivered at the sacrifice of a goat.”
7. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1977). 8. See Marcel Gauchet, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion,

trans. Oscar Burge, fwd. Charles Taylor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1997),

101.
9. René Girard, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. Trans. S. Bann and M.

Metteer. (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1987).

Enfin:

Talk prepared for a day retreat with Sebastian Moore on
Contemplation in a world of violence: Girard, Merton, Tolle
Organised by the Thomas Merton Society
Held at Downside Abbey, Bath 3.xi.01James Alison

I take it that contemplation is a certain sort of seeing. I take it from Girard that we always learn to see through the eyes of another. The desire of another directs our seeing and makes available to us what is to be seen. In other words, there is no reality « out there » to be seen. What is « out there » is already, inescapably a construct made real by human desire. When, as in most of our cases, most of the time, the other through whose eyes we are learning to see is the rivalistic other, competitors, the crowd, what we see is what is given value by them, and the one seeing it is moved by that desire, and knows and loves with that desire: the « self » becomes the incarnation of that desire, jostling for security, reputation, goodness, success. Merton refers to this in a number of places as a sort of collective hypnosis. In this, as in many areas, he is onto the same thing as Girard.

I also take it that when we talk about contemplation in a Christian context we are talking about quite a specific sort of seeing. We are talking about learning how to be given our desire through the eyes of another. The other is Jesus, the Word of God. So, we are being taught to look at what is through the eyes of the One who reveals the mind of God, that is to be possessed by the mind of God ourselves. By being taught to receive ourselves and all that is around us through the eye and desire of God our « self » becomes an incarnation of that desire and we start to speak words formed by the un-hypnosis, the awakening desire of the Creator. In other words: we are being taught to be loving lookers at what is by the One who is calling into being and loving what is. We are being taught to see and delight in what is by the One whose delighting is what gives it, and us, to be.

Let me emphasize this point, taken from Girard, since it is the key to everything I will try to say today, and is I suspect much more important than my fragile ability to practice it, and thus than my fragile ability to be able to yield for you any fruit from it. We desire according to the desire of another. That is to say, the eyes of another teach us who we are by teaching us what we want. I take it that this is a simple anthropological fact of no great difficulty. The only question is: which other? The sometimes peaceful, sometimes rivalistic, always ambivalent desire known in John’s Gospel as « the world, » or the entirely gratuitous, peaceful non-rivalistic desire, given us as an entirely sentient, conscious human life history by the Word who reveals God’s heart. Christian contemplation is, I take it, the learning of the second regard, the regard of the peaceful other.

Rather than give you a précis of Girard’s thought — and there are many available — I would like to try and work through something with you in the light of that thought. David Broad, Sebastian and I had planned this day some months ago. There was no thought in our minds that there would be such examples of violence and the sacred around us that we would have to conduct our day in their shadow. But we do, and this is both frightening and helpful: frightening since talk has to be much more responsible when we are being tested to look and speak well in the midst of something, a test it is easier to avoid under apparently more peaceful circumstances; and helpful since it makes much easier the fraternity between Girard’s thought and Merton’s when we are able to make parallels between the world of tension and crisis from within which Merton was speaking in the mid to late 1960’s and our own situation. I am thinking particularly of Merton’s paper « Events and Pseudo-Events: Letter to a Southern Churchman. »

So, I am going to risk opening a discussion with you in the light of the events of the last two months, aware that what I say is partial, liable to offend sensibilities of which I am ignorant and so on. I ask you to accept that this is a risky form of discourse, and that if it sparks off strong emotions I may not be able to defend what I say, and those disagreeing may well be right. Certainly, I am an authority neither on contemplation, nor on violence, and these are tentative views, tentatively shared.

First of all, I would like to take us all back in our memories to the afternoon of September 11th — the afternoon, that is, for those of us who were on this side of the Atlantic. What I want to suggest to you is that we were all summoned to participate in something satanic. Now, by « satanic » I don’t mean an over-the-top figure of speech, but something very specific, with very specific anthropological content, something whose very ability to be decoded by us is a sign of its failing transcendence. This is what I mean: some brothers of ours committed simple acts of suicide with significant collateral murder, meaning nothing at all. There is no meaning to the act of destruction caused by hijacking planes full of people and crashing them into buildings. It is not an act creative of anything at all, any more than any other suicide is a creative act.

But immediately we began to respond, and our response is to create meaning. It is our response that I am seeking to examine. Our response was sparked by two particular forces: the locations chosen for the suicide with collateral murder — places symbolic of power, wealth and success (never mind that many of those killed were neither powerful, wealthy or successful); and the omnipresence in the cities in question, and particularly New York, of rolling cameras and a hugely powerful media network which enabled a significant proportion of the planet to be sucked in to spectating from a safe distance. An already mimetic center, drawing more attention than ever towards itself, on that day became virtually inescapable.

As we were sucked in, so we were fascinated. The « tremendum et fascinosum, » as Otto described the old sacred, took hold of us. Furthermore, we did not come to the spectacle with fresh eyes, as to something entirely new. We came with a script given us by a thousand movies and conspiracy novels of the Robert Ludlum / Tom Clancy genre. It is not original to have noticed that the second plane actually crashing into the tower looked less convincing than it would have done in a film. A film would certainly have made it look much better, produced tension, given it an air of deliberation, rather than that almost whimsical video-game appearance from off the side of our screens. It is not that what we saw was « like a film. » We have been taught by films and books, themselves borrowing from and playing to ritualistic constructions of meaning, to see what we saw, and to react as we reacted. Like the novelists and the film directors, we know the ritual.

And immediately the old sacred worked its magic: we found ourselves being sucked in to a sacred center, one where a meaningless act had created a vacuum of meaning, and we found ourselves giving meaning to it. All over London I found that friends had stopped work, offices were closing down, everyone was glued to the screen. In short, there had appeared, suddenly, a holy day. Not what we mean by a holiday, a day of rest, but an older form of holiday, a being sucked out of our ordinary lives in order to participate in a sacred and sacrificial centre so kindly set up for us by the meaningless suicides.

And immediately the sacrificial center began to generate the sort of reactions that sacrificial centers are supposed to generate: a feeling of unanimity and grief. Let me make a parenthesis here. I am not referring to the immediate reactions of those actually involved — rescue services, relatives, friends, whose form of being drawn in was as a response to an emergency and a family tragedy. I am referring to the rest of us. There took hold of an enormous number of us a feeling of being pulled in, being somehow involved, as though it was part of our lives. Phrases began to appear to the effect that « We’re all Americans now » — a purely fictitious feeling for most of us. It was staggering to watch the togetherness build up around the sacred center, quickly consecrated as Ground Zero, a togetherness that would harden over the coming hours into flag waving, a huge upsurge in religious services and observance, religious leaders suddenly taken seriously, candles, shrines, prayers, all the accoutrements of the religion of death. The de facto President fumbling at first, a moment of genuinely humble, banal, humanity, then getting his High Priestly act together by preaching revenge at an Episcopal Eucharist. The Queen « getting right » what she « got wrong » last time there was a similar outbreak of sacred contagion around an iconic cadaver, by having the American National Anthem played at Buckingham Palace.

And there was the grief. How we enjoy grief. It makes us feel good, and innocent. This is what Aristotle meant by catharsis, and it has deeply sinister echoes of dramatic tragedy’s roots in sacrifice. One of the effects of the violent sacred around the sacrificial center is to make those present feel justified, feel morally good. A counterfactual goodness which suddenly takes us out of our little betrayals, acts of cowardice, uneasy consciences. And very quickly of course the unanimity and the grief harden into the militant goodness of those who have a transcendent object to their lives. And then there are those who are with us and those who are against us, the beginnings of the suppression of dissent. Quickly people were saying things like « to think that we used to spend our lives engaged in gossip about celebrities’ and politicians’ sexual peccadillos. Now we have been summoned into thinking about the things that really matter. » And beneath the militant goodness, suddenly permission to sack people, to leak out bad news and so on, things which could take advantage of the unanimity to avoid reasoned negotiation.

And there was fear. Fear of more to come. Fear that it could be me next time. Fear of flying, fear of anthrax, fear of certain public buildings and spaces. Fear that the world had changed, that nothing would ever be the same again. Fear and disorientation in a new world order. Not an entirely uncomfortable fear, the fear that goes with a satanic show. Part of the glue which binds us into it. A fear not unrelated to excitement.

What I want to suggest is that most of us fell for it, at some level. We were tempted to be secretly glad of a chance for a huge outbreak of meaning to transform our humdrum lives, to feel we belonged to something bigger, more important, with hints of nobility and solidarity. What I want to suggest is that this, this delight in being given meaning, is satanic. When we are baptized, we, or our Godparents on our behalf, renounce Satan and all his vain pomps and empty works. And here we were, sorely tempted at least to find ourselves being sucked up into believing in just such an empty work and pomp. A huge and splendid show giving the impression of something creative of meaning, but in fact, a snare and an illusion, meaning nothing at all, but leaving us prey to revenge and violence, our judgments clouded by satanic righteousness.

When I say satanic, I mean this in two senses, for we can only accurately describe the satanic in two senses. The first sense is the sense I have just described: the fantastic pomp and work of sacrificial violence leading to an impression of unanimity, the same lie from the one who was a murderer and liar from the beginning, the same lie behind all human sacrifices, all attempts to create social order and meaning out of a sacred space of victimization. But the second sense is more important: the satanic is a lie that has been undone. It has been undone by Jesus’s going to death exploding from within the whole world of sacrifice, of religion and culture based on death, and showing it has no transcendence at all. Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel (and it is the title of Girard’s recent book) « I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. » This is the solemn declaration of the definitive loss of transcendence of the satanic show: we no longer have to believe it, we no longer have to act driven by its compulsions. It has no power other than the power we give it. The pomp has nothing to do with heaven. It has nothing to do with God.

And this of course was apparent to us as well even, and perhaps especially, in our secularity. There was the sort of sacred grief I described, but there were also, mixed up with it, genuine outbursts of compassion: wonder at the two who jumped out of the building holding hands; a warmth of heart as the news came out of the messages of simple love bereft of any huge religious significance left on answering machines. At the same time as the sacred violence extended its lure, we also made little breakthroughs of our own into simply liking humans. I don’t know how it was for you, and I may be particularly personally insensitive, but I was unable to see anything of the humanity involved while watching the moving images on film, because I am so used to the moving images telling a story in which the people killed are simply stage extras, whose thoughts and emotions and broken families we aren’t expected to consider. It was only when reading about the incident in the next day’s papers that the human dimension managed to start to break through for me.

And this is the vital thing to understand in any use of the language of the satanic. It is a failed transcendence. It fails to grip us completely. The unanimity does not last. Even in as strongly religious a society as the United States. Reasoned discussion starts to break out. Penitent questions start being asked. A group of Jews and Catholics went together on the Friday after the 11th to a mosque south of Chicago, and circled it, holding hands, to protect those within it throughout their Friday prayers from any potential violence or abuse. The lie does not command absolute respect. There are already in our midst outbreaks of truth, of non-possessed humanity.

It is this that I would like to look at with you, as we attempt to grapple with contemplation and violence. We were pulled in to a certain sort of contemplation through the eyes of others on 11th September. We were pulled in to a powerful show which taught us to look at the world, ourselves, and others, in a certain way, one leading to ersatz virtue, fake communion, violence and fear. But we have in our midst, and have had for nigh on two thousand years, One who is teaching us to look away, so I would like to try with you to see what it means to learn to look at these things through his eyes to see if we can’t discover the deeper meaning which those apparently fragmentary outbursts of being human can have.

I have chosen two passages which seem to be particularly appropriate. One a Gospel from the last few days, and another one for Advent. Here is the first:

Luke 13:1 There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, « Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? 3 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. »
There is something apparently callous about this. We react to bad news as to a form of emotional blackmail, obliging us to « feel » for the victims, and be outraged by someone who doesn’t appear to feel. But not Jesus. His attention is entirely concentrated on his interlocutors. It is not the events themselves which concern him, but their reaction to the events, and what that reaction says about whose power they are in. We can imagine the excitement of those telling him, wanting a pronouncement of appropriately apocalyptic tenor: the Galileans were not sacrificing at Jerusalem, probably at Gerizim. Maybe this was their punishment from God. But they are disappointed. Jesus completely de-sacralizes the event, removing any link between God and what has happened. Any link between morality and what has happened. If we are caught up in thinking like that, then we too are likely to act in ways moved by the apocalyptic other, the god of blood and sacrifice and murder, of morality linked to worldly outcome, and we will perish like them. To ram home his point, he chooses an example where there was no obvious moral agency, no wicked Pilate, no sacrifices of dubious validity: the collapse of a tower — maybe an architectural flaw, maybe a small earth tremor, the shifting of an underground stream, who knows. Once again, Jesus completely de-sacralizes the incident. It has nothing to do with God. But if we are caught up in the world of giving sacred meanings, then we will be caught up in the world of reciprocal violence, of good and bad measured over against other people, and we will likewise perish. Once again I stress: Jesus will not be drawn into adding to meaning. He merely asks those who come to him themselves to move out of the world of sacred-seeming meaning. What does it mean for us to learn to look at the world through those eyes?The second passage I want to give you is even more explicit, for it is the passage called the Markan Apocalypse. Wrongly, in my view, for it is specifically concerned with undoing the apocalyptic worldview.

Jesus starts by publicly de-sacralizing the Temple. He takes seriously neither its sacred splendor when standing, nor the apocalyptic meaning to be derived from its being razed to the ground.

Mark 13:1 And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, « Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings! » 2 And Jesus said to him, « Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down. »
Peter, James and John come to him to ask him when these things will be, and what are the signs — they show, in other words, that they are caught up in the apocalyptic imagination. And, as in the passage from Luke which we have just seen, Jesus commands them to look with different eyes. »Take heed that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.
The first instruction is not to allow themselves to be lured or seduced into the apparently sacred world of apocalyptic meaning, not to allow themselves to be pulled by their desire into the world which others will want to create. Any other messianism is false. Wars and rumors of wars have no sacred meaning at all, and the one who is looking at what happens through Jesus’ eyes will not be frightened of these things, not driven by them in any way. For they are merely the signs of the collapsing world maintained and reinforced by sacralized violence, and that collapse is itself a sign that something very different is coming to birth. Then Jesus commands them to concentrate on what will happen to them:9 « But take heed to yourselves; for they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 13 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

I am still simply staggered by this passage. For in it Our Lord sets out the consequences of not believing in the sacred lie. Those who don’t believe in the sacred lie, and say so, who believe in the good news that God has nothing to do with these ever-failing apocalypses, nothing to do with any order based on sacrifice, these people will break the unanimity which is demanded by the sacrificial order, and will therefore be subject to persecution and victimization by an order that only knows that way of reacting to people, especially people who don’t believe in it. This message, divinely guaranteed disbelief in the violent sacred, breaking every unanimity, will be carried to every culture on earth which is founded on the same principles, unstoppable. For it is Gospel. What is even more staggering is what Jesus clearly understands about our paranoia. If we are anxious about what we are to say, if we are concerned to justify ourselves before this apocalyptic order, then we are still too much part of it, our imagination is still too shaded by the « they who are out to get me » which is part of the apocalyptic view. We are not able to look at those scandalized by us with the clean, limpid, non-accusing, non-persecuted eyes of those whose minds are formed by a different order, whose selves are formed through the regard of an entirely non-judging, non-persecuting Other. If our minds are the mind of Christ, then we will not need to defend ourselves, because the spirit of truth which undoes the sacred lie, the Holy Spirit which makes available to us a wholly benign secular createdness, will be speaking through us. The Holy Spirit is there to empower us to put up with the hatred which is how the collapsing sacred is held together, and it is by our standing up that the new creation will be brought into being through us.In the next section of the Markan apocalypse, Jesus de-sacralizes the forthcoming sacking of Jerusalem, again removing from it anything to do with God. All these are things to which one must not pay attention. The final section of Mark 13 is concerned with the reverse of what went before: of what does give meaning. And what does give meaning is something very odd indeed. Jesus uses texts from the Hebrew Scriptures to give a taste of the whole established order of everything being shaken, that is to say: he is happy to use apocalyptic language to reverse the sense of the apocalyptic. For the apocalyptic language, about the heavens being shaken and so forth, refers entirely to worldly happenings, bereft of divine significance. But it is in the midst of them that the Lord will come. And he will come, but in a way that will not be recognized except by those who are being trained to look for him where divine meaning is really given, and that divine meaning appears to be given in the parable at the end:

34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Watch therefore — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning — 36 lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Watch.
Famously, this parable appears to refer to the events which will follow on a few days later: it appears that the Lord comes in the acts of being handed over which follow. He hands himself over at the Last Supper in the evening; he is handed over by Judas at midnight, by Peter at cockcrow and to the Romans in the morning. The real coming is the very reverse of an apocalyptic appearance: it is the subversion from within of the apocalyptic, and will only be detected by those who have been disciplined to watch, those who have not been hypnotized, sent to sleep by meaning given by the spurious and fictitious sacrificial order of the world. The real meaning, the creative meaning, is the undoing of that from within by one who lets himself be sacrificed by it.So much for the first part of our learning contemplation in the midst of violence. We are given a very specific and very commanding example of the divine regard: it teaches us to look away, not to be ensnared, to de-sacralize. It is the very reverse of apocalyptic. But I want to say more. After all, a critical regard is just another regard. I want to say that our contemplation means something more. For the regard I am bringing to your attention, one which we are asked to learn, is not simply an intellectual feat based on a correct theoretical analysis of a situation. My question is this: what on earth is the heart behind the eyes we are being taught to look through? What the deep desire and motivation? What was it that enabled the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, with his human heart, intellect, and eyes, to regard things in this way and so to teach us? The person who says « God » is describing the question, not answering it. Because the real question is what does this human regard of Jesus’ reveal God to be.

I am going to stammer around here, and try to begin to put into words some of my sense of the heart behind the eyes. The heart which I take it we are being given in the degree in which we learn to desire according to those eyes. And I suppose that the word I want to discuss is power, and power desiring something. For what Jesus’ words reveal, in Luke, and in the Markan Apocalypse, and what I take them to reveal now, is what real power looks like. We can only begin to learn to see that power in the collapse of ersatz power. We are tempted to imagine that suicide planes, collapsing buildings, increased security, the unanimity of the rich and powerful, and of course, bombs and more bombs and more bombs, are signs of power. Are creative of a new world order. Shift the tectonic plates of history, and so on. And I am not going to deny for one moment that we are living, and going to continue to live, going to have to learn courage and humility and service, in a world shaped by all those forces. But what Jesus suggests is that all that power is a dangerous illusion. His talk is of a quite different power coming, scarcely noticeably, in the midst of all those things, weaning us off our addiction to the sort of crowd desire which makes that power possible and apparently all englobing. The power of disbelief in the gods made available by the continuing giving and shaping of creation by one to whom all these apparently powerful things are merely an epiphenomenon, something like a firework display happening in the lea of an erupting volcano, a distraction, dangerous to us, but of no consequence to God, a distraction from the real coming into being of an entirely gratuitous, peaceful, creative meaning, and one in which we are invited to be involved.

Here is my point. Jesus not only taught us to look away, not to allow ourselves to be seduced by the satanic. He also acted out what the undoing of the satanic meant: he was so powerful that he was able to lose to its need to sacrifice so as to show that it was entirely unnecessary. We are so used to describing Jesus cross and resurrection as a victory — a description taken from the military hardware store of satanic meaning — that we easily forget that what that victory looked like was a failure. So great is the power behind Jesus teaching and self-giving that he was able to fail, thus showing once and for all that « having to win, » the grasping on to meaning, success, reputation, life and so on is of no consequence at all. Death could not hold him in, because he was held in being by one for whom death does not exist, is not even the sort of rival who might be challenged to a duel which someone might win. But if death can only get meaning by having victory, if the order of sacred violence can only have meaning if it matters to us to survive, to be, to feel good, at the expense of someone, then someone for whom it doesn’t matter to lose is someone who is playing its game on totally different terms, and its potential for giving meaning collapses.

Here is where I am heading: We can imagine in the abstract something of the power which has nothing to do with death. What is much more difficult is imagining that power incarnated in a human heart and eyes looking at this world. Yet that is what we are talking about. A human heart and eyes so utterly held by the Creator that they speak the Creator’s heart about this world. And not just in word, but by a creative acting out and living so-as-to-lose to the sacrificial game in order to undo it, thus enabling creation to be unsnarled from our truncation of it into a violent perversion and trap.

Now this is what I find difficult. The heart, the desire, that wants to do something like that. What does it want? Why should it do it? Why not leave us to get on with it, stuck in our charades, thinking the world of our meaning and our death? In other words, the very fact of distracting us, by word and deed from being involved in what Merton rightly called « pseudo events » suggests a desire for us to be something else. The eye that is teaching us to look away from the lure of the sacred is powered by a heart that wants us to be something else. And we learn our desire through the eye of another. Our learning to see through Jesus’ eyes will eventually result in us desiring with Jesus’ heart — which is to say, our receiving the mind of Christ, which is, as Sebastian has recently pointed out, and will do so again this afternoon, is how we discover the mind of God.

Jesus not only teaches us to look away, but models what living from utterly non-rivalistic creative power for which death is not, looks like. There is a desire in this. A desire for us not to be trapped in death. And this is where I think I’m going — something apparently terribly banal, but I think, of earth shattering significance. The person who teaches us to look away and models for us another way of desiring actually likes us. It is only possible to imagine doing something like that for someone you actually like. And Jesus is doing it for all of us who are caught up in the sacred lie — which is to say, all of us.

The staggering thing that this means, for me, is that the most extraordinary fruit of contemplation in the shadow of the violence which we are experiencing is this: God likes us. All of us. God likes me and I like being liked. It has nothing to do with whether we are bad or good, indeed, he takes it for granted that we are all more or less strongly tied up in the sacred lie. In teaching after teaching he makes the same point: all are invited, bad and good. Those are our categories, part of the problem not part of the solution, not God’s category. God’s « category » for us is « created » and « created » means « liked spaciously, delighted in, wanted to give extension, fulfilment, fruition to, to share in just being. » We are missing out on something huge and powerful and serene and enjoyable and safe and meaningful by being caught up in something less than that, an ersatz perversion of each of those things. And because God likes us he wants us to get out of our addiction to the ersatz so as to become free and happy.

I want to say something more: behind the word « like » there is an astonishing gentleness. The word « love » which we have vastly overused can have for us the meaning of a forceful intervention to rescue us, and we can forget that behind a forceful intervention to rescue us, which may indeed be how love is shown in a particular circumstance, there is something much stronger, gentler and more continuous, not dependent at all on needing to rescue us. This is liking us. What I want to suggest is that the word like in all its gentleness is the word appropriate for the extraordinarily unbothered, non-emergency power we mean by creation. It is that gentle liking that is the sign of a power which could not be in greater contrast with the power of the satanic. A power so gentle and so huge that we are able not to be afraid. In the midst of the false manufacturing of meaning and frightening power displayed by the satanic, we are being taught that our being liked and held in being is at the hands of something infinitely more powerful, infinitely restful and we can live without fear. What is being revealed is the power of the Creator.

« Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. »
Can I say this? It seems to me that the fruit of contemplation in the midst of the violence which is going on about us, and of which we received a splendid example of a failing attempt at satanic transcendence, is this: as we learn to desire through the eyes of another, so we are given the heart of another, and what we learn is the extraordinarily benign, peaceful power of one holding everything in being, liking and delighting in us, without distinction. So strong, so safe that I am not frightened of a clash of civilisations. Personally, the strongest feeling I have had over the last few weeks is the quite unexpected discovery that I am no longer frightened of Muslims, and that I like them, and that this is only the beginning of discovering what it will mean to rejoice in them and see them as part of an us. Is this not the deepest act of treachery against the satanic order which was turned on in a part of all our minds and hearts by the events of September 11th. And where on earth will it end?

London, November 2001

Voir par ailleurs:

Pour pouvoir articuler ces arguments de mon point de vue, il faut adopter une perspective anthropologique, historique et évolutive. Le christia­nisme représente une rupture dans l’histoire culturelle de l’homme — en particulier dans son histoire reli­gieuse —, car pendant des dizaines de milliers d’années, les religions ont été ce qui a permis aux communautés primitives de ne pas s’autodétruire. Souvent, en effet, les êtres humains, plus encore que les animaux, font preuve de violence. Mais attention : par ce terme, je désigne non pas un comportement agressif, mais un phénomène inhérent à certaines dynamiques sociales — représailles, vengeances, volonté de rendre oeil pour oeil et dent pour dent. Tout cela parce que l’être humain est fondamentalement compétitif, parce que les hommes désirent toujours les mêmes choses que les autres hommes, car ils sont, selon mon expression, « mimétiques » ; et aussi parce qu’ils se livrent à des guerres intestines et entretiennent des conflits sans fin, qui instaurent des cercles vicieux de violence dont aucun système « judiciaire » ne permet de sortir. Voilà pourquoi la mythologie, et surtout les mythes sur les origines, commencent toujours par le récit d’une crise, une crise dans les rapports humains, souvent interpré­tée comme une « plaie » ou une « peste ». Cette crise se conclut d’ordinaire par une altération soudaine de l’unanimité mimétique, en vertu de laquelle la violence de la communauté se polarise sur une victime choisie pour des raisons arbitraires : avec sa mise à mort, l’ordre social est rétabli. Telles sont les grandes lignes du schéma de structuration mythique des cultures et des religions primitives, qui reposent sur un lynchage fondateur, une expulsion d’abord réelle, puis symbo­lique, de victimes innocentes.

Le christianisme qui, contrairement à ce que les anthropologues ont souvent soutenu, n’est pas un mythe parmi tant d’autres, renverse complètement cette perspective. Dans le mythe, le point de vue est toujours celui de la communauté qui décharge sa vio­lence sur une victime qu’elle considère coupable, et à travers l’expulsion de laquelle elle rétablit l’ordre social, à ce point précieux que la victime est divinisée, investie d’un pouvoir sacré par la communauté qui l’a expulsée. « Sacrifer » signifie en effet « rendre sacré ». Dans le récit mythique, cependant, la victime est toujours cou­pable et représentée comme telle. Il suffit de penser à OEdipe, qui commet un parricide et un inceste et qui est donc banni. Freud prend ce mythe à la lettre, tandis que le christianisme nous aide à comprendre que la vérité cachée et refoulée est autre. Le mythe des reli­gions primitives met en scène une farce, à laquelle les foules, en proie au paroxysme mimétique, croient, restant ainsi « ignorantes », précisément parce que, comme l’expliquent les Évangiles, ces hommes « ne savent ce qu’ils font ». Le christianisme, du point de vue sociologique et anthropologique, nie cet ordre et cette lecture mythiques, car il raconte la même scène, mais du point de vue de la victime, qui est toujours innocente. Il détruit par conséquent les religions qui unissent et coalisent les gens contre des victimes arbi­trairement choisies, comme toutes les religions natu­relles l’ont toujours fait, à l’exception des religions bibliques.

Le christianisme renverse donc cette situation en démontrant que la victime n’est pas coupable et que la foule unanime ne sait pas ce qu’elle fait lorsqu’elle l’accuse injustement. On en trouve déjà des exemples dans l’Ancien Testament — avant même la Passion, qui représente pour moi le sommet de la révélation de l’innocence de la victime sacrifiée par une commu­nauté injuste et violente. Prenons le cas d’Isaïe, 52-53 : l’innocence de la victime est mise en évidence, mais celle-ci est quand même condamnée par la foule en proie au délire mimétique, unanimement convaincue d’avoir trouvé un coupable pour toutes ses crises internes. Dans de telles circonstances, nous n’avons plus des comportements ou des consciences indivi­duels, mais nous rejoignons la logique unanime de la foule. Au cours de la Passion, même Pierre, lorsqu’il se retrouve parmi la masse qui accuse le Christ, cède à la tentation et le renie. Les Évangiles et la Passion de Jésus révèlent et déploient dans sa totalité cette vérité anthropologique : tout au long de notre histoire d’ani­maux culturels, nous n’avons cessé de chercher des boucs émissaires pour résoudre nos crises et nous les avons tués, pour ensuite les diviniser, sans savoir cepen­dant ce que nous faisions. La Passion du Christ nous l’apprend et nous le dit en toute clarté : Jésus est une victime innocente, sacrifiée par une foule unanime à se révolter contre lui, après l’avoir ovationné à peine quelques jours plus tôt. Et cela sans aucune raison par­ticulière. Une telle prise de conscience conduit à la rupture du mécanisme de méconnaissance, de couver­ture cognitive, qui fondait le schéma mythique : doré­navant, nous ne pouvons plus feindre d’ignorer que l’ordre social se construit en sacrifiant des victimes innocentes. Le christianisme nous prive de ce méca­nisme, à la base de l’ordre social et religieux archaïque, et nous introduit dans une phase nouvelle de l’histoire de l’homme, que nous pouvons légitimement appeler « moderne ». Pour moi, toutes les conquêtes de la modernité partent de là, de cette prise de conscience interne au christianisme.

Je ne prétends pas que le christianisme ait transformé le monde autant qu’il aurait dû ou pu le faire. Il a lutté contre les reli­gions archaïques et lutte encore contre des formes plus ou moins explicites de sacré. Le christianisme histo­rique a conservé des éléments de religion archaïque, de religion historique ; la société, la politique, la culture et l’ensemble du monde où nous vivons sont histo­riques, et cela vaut aussi pour les religions. On a tenté et on tente encore de s’adapter, de s’ajuster, mais il est évident que cela demande beaucoup de temps. Car l’idée chrétienne s’est insérée dans un monde où la ter­ritorialité, où le concept de vengeance étaient forts, où les actions des êtres humains étaient strictement assujetties à des actions de groupe, à des mécanismes unanimes que nous pourrions qualifier de tribaux. Le christianisme qui s’efforce d’entrer dans ce monde dan­gereux n’a pas la vie facile ; il est clair qu’il a besoin de milliers d’années pour parvenir à déstructurer quelque chose.

Nous vivons dans un monde où les possibilités d’action de l’homme sont en augmentation constante, avec des répercussions de plus en plus vastes. Très sou­vent, les hommes primitifs n’osaient même pas cultiver un lopin de terre à cause du respect et de la crainte que leur inspiraient les esprits occupant ce territoire (toutes ces divinités qui imprégnaient la nature et qui, à mon avis, ont été à l’origine des victimes émissaires transformées en dieux). Nous n’éprouvons plus ce genre de craintes.

Je reconnais que la philosophie des Lumières a repré­senté un moment historique où la partie chrétienne, occidentale, de l’humanité s’est rendu compte que le monde changeait, que les gens étaient plus libres et que la désacralisation du monde, comparée à l’époque préchrétienne ou même seulement au Moyen Âge, offrait à l’homme une plus grande possibilité d’action. Mais on a alors vu s’instaurer la croyance erronée selon laquelle ce phénomène était le produit exclusif de l’action des hommes, de leur génie individuel, ou du génie de l’être humain en général. Dans le même temps cependant, la conscience de la responsabilité humaine envers le monde n’a pas augmenté. Nous disposons d’armes de plus en plus puissantes, mais nous avons un sens très faible de nos responsabilités. Si notre évo­lution culturelle nous a conduits à remplacer Dieu, alors nous devrions nous rendre compte que nous nous sommes chargés d’une responsabilité énorme et qu’il faudrait nous interroger sur l’importance de la religion tout autrement que ne le font aujourd’hui les mass media. Ces derniers perçoivent en effet la religion comme une pensée étrangère à la nature humaine, quelque chose qui se présente sous la forme d’une contrainte, d’un lien, qui peut être nuisible à la santé. La religion nuirait à l’homme, comme le tabac. Mais ce discours néglige le fait qu’il est dans la nature humaine d’avoir des croyances religieuses, et que celles-ci doivent avoir un but anthropologique et social. Nous devons aujourd’hui nous demander ce que signifie vivre dans un monde où l’on prétend se passer de la religion. N’y a-t-il pas là un danger, en particulier celui d’un déchaînement de la violence ? Alors qu’il n’est pas impossible, nous le savons, que nous provoquions un jour la fin du monde tel que nous le connaissons, la disparition de la religion ne nous expose-t-elle pas au risque du déchaînement d’une dimension « apoca­lyptique » ? Ce que je dis n’est évidemment pas compatible avec la modalité apocalyptique du fonda­mentalisme protestant, qui imagine le monde détruit par la violence de Dieu, car cela est par essence anti­chrétien. À mon sens, les vrais textes apocalyptiques, qu’on ne lit hélas jamais, sont le chapitre 13 de l’Évan­gile selon saint Marc et le chapitre 24 de l’Évangile selon saint Matthieu ; pour moi, du point de vue d’un christianisme fondamental, ils comptent encore plus que l’Apocalypse de saint Jean lui-même.

Dans le même temps, tout en sachant cela, nous tournons en dérision des textes bibliques comme l’Apocalypse, alors que nous devrions les prendre très au sérieux, puisque la fin du monde y est précisément mise en relation avec le christianisme. Car le judaïsme et le christianisme sont conscients que si nous nous efforçons de nous passer de toutes les prohibitions, des limites que les religions archaïques imposaient, non seulement nous nous mettons en péril nous-mêmes, mais nous faisons aussi peser une menace sur l’exis­tence du monde. Les religions archaïques naissent en effet d’une telle prise de conscience. Nous agissons au contraire aujourd’hui comme si nous étions les maîtres du monde, les seigneurs de la nature, sans aucune médiation ou arbitrage, comme si tout ce que nous faisons ne pouvait pas avoir de répercussions négatives. Mais nous savons tous très bien que ces tabous archa­ïques possédaient une valeur et une signification. Les êtres humains, de même que les nations, ne peuvent pas vivre sans éthique. C’est bien beau d’imaginer que tout est possible, mais en réalité, chacun de nous sait parfaitement qu’il existe des limites. Si les êtres humains et les nations continuent à éluder leurs res­ponsabilités, les risques deviennent énormes. Vattimo voudrait nous faire croire que nous pourrions habiter une sorte d’Éden : il suffirait de nous rendre compte que nous y sommes déjà, que les dangers n’existent pas ; malheureusement, le monde qui nous entoure ne l’écoute pas.

Nous avons besoin d’une bonne théorie de la sécula­risation, car celle-ci correspond aussi à la fin du sacri­fice, ce qui nous prive de nos moyens culturels habituels d’affronter la violence. Il y a une temporalité du sacrifice, et la violence est sujette à l’érosion et à l’entropie, mais (…) Lorsqu’on se débarrasse du sacré grâce au christianisme, il se produit certes une ouverture salutaire vers l’agapè, la charité, mais on prend aussi le risque de générer une violence supérieure. Le monde dans lequel nous vivons est, de l’avis général, moins violent que par le passé, et nous prenons soin des victimes comme aucune autre civilisation ne l’a jamais fait, mais ce monde est aussi le plus persécuteur et le plus meurtrier de l’Histoire. Le bien comme le mal semblent y aug­menter également. Aussi, pour défendre une théorie de la culture, il faut rendre compte des aspects extra­ordinaires de cette culture. Dans Credere di credere, Vattimo utilise l’idée de Max Weber sur la sécularisa­tion comme cause du désenchantement du monde. Tu dis que « le désenchantement du monde a aussi produit un radical désenchantement de l’idée même de désenchantement 1 ». Je suis d’accord. Malgré toute son intelligence, Weber n’avait découvert qu’à moitié le paradoxe que représente la présence simultanée, dans le monde contemporain, d’un haut degré de dévelop­pement et d’une bonne dose de désagrégation, mais il existe bien d’autres paradoxes, qui s’intensifient avec le temps et deviennent de plus en plus fascinants.

ce mouvement, passé de Heidegger au structuralisme puis au déconstruction­nisme, (…) se caractérise par une attitude d’extrême optimisme envers l’Histoire — notion qui n’a d’ailleurs pas beaucoup de sens pour les représentants de cette école, dont le maître mot pourrait être le mot « jeu ». Tout est ludique, tout se réduit à un jeu linguistique. Disons que, d’un point de vue sociologique, ils peuvent se le permettre : la plupart d’entre eux proviennent du monde académique et sont convaincus qu’il y aura toujours une université pour les soutenir, grâce aux financements constants du système capitaliste, et que rien ne saurait leur arriver. Ils ne perçoivent sans doute pas les mêmes salaires que les ingénieurs de la Silicon Valley, mais leur vie n’en est pas moins aisée et bien réglée.

Cette école s’est proposé de rompre avec l’idéalisme allemand, mais pas de déconstruire notre civilisation ou notre monde. Vattimo a réagi à ce type d’attitude de très belle manière. D’ailleurs, nous apprenons chaque jour un peu plus que la religion l’emporte sur la philosophie et la dépasse. Les philosophies sont en effet à peu près mortes ; les idéologies, presque défuntes ; les théories politiques, presque entièrement laminées ; la croyance selon laquelle la science pourrait remplacer la religion, désormais dépassée. Le monde laisse en revanche apparaître un besoin nouveau de reli­gion, sous une forme ou sous une autre. Vattimo en a pris conscience. Toutefois, sa pensée demeure encore un peu trop imprégnée, du moins à mon goût, de cette atmosphère ludique de l’école où il a fait ses débuts et dont il s’est ensuite détaché.

Je crois que la tragédie réapparaît, dans tous les domaines : la politique, l’écologie, la société. Il nous est facile de vivre dans un monde aussi bien organisé que le monde occidental. Mais nous faisons partie des 25 % de privilégiés de la population du globe. Certains problèmes ne sont pas limités à l’intérieur d’une société, mais concernent toute la planète, surtout si nous avons conscience que seul un tiers ou un quart de la population mondiale peut s’approcher des privi­lèges dont nous bénéficions. Si la tragédie est de retour, et que nous commençons à la percevoir comme une tragédie religieuse, alors il reste de l’espoir ; si, au contraire, nous la considérons comme une tragédie grecque, alors c’en est fini.

même d’un point de vue esthétique, j’ai du mal à accepter sa volonté de ne poser aucune limite, qui, selon moi, va en réalité dans le sens d’un refus de l’éthique, en particulier face à la modernité et à ce dont nos lendemains seront faits. Le refus de l’éthique est un des grands clichés de la modernité et remonte au XVIe siècle, ou même avant, mais à mon avis, il est aujourd’hui à bout de forces, même dans le domaine esthétique.

Je ne veux contraindre personne à devenir apocalyp­tique et à se couvrir la tête de cendres, mais j’ai des enfants et des petits-enfants et je dois admettre que j’ai peur. J’éprouve la sensation qu’il se passe dans notre monde quelque chose de toujours plus épouvantable.

J’ai commencé à réfléchir au destin du monde en 1945, à l’époque où l’on inventa et où l’on utilisa la bombe atomique. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, elle n’a pas été aussi destructrice qu’on pouvait le craindre, car elle a joué un rôle de dissuasion. Vers le milieu des années 1950, nous nous sommes rendu compte que les Russes avaient sans doute de nombreux défauts, mais qu’ils ne voulaient pas mourir. Dans le monde actuel, nous voyons au contraire des gens, de plus en plus nom­breux, prêts à mourir pour tuer des innocents qu’ils n’ont jamais vus. Face à ce terrorisme qui a su vaincre même les technologies les plus sophistiquées et les plus efficaces, nous devons prendre conscience que nous vivons dans un monde ouvert à de nouveaux risques, à des possibles effrayants, surtout pour nous, qui appartenons à la partie privilégiée du monde. Tout cela, selon moi, requiert une réflexion de fond, qui me semble absente du débat politique contemporain.

Je voudrais aussi ajouter quelque chose sur la ques­tion de la vérité … Je suis religieux, mais pourquoi ? Selon moi, tout se rattache au « dévoi­lement du mécanisme victimaire ». Pour moi, ce « dévoilement » correspond à la Passion. Pourquoi le christianisme insiste-t-il tant sur elle ? Il la décrit comme la mort de notre Sauveur, ce qui est important non seulement du point de vue religieux, mais aussi du point de vue anthropologique, car cela nous ouvre une perspective sur l’autre aspect de la culture humaine. Chaque mythe est en effet une Passion ayant échoué. Non pas en ce sens que la victime n’aurait pas été tuée, mais en ce que la vérité anthropologique de cette mort innocente n’a pas été révélée. La question que pose la Passion est : de quel côté nous situons-nous ? Avec la foule qui accuse Jésus d’être coupable, ou bien de l’autre côté ?

Selon moi, la supériorité de la puissance révélatrice de la Passion par rapport à l’Ancien Testament vient de son plus grand pragmatisme didactique. Non seule­ment elle nous révèle la vérité propre à tous les mythes antérieurs, mais elle nous montre aussi les deux posi­tions en même temps, l’une à côté de l’autre. Et je pense qu’il y a là quelque chose d’extraordinaire. La Passion devient la clef pour comprendre la mythologie. Le mythe adopte toujours le point de vue de la foule, qui désigne la victime et la juge coupable, tandis que dans l’histoire de la Passion, nous percevons aussi l’autre point de vue, celui de la victime innocente. La question est alors (…): tout cela est-il vrai ou faux ? Si cela est vrai, il s’agit d’une vérité évidente, manifeste. C’est surtout en ces termes que je parle de « vérité ».

Certains disent que je mêle la religion à la science. Ce n’est pas vrai. Je dis que tout tient dans le raisonne­ment suivant. Le christianisme est-il vraiment l’autre face de la mythologie ? Le christianisme est-il la vérité de toute mythologie ? Toute ma réflexion tourne autour de la question de savoir si le christianisme ne serait pas ce qui nous révèle l’autre aspect, l’aspect caché des mythes. Et je ne veux pas dire par là qu’il nous livrerait la vérité sur Dieu du point de vue scienti­fique, mais qu’il nous dit une vérité sur les mythes et sur toute la culture humaine. Il s’agit de ce que les logiciens appellent le common knowledge, le sens com­mun. Et je crois que nous allons vers un futur où ce common knowledge sera de mieux en mieux accepté comme une partie de notre connaissance commune, et que nous vivrons dans un monde qui sera et apparaîtra aussi chrétien qu’il nous semble aujourd’hui scienti­fique. Je crois que nous sommes à la veille d’une révo­lution de notre culture qui dépassera tout ce que l’on peut imaginer, et que le monde se dirige vers un chan­gement en comparaison duquel la Renaissance nous semblera insignifiante. Et il s’agit naturellement, du moins à mon avis, d’une perspective fascinante.

Personnellement, je suis d’accord avec Vat­timo lorsqu’il dit que le christianisme est une révéla­tion de l’amour, mais je n’exclus pas qu’il soit aussi une révélation de vérité. Car dans le christianisme, vérité et amour coïncident et sont la même chose. Je pense que nous devons prendre très au sérieux ce concept de l’amour, qui, dans le christianisme, est la réhabilitation de la victime accusée à tort, la vérité même, la vérité anthropologique et la vérité chrétienne. Et je pense que cette vérité anthropologique peut donner au christia­nisme l’anthropologie qu’il mérite. Car traditionnelle­ment, la théologie chrétienne, juste en elle-même, s’est fondée sur une anthropologie « erronée » : l’anthropo­logie grecque, une anthropologie païenne, qui ne voit pas la responsabilité de l’homme en tant qu’être violent. Je crois, au contraire, qu’il convient de donner enfin à la théologie chrétienne l’anthropologie dont elle est digne.

René Girard (Christianisme et modernité, 2009)

Bac philosophie 2013: Plus Ponce Pilate que moi tu meurs ! (From Plato’s cave to Descartes’s wax and Bergson’s iron bar, Schrödinger’s cat to Putnam’s twin earth and Williams’ s thick ethical concepts: it’s splitting the baby, stupid !)

Le roi dit: Coupez en deux l’enfant qui vit, et donnez-en la moitié à l’une et la moitié à l’autre. Alors la femme dont le fils était vivant sentit ses entrailles s’émouvoir pour son fils, et elle dit au roi: Ah! mon seigneur, donnez-lui l’enfant qui vit, et ne le faites point mourir. Jugement de Salomon (I Rois 3: 25-26)

Qu’est-ce que la vérité? (…) Je ne trouve aucun crime en lui. Mais, comme c’est parmi vous une coutume que je vous relâche quelqu’un à la fête de Pâque, voulez-vous que je vous relâche le roi des Juifs? Pilate (Jean 18: 38-39)

Figure-toi des hommes dans une demeure souterraine, en forme de caverne, ayant sur toute sa largeur une entrée ouverte à la lumière. Ces hommes sont là depuis leur enfance, les jambes et le cou enchaînés, de sorte qu’ils ne peuvent bouger ni voir ailleurs que devant eux, la chaîne les empêchant de tourner la tête. La lumière leur vient d’un feu allumé sur une hauteur, au loin derrière eux. Entre le feu et les prisonniers passe une route élevée. Imagine que le long de cette route est construit un petit mur, pareil aux cloisons que les montreurs de marionnettes dressent devant eux, et au-dessus desquelles ils font voir leurs merveilles.(…) Penses-tu que dans une telle situation ils n’aient jamais vu autre chose d’eux mêmes et de leurs voisins que les ombres projetées par le feu sur la paroi de la caverne qui leur fait face ? (…) Mais, dans ces conditions, s’ils pouvaient se parler les uns aux autres, ne penses-tu pas qu’ils croiraient nommer les objets réels eux-mêmes en nommant ce qu’ils voient ? (…) Considère maintenant ce qui leur arrivera naturellement si on les délivre de leurs chaînes et qu’on les guérisse de leur ignorance. Qu’on détache l’un de ces prisonniers, qu’on le force à se dresser immédiatement, à tourner le cou, à marcher, à lever les yeux vers la lumière. En faisant tous ces mouvements il souffrira, et l’éblouissement l’empêchera de distinguer ces objets dont tout à l’heure il voyait les ombres. Que crois-tu donc qu’il répondra si quelqu’un vient lui dire qu’il n’a vu jusqu’alors que de vains fantômes, mais qu’à présent, plus près de la réalité et tourné vers des objets plus réels, il voit plus juste ? Si, enfin, en lui montrant chacune des choses qui passent, on l’oblige, à force de questions, à dire ce que c’est, ne penses-tu pas qu’il sera embarrassé, et que les ombres qu’il voyait tout à l’heure lui paraîtront plus vraies que les objets qu’on lui montre maintenant ? (…) Imagine encore que cet homme redescende dans la caverne et aille s’asseoir à son ancienne place. N’aura-t-il pas les yeux aveuglés par les ténèbres en venant brusquement du plein soleil ? (…) Et s’il lui faut entrer de nouveau en compétition, pour juger ces ombres, avec les prisonniers qui n’ont point quitté leurs chaînes, dans le moment où sa vue est encore confuse et avant que [517a] ses yeux se soient remis (puisque l’accoutumance à l’obscurité demandera un certain temps), ne va-t-on pas rire à ses dépens, et ne diront-ils pas qu’étant allé là-haut il en est revenu avec la vue ruinée, de sorte que ce n’est même pas la peine d’essayer d’y monter ? Et si quelqu’un tente de les délier et de les conduire en haut, et qu’ils puissent le tenir en leurs mains et tuer, ne le tueront-ils pas ? Platon

Prenons pour exemple ce morceau de cire qui vient d’être tiré de la ruche : il n’a pas encore perdu la douceur du miel qu’il contenait, il retient encore quelque chose de l’odeur des feurs dont il a été recueilli sa fgure, sa couleur, sa grandeur sont apparentes il est dur, il est froid, on le touche, et si vous le frappez, il rendra quelque son. Enfn toutes les choses qui peuvent faire distinctement connaître un corps se rencontrent en celui-ci. Mais voici que, pendant que je parle, on l’approche du feu ce qui y restait de saveur s’exhale, l’odeur s’évanouit, sa couleur se change, sa fgure se perd, sa grandeur augmente, il devient liquide, il s’échauffe, à peine le peut-on toucher, et quoiqu’on le frappe, il ne rendra plus aucun son. La même cire demeure-t-elle après ce changement ? Il faut avouer qu’elle demeure et personne ne le peut nier. Qu’est-ce donc que l’on connaissait en ce morceau de cire avec tant de distinction ? Certes ce ne peut être rien de ce que j’ai remarqué par l’entremise des sens, puisque toutes les choses qui tombaient sous le goût, ou l’odorat, ou la vue, ou l’attouchement ou l’ouïe, se trouvent changées, et cependant la même cire demeure. Mais (…) éloignant toutes les choses qui n’appartiennent point à la cire, voyons ce qui reste. Certes il ne demeure rien que quelque chose d’étendu, de fexible et de muable. Or qu’est-ce que cela, fexible et muable ? N’est-ce pas que j’imagine que celle cire étant ronde est capable de devenir carrée, et de passer du carré en une figure triangulaire? Puisque je la conçois capable de recevoir une infnité de semblables changements et ne saurais néanmoins parcourir cette infinité par mon imagination ; il faut donc que je tombe d’accord, que je ne saurais pas même concevoir par l’imagination ce que c’est que cette cire, et qu’il n’y a que mon entendement seul qui le conçoive (…). Or quelle est cette cire qui ne peut être conçue que par l’entendement ou l’esprit ? Certes c’est la même que je vois, que je touche, que j’imagine, et la même que je connaissais dés le commencement. Mais ce qui est à remarquer, sa perception, ou bien l’action par laquelle on l’aperçoit n’est point une vision, ni un attouchement, ni une imagination, et ne l’a jamais été, quoiqu’il semblât ainsi auparavant, mais seulement une inspection de l’esprit, laquelle peut être imparfaite et confuse, comme elle était auparavant, ou bien claire et distincte, comme elle est à présent, selon que mon attention se porte plus ou moins aux choses qui sont en elle et dont elle est composée (…). Je juge et ainsi je comprends, par la seule puissance de juger qui réside en mon esprit, ce que je croyais voir de mes yeux.” Descartes (Méditations métaphysiques , seconde méditation, 1641)

La première signification donc de « Vrai » et de « Faux » semble avoir tiré son origine des récits ; et l’on a dit vrai un récit quand le fait raconté était réellement arrivé ; faux, quand le fait raconté n’était arrivé nulle part. Plus tard les Philosophes ont employé le mot pour désigner l’accord ou le non-accord d’une idée avec son objet ; ainsi, l’on appelle Idée Vraie celle qui montre une chose comme elle est en elle – même ; Fausse celle qui montre une chose autrement qu’elle n’est en réalité. Les idées ne sont pas autre chose en effet que des récits ou des histoires de la nature dans l’esprit. Et de là on en est venu à désigner de même par métaphore des choses inertes ; ainsi quand nous disions de l’or vrai ou de l’or faux, comme si l’or qui nous est présenté racontait quelque chose sur lui – même, ce qui est ou n’est pas en lui.  Spinoza (Pensées métaphysiques, 1663)

Qu’est-ce qu’un jugement vrai ? Nous appelons vraie l’affirmation qui concorde avec la réalité. Mais en quoi peut consister cette concordance ? Nous aimons à y voir quelque chose comme la ressemblance du portrait au modèle : l’affirmation vraie serait celle qui copierait la réalité. Réfléchissons-y cependant : nous verrons que c’est seulement dans des cas rares, exceptionnels, que cette définition du vrai trouve son application. Ce qui est réel, c’est tel ou tel fait déterminé s’accomplissant en tel ou tel point de l’espace et du temps, c’est du singulier, c’est du changeant. Au contraire, la plupart de nos affirmations sont générales et impliquent une certaine stabilité de leur objet. Prenons une vérité aussi voisine que possible de l’expérience, celle-ci par exemple : « la chaleur dilate les corps ». De quoi pourrait-elle bien être la copie ? Il est possible, en un certain sens, de copier la dilatation d’un corps déterminé à des moments déterminés, en la photographiant dans ses diverses phases. Même, par métaphore, je puis encore dire que l’affirmation « cette barre de fer se dilate » est la copie de ce qui se passe quand j’assiste à la dilatation de la barre de fer. Mais une vérité qui s’applique à tous les corps, sans concerner spécialement aucun de ceux que j’ai vus, ne copie rien, ne reproduit rien. Bergson (La pensée et le mouvant, 1934)

Vous pouvez couper la tarte comme vous voulez, la signification n’est pas juste dans la tête. Hilary Putnam

L’expérience du chat de Schrödinger fut imaginée en 1935 par le physicien Erwin Schrödinger, afin de mettre en évidence des lacunes supposées de l’interprétation de Copenhague de la physique quantique, et particulièrement mettre en évidence le problème de la mesure. (…) Erwin Schrödinger a imaginé une expérience dans laquelle un chat est enfermé dans une boîte avec un dispositif qui tue l’animal dès qu’il détecte la désintégration d’un atome d’un corps radioactif ; par exemple : un détecteur de radioactivité type Geiger, relié à un interrupteur provoquant la chute d’un marteau cassant une fiole de poison — Schrödinger proposait de l’acide cyanhydrique, qui peut être enfermé sous forme liquide dans un flacon sous pression et se vaporiser, devenant un gaz mortel, une fois le flacon brisé. Si les probabilités indiquent qu’une désintégration a une chance sur deux d’avoir eu lieu au bout d’une minute, la mécanique quantique indique que, tant que l’observation n’est pas faite, l’atome est simultanément dans deux états (intact/désintégré). Or le mécanisme imaginé par Erwin Schrödinger lie l’état du chat (mort ou vivant) à l’état des particules radioactives, de sorte que le chat serait simultanément dans deux états (l’état mort et l’état vivant), jusqu’à ce que l’ouverture de la boîte (l’observation) déclenche le choix entre les deux états. Du coup, on ne peut absolument pas dire si le chat est mort ou non au bout d’une minute. La difficulté principale tient donc dans le fait que si l’on est généralement prêt à accepter ce genre de situation pour une particule, l’esprit refuse d’accepter facilement une situation qui semble aussi peu naturelle quand il s’agit d’un sujet plus familier comme un chat. Wikipedia

L’expérience de la Terre jumelle est une expérience de pensée proposée par le philosophe américain Hilary Putnam en 1975, qui la qualifie de « science-fiction », dans le cadre d’une réflexion sur le concept de signification (ou « vouloir-dire », traduction de l’allemand « Bedeutung »). Elle a été formulée dans un article intitulé The meaning of « meaning » (La signification de « signification ») 1 Elle fait partie aujourd’hui de la théorie dite d’externalisme sémantique, qui considère que les significations (« Bedeutung ») ne dépendent pas exclusivement des états mentaux du locuteur. Cela revient à réfuter le caractère essentiellement privé de la signification : on peut utiliser un terme sans en connaître parfaitement l’extension. Après avoir exposé l’expérience de la Terre jumelle, Putnam donne en effet un autre exemple : je peux utiliser le terme « aluminium », ou « orme », sans avoir une idée précise de son extension, par exemple si je ne sais pas le distinguer clairement et distinctement du terme de « molybdène » ou de « hêtre ». Toutefois, cela n’implique pas que l’extension du terme en question soit parfaitement déterminé : un métallurgiste, ou un garde forestier, saura distinguer l’aluminium du molybdène, ou un hêtre d’un orme. Il y a donc une « division du travail linguistique » : la signification des mots n’est pas fixée dans l’ego des individus, mais dans la communauté linguistique prise dans son ensemble. L’ambition de Putnam, à travers cette expérience de pensée, était de montrer que l’extension (ou référence, ou dénotation) d’un terme n’est pas déterminée entièrement par les états psychologiques du locuteur (« les significations ne sont pas dans la tête »). Il s’agissait ainsi d’une critique de la théorie descriptive de la signification. Depuis, des philosophes, comme Tyler Burge par exemple, ont proposé différentes variantes de cette expérience. Wikipedia

Dans The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy (2002; traduit en 2004), Putnam s’attaque à la dichotomie fait-valeur, fondatrice du projet du Cercle de Vienne et très présente dans Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) d’Alfred Ayer, sans pour autant souscrire aux thèses plutôt relativistes soutenues par Richard Rorty dans Objectivisme, relativisme et vérité (1994). Si Putnam critique l’émotivisme d’Ayer d’une part, et l’intuitionnisme de G.E. Moore d’autre part, il maintient toutefois la distinction fait-valeurs. D’une part, il affirme qu’on ne peut distinguer entre des concepts factuels et des concepts axiologiques, mais seulement entre des fonctions descriptives et prescriptives des concepts. Il s’appuie pour cela sur les « concepts éthiques épais » (thick ethical concepts), qui mêlent fonction descriptive et prescriptive. La cruauté illustre ces concepts qui ne peuvent être classés ni parmi les jugements de faits exclusifs, ni parmi les jugements de valeurs exclusifs. C’est un concept éthique épais qui possède simultanément une fonction descriptive et prescriptive. À propos de ces concepts, Putnam rejette la solution de R.M. Hare, visant à départager contenu descriptif et contenu prescriptif. Il adopte enfin une position pragmatiste inspirée par John Dewey, afin de pouvoir obtenir une relative objectivité en éthique. Wikipedia

« Qu’est-ce que la vérité ? » C’est la question de Ponce Pilate, qu’il est de bon ton, depuis Nietzsche, de juger d’autant plus profonde qu’elle serait sans réponse possible. Que la question fût posée par le chef d’une armée d’occupation – juste avant qu’il se lave les mains pendant qu’on crucifie un innocent – devrait pourtant nous inciter à davantage de vigilance. S’il n’y a pas de vérité, ou si l’on ne peut pas du tout la connaître, quelle différence entre un coupable et un innocent, entre un procès et une mascarade, entre un juste et un escroc ? Non que la vérité, certes, suffise à rendre la justice ! Il y faut aussi une loi, des principes, des valeurs… Mais quelle justice sans vérité ? Ainsi la question revient toujours. Qu’on ne connaisse jamais toute la vérité, c’est une évidence. Cela n’empêche pas de dire ce qu’elle est, ou plutôt cela suppose qu’on en soit capable. Comment saurait-on, autrement, qu’on ne la connaît pas toute ? Une définition au moins nominale de la vérité est nécessaire, sans laquelle toute définition serait impossible ou sans portée. Mais cette définition, à son tour, n’est concevable que par une certaine expérience que nous avons, en nous, de ce que Spinoza appellera « la norme de l’idée vraie donnée ». Si nous ne savions pas du tout ce qu’est le vrai, comment pourrions-nous le chercher, comment saurions-nous, même, ce qu’est une erreur ? Ce n’est pas seulement la justice qui serait impossible. Les sciences le seraient tout autant, et la philosophie. Ce serait le triomphe des ignorants, des sophistes et des négationnistes. André Comte-Sponvillle

(Hamlet de Shalespeare) C’est une pièce policière. Au coeur de l’intrigue, il y a un secret qu’on révèle lentement. Mais y a-t-il plus grand secret que la vérité ? La littérature est toujours une expédition vers la vérité. (…) Mais en réalité (…) la vérité est ce dont chaque homme a besoin pour vivre et que pourtant il ne peut devoir ni acheter à personne. Chacun doit la produire du fond de lui-même, faute de quoi il périt. La vie sans la vérité est impossible. Peut-être que la vérité, c’est la vie elle-même. Kafka

La vérité biblique sur le penchant universel à la violence a été tenue à l’écart par un puissant processus de refoulement. (…) La vérité fut reportée sur les juifs, sur Adam et la génération de la fin du monde. (…) La représentation théologique de l’adoucissement de la colère de Dieu par l’acte d’expiation du Fils constituait un compromis entre les assertions du Nouveau Testament sur l’amour divin sans limites et celles sur les fantasmes présents en chacun. (…) Même si la vérité biblique a été de nouveau  obscurcie sur de nombreux points, (…) dénaturée en partie, elle n’a jamais été totalement falsifiée par les Églises. Elle a traversé l’histoire et agit comme un levain. Même l’Aufklärung critique contre le christianisme qui a pris ses armes et les prend toujours en grande partie dans le sombre arsenal de l’histoire de l’Eglise, n’a jamais pu se détacher entièrement de l’inspiration chrétienne véritable, et par des détours embrouillés et compliqués, elle a porté la critique originelle des prophètes dans les domaines sans cesse nouveaux de l’existence humaine. Les critiques d’un Kant, d’un Feuerbach, d’un Marx, d’un Nietzsche et d’un Freud – pour ne prendre que quelques uns parmi les plus importants – se situent dans une dépendance non dite par rapport à l’impulsion prophétique. Raymund Schwager

On apprend aux enfants qu’on a cessé de chasser les sorcières parce que la science s’est imposée aux hommes. Alors que c’est le contraire: la science s’est imposée aux hommes parce que, pour des raisons morales, religieuses, on a cessé de chasser les sorcières. (…) Si on a assez d’esclaves, comme dans la république d’Aristote, pour pousser les charrettes ou même pour jouer les baudets, pourquoi voulez-vous qu’on se casse la tête à inventer le camion à moteur? René Girard

Il y a deux grandes attitudes à mon avis dans l’histoire humaine, il y a celle de la mythologie qui s’efforce de dissimuler la violence, car, en dernière analyse, c’est sur la violence injuste que les communautés humaines reposent. (…) Cette attitude est trop universelle pour être condamnée. C’est l’attitude d’ailleurs des plus grands philosophes grecs et en particulier de Platon, qui condamne Homère et tous les poètes parce qu’ils se permettent de décrire dans leurs oeuvres les violences attribuées par les mythes aux dieux de la cité. Le grand philosophe voit dans cette audacieuse révélation une source de désordre, un péril majeur pour toute la société. Cette attitude est certainement l’attitude religieuse la plus répandue, la plus normale, la plus naturelle à l’homme et, de nos jours, elle est plus universelle que jamais, car les croyants modernisés, aussi bien les chrétiens que les juifs, l’ont au moins partiellement adoptée. L’autre attitude est beaucoup plus rare et elle est même unique au monde. Elle est réservée tout entière aux grands moments de l’inspiration biblique et chrétienne. Elle consiste non pas à pudiquement dissimuler mais, au contraire, à révéler la violence dans toute son injustice et son mensonge, partout où il est possible de la repérer. C’est l’attitude du Livre de Job et c’est l’attitude des Evangiles. C’est la plus audacieuse des deux et, à mon avis, c’est la plus grande. C’est l’attitude qui nous a permis de découvrir l’innocence de la plupart des victimes que même les hommes les plus religieux, au cours de leur histoire, n’ont jamais cessé de massacrer et de persécuter. C’est là qu’est l’inspiration commune au judaïsme et au christianisme, et c’est la clef, il faut l’espérer, de leur réconciliation future. C’est la tendance héroïque à mettre la vérité au-dessus même de l’ordre social. René Girard

Il me semblait que la définition traditionnelle de la Passion en termes de sacrifice fournissait des arguments supplémentaires à ceux qui voulaient assimiler le christianisme à une religion archaïque , et je l’ai longtemps rejetée. (…) Je voulais seulement dissiper chez les non-chrétiens et, de nos jours, chez les chrétiens eux-mêmes, l’équivoque entretenue par l’ambivalence du terme de « sacrifice ». Ce souci reste légitime à mes yeux mais il ne faut pas l’absolutiser. (…) le recours au même mot pour les deux types de sacrifice, si trompeur qu’il soit à un premier niveau, suggère, il me semble, quelque chose d’essentiel, à savoir l’unité paradoxale du religieux d’un bout à l’autre de l’histoire humaine. (…) Plus les extrêmes sont éloignés l’un de l’autre et plus leur union en un même mot, paradoxalement, suggère un au-delà de l’opposition. Le jugement de Salomon suggère cet au-delà. (…) Nous disons très bien nous-mêmes que la seconde femme sacrifie la rivalité à son enfant, alors que la première acceptait de sacrifier l’enfant à sa rivalité. Ce que dit le texte, c’est qu’on ne peut renoncer au sacrifice première manière, qui est sacrifice d’autrui, violence contre l’autre, qu’en assumant le risque du sacrifice deuxième manière, le sacrifice du Christ qui meurt pour ses amis. Le recours au même mot coupe court à l’illusion d’un terrain neutre complètement étranger à la violence. 

Il convient de voir dans les Ecritures judéo-chrétiennes la première révélation complète du pouvoir structurant de la victimisation dans les religions païennes ; quant au problème de la valeur anthropologique de ces Ecritures, il peut et doit être étudié comme un problème purement scientifique, la question étant de savoir si, oui ou non, les mythes deviennent intelligibles, comme je le crois, dès lors qu’on les interprète comme les traces plus ou moins lointaines d’épisodes de persécution mal compris. (…) Ma conclusion est que, dans notre monde, la démythification tire sa force de la Bible. Réponse inacceptable pour ceux qui pensent que tout ce qui risque de placer la Bible sous un jour favorable ne saurait être pris au sérieux par les vrais chercheurs, car il ne peut s’agir que d’une approche religieuse – et donc irrationnelle – qui n’a strictement aucune valeur du point de vue de l’anthropologie. (…) Et pourtant, y a-t-il quelque chose qui soit plus naturel aux chercheurs que de traiter des textes similaires de façon similaire, ne serait-ce que pour voir ce que cela donne ? Un tabou inaperçu pèse sur ce type d’étude comparative. Les tabous les plus forts sont toujours invisibles. Comme tous les tabous puissants, celui-ci est antireligieux, c’est-à-dire, au fond, de nature religieuse. A partir de la Renaissance, les intellectuels modernes ont remplacé les Ecritures judéo-chrétiennes par les cultures anciennes. Puis, l’humanisme de Rousseau et de ses successeurs a glorifié à l’excès les cultures primitives et s’est également détourné de la Bible. Si la lecture que je propose est acceptée, notre vieux système de valeurs universitaires, fondé sur l’élévation des cultures non bibliques aux dépens de la Bible, va devenir indéfendable. Il deviendra clair que le véritable travail de démythification marche avec la mythologie, mais pas avec la Bible, car la Bible elle-même fait déjà ce travail. La Bible en est même l’inventeur : elle a été la première à remplacer la structure victimaire de la mythologie par un thème de victimisation qui révèle le mensonge de la mythologie. René Girard

Et si, derrière les interminables coupages de cheveux en quatre dénommés philosophie, on ne retrouvait pas toujours la même et multi-millénaire histoire de coupage de bébés en deux ?

Caverne de Platon, cire de Descartes, barre de fer de Bergson, chat quantique de Schrödinger, Terre jumelle de Putnam, concepts éthiques épais de Wiliams …

A l’heure où l’une des plus brillantes astronautes de sa génération voit sa nomination au poste de vice-commandante des forces spatiales américaines bloquée pour avoir exercé son droit de clémence dans un cas apparemment aberrant de « contact sexuel non sollicité » …

Comment ne pas voir, avec cette énième question-bateau du jugement vrai au bac de philosophie de cette année, cet étrange et long effort de la philosophie pour évacuer ce qu’avait déjà révélé bien avant nos « expériences de pensée » et nos « simulateurs de décision pratique ou conceptuelle » il y a plus de trois mille ans le fameux jugement de Salomon …

A savoir l’inévitable présence de la violence au coeur du processus de la parole de vérité ?

Mais comment ne pas voir aussi, ultime violence bien illustrée par les corrigés proposés, ce tabou et cette évacuation même du texte par lequel la révélation est arrivée …

A savoir la Bible elle-même ?

Le jugement de Salomon

La violence au coeur du processus de la parole de vérité

Etienne Duval

Salomon était un homme jeune lorsqu’il succéda à David pour devenir roi d’Israël. Il était un peu inquiet de son manque d’expérience et manifestait une réelle humilité. Or, au début de son règne, il eut un grand rêve qui le mit en présence de Dieu lui-même. Yahvé lui dit :  » Demande-moi ce que je dois te donner « . Comment répondre à une pareille question ? Il commence par faire l’éloge de son père et exprime son peu d’aptitude pour les affaires publiques.  » Donne à ton serviteur, dit-il, un cœur plein de jugement, pour gouverner ton peuple, pour discerner entre le bien et le mal, car qui pourrait gouverner ton peuple qui est si grand ?  » Dieu ne s’attendait pas à une telle réponse. Il se montre satisfait par cette sagesse naissante, heureux qu’il n’ait pas d’abord demandé de grandes richesses, une longue vie et la victoire sur ses ennemis. Son esprit étant bien disposé, il lui promet de lui accorder ce qu’il demande :  » Voici que je fais ce que tu as dit. Je te donne un cœur sage et intelligent comme personne ne l’a eu avant toi et comme personne l’aura après toi « . Là-dessus, Salomon se réveille. Ce n’était qu’un rêve, mais ce rêve révélait son désir profond qui allait traverser toute sa vie. Il pense alors que Yahvé s’est servi de ce songe pour le mettre à l’unisson de son propre désir. Sans attendre il offre au Seigneur des holocaustes et des sacrifices de communion et convie pour un grand banquet tous ses serviteurs.

 » Dieu donna à Salomon une sagesse et une intelligence extrêmement grandes et un cœur aussi vaste que le sable qui est au bord de la mer. Sa sagesse fut plus grande que celle de tous les fils de l’Orient et de toute l’Egypte… On vint de tous les peuples pour l’entendre.  » Le jugement de Salomon, un des joyaux de la littérature mondiale, est là pour en témoigner.

Le Jugement de Salomon

Deux prostituées vinrent vers le roi et se tinrent devant lui.

L’une des femmes dit :  » S’il te plaît, Monseigneur !

Moi et cette femme, nous habitons la même maison

Et j’ai eu un enfant alors qu’elle était dans la maison.

Il est arrivé que le troisième jour, après ma délivrance,

Cette femme aussi a eu un enfant.

Nous étions ensemble.

Il n’y avait pas d’étranger dans la maison,

Rien que nous deux dans la maison.

Or le fils de cette femme est mort une nuit

Parce qu’elle s’était couchée sur lui.

Elle se leva au milieu de la nuit,

Prit mon fils d’à côté de moi, pendant que ta servante dormait.

Elle le mit sur son sein et son fils mort elle le mit sur mon sein.

Je me levai pour allaiter mon fils,

Et voici qu’il était mort !

Mais, au matin, je l’examinai,

Et voici que ce n’était pas mon fils que j’avais enfanté ! « 

Alors, l’autre femme dit :  » Ce n’est pas vrai !

Ton fils est celui qui est mort et mon fils est celui qui est vivant ! « 

Elles se disputaient devant le roi qui prononça :

 » Celle-ci dit :  » Voici mon fils et c’est ton fils qui est mort ! « 

Celle-là dit :  » Ce n’est pas vrai !

Ton fils est celui qui est mort et mon fils est celui qui est vivant ! « 

 » Apportez-moi une épée,  » ordonne le roi.

Et on apporta l’épée devant le roi, qui dit :

 » Partagez l’enfant vivant en deux

et donnez la moitié à l’une et la moitié à l’autre. « 

Alors la femme dont le fils était vivant s’adressa au roi,

Car sa pitié s’était enflammée pour son fils et elle dit :

 » S’il te plaît Monseigneur !

qu’on lui donne l’enfant, qu’on ne le tue pas ! « 

Mais celle-là disait :

 » Il ne sera ni à moi ni à toi, partagez ! « 

Alors le roi prit la parole et dit :

 » Donnez l’enfant à la première, ne le tuez pas.

C’est elle la mère ! « 

Tout Israël apprit le jugement qu’avait rendu le roi.

Ils révérèrent le roi car ils virent

Qu’il y avait en lui une sagesse divine pour rendre la justice.

(Bible de Jérusalem, I Rois, 3, 16-28))

La structure du récit

L’ange du jugement de Chagall

http://www.chagall-posters.com/chagall-posters3.html

La structure du récit

1. Accusation de la première femme

La première prostituée a eu un enfant, la seconde aussi, mais son enfant est mort. Celle-ci, pendant la nuit, a échangé l’enfant mort contre l’enfant vivant.

2. La seconde femme récuse l’accusation de la première

Pour elle, l’enfant de la première femme est mort et le sien est vivant.

3. Une confusion qui pose question

Comment séparer la vérité du mensonge ?

4. L’épée qui va trancher

Elle doit partager l’enfant en deux pour en donner la moitié à chacune

5. La première femme arrête l’épée

Elle préfère être séparée de son enfant plutôt que de le voir partagé : il vaut mieux le donner à la seconde femme sans le tuer.

6. La seconde femme préfère voir l’enfant partagé pour que chacune est sa part

Il ne sera ni à l’une ni à l’autre

7. Le passage de l’épée à la parole

Salomon prend la parole pour trancher et sortir de la confusion

8. Au lieu de partager, donner l’enfant tout entier à la première femme

C’est elle, la mère

9. Reconnaissance publique de la sagesse divine de Salomon

Israël apprend, il révère le roi car il reconnaît en lui une sagesse divine.

Nous avons ici toutes les étapes d’un procès : l’accusation, la défense, la question à éclaircir, le processus de manifestation de la vérité, le jugement et la reconnaissance publique de la validité du jugement. Mais ce qui retient l’attention, c’est le processus symbolique suivi pour la manifestation de la vérité, avec, à la fin, le passage de l’épée à la parole.

L’éclairage du texte par les images

La bouche de la vérité

http://www.azureva.com/italie/mags/rome/rome-bouche-de-la-verite.php3

L’éclairage du texte par les images

1. L’enfant étouffé et l’enfant arraché

La femme à qui on arrache son enfant

2. L’obstination de la seconde femme à nier les faits

3. Les deux femmes en conflit

La confusion entre la vérité et le mensonge

4. L’épée qui doit trancher

Au départ elle est une menace, qui vise le partage en deux de l’enfant

5. La femme attachée à la vie de l’enfant

Sa peur pour la vie de l’enfant et le renoncement à la possession

6. La femme enfermée dans la mort

Elle veut finalement la mort de l’enfant vivant

7. Le passage de l’épée à la parole

Le roi prend l’épée comme on prend la parole. La parole qui sépare comme l’épée

8. La parole du roi qui tranche

Elle sépare les deux femmes, et sépare mensonge et vérité

9. Israël plein de révérence pour la sagesse du roi

Il reconnaît en lui la sagesse divine

Les images soulignent la dynamique de l’évolution intérieure des différents personnages, qui va conduire à la manifestation de la vérité et au jugement. Le peuple lui-même est impliqué comme témoin puisqu’il donne son approbation. Seule la seconde femme, enfermée dans la mort, ne bouge pas. Peut-être la séparation qu’opère le jugement entre les deux prostituées pourra-t-il lui permettre d’évoluer.

La signalétique ou les paroles du texte

Confusion

La signalétique ou les paroles du texte

1. L’accusation

S’il te plaît, Monseigneur, moi et cette femme, nous habitons la même maison. Et j’ai eu un enfant alors qu’elle était dans la maison. Il est arrivé que le troisième jour, après ma délivrance, cette femme aussi a eu un enfant. Nous étions ensemble. Il n’y avait plus d’étranger à la maison. Or le fils de cette femme est mort une nuit parce qu’elle s’était couchée sur lui. Elle se leva au milieu de la nuit, prit mon enfant d’à côté de moi, pendant que ta servante dormait. Elle le mit sur son sein et son fils mort, elle mit sur mon sein. Je me levai pour allaiter mon fils, et voici qu’il était mort ! Mais, au matin, je l’examinai, et voici que ce n’était pas mon fils que j’avais enfanté !

2. L’accusation récusée

Ton fils est celui qui est mort et mon fils est celui qui est vivant !

3. Le résumé de la situation par Salomon

Celle-ci dit :  » Voici mon fils et c’est ton fils qui est mort « . Celle-là dit :  » Ce n’est pas vrai ! Ton fils est celui qui est mort et mon fils est celui qui est vivant ! « 

4. L’ordre d’apporter une épée

Apportez-moi une épée… Partagez l’enfant vivant en deux et donnez la moitié à l’une et la moitié à l’autre.

5. La première femme veut arrêter l’épée qui va partager l’enfant

S’il te plaît, Monseigneur ! Qu’on lui donne l’enfant, qu’on ne le tue pas !

6. La seconde femme veut que l’épée partage l’enfant

Il ne sera ni à moi ni à toi, partagez !

7. Le jugement

Donnez l’enfant à la première, ne le tuez pas. C’est elle la mère !

D’emblée, on remarque que la première femme est dans la parole alors que la seconde ne l’est pas : les explications de celle-ci sont très brèves et s’enferment dans la négation. Par ailleurs la première prostituée formule l’accusation avec une très grande précision et souligne ce qui est en jeu : la confusion dans laquelle se trouve la première femme. Elle habite la même maison, a un enfant trois jours après son amie, se couche sur son bébé comme si elle s’identifiait à lui au point qu’elle l’entraîne dans la mort et finalement pense que l’enfant de l’autre est aussi le sien. La confusion ici apparaît comme un facteur de mort. Tout est déjà dit, mais Salomon veut avoir la confirmation de la vérité qu’il perçoit, par la parole de chacune des deux femmes. C’est pourquoi il utilise le stratagème de l’épée comme une provocation pour que la vérité s’exprime.

La violence au coeur du processus de la parole de vérité

Deux jeunes femmes vivent de la prostitution. Elles habitent la même maison, partagent leurs repas quand elles sont disponibles et parfois même leur argent pour faire face aux dépenses communes. Elles ont l’une pour l’autre une amitié sincère, qui donne un peu de cohérence à leur existence morcelée. Chez elles, tout se ressemble : les habits, les goûts esthétiques, la manière de parler, les histoires qu’elles racontent. La seconde, il est vrai, a tendance à imiter sa compagne si bien que son mimétisme tend à accroître encore la promiscuité dans laquelle elles vivent. Finalement leur relation est marquée par la fusion et la confusion. On les prend parfois pour deux sœurs jumelles. Elles ont de la peine à savoir ce qui est propre à l’une et ce qui appartient à l’autre. Souvent, elles manifestent de grands épanchements de sentiments mais elles finissent par éprouver des tiraillements qui dégénèrent en conflits.

L’enfant échangé pendant la nuit

La première a accouché d’un garçon qu’elle adore. Est-ce par un hasard de circonstances ou par une subtile imitation, la seconde a accouché trois jours après. Elle manifeste une très grande joie, en dépit des difficultés que va entraîner cet événement pour le travail quotidien. Il est vrai qu’elle a peu d’expérience, et elle ne sait pas mettre la distance nécessaire entre elle et sa progéniture. L’enfant continue à faire partie d’elle-même, comme s’il était encore dans son ventre. Ce soir là, elle l’a mis sur son sein, puis elle s’est endormie. Sans s’en rendre compte, elle s’est retournée : le jeune garçon a subi tout le poids de son corps. Il est mort étouffé. A son réveil, la femme s’aperçoit du désastre : elle est affolée, ne sait que faire, se dit que son enfant ne peut pas être mort. Alors, dans son égarement, elle le porte sur le sein de l’autre femme et prend pour elle le garçon qui respire normalement. Elle n’a pas fait de bruit. La nuit continue, comme si de rien n’était, son paisible déroutement.

La coupable ne reconnaît pas son forfait

Lorsque l’amie se réveille, elle se lève gaiement pour allaiter son enfant. Mais l’enfant s’est raidi et ne porte plus la vie. La femme le regarde, l’examine avec une attention infinie : elle ne reconnaît pas son garçon. Ses cheveux sont plus longs, plus foncés et les taches de rousseur qu’elle avait remarquées sur son front ont mystérieusement disparu. Aussitôt elle comprend le stratagème et vient interpeller sa compagne qui tarde à se lever. L’amie ne veut rien entendre. Sa réponse est brève et sur la défensive. Manifestement elle n’est pas dans la parole, car, dans sa vie, l’autre n’a pas de prise. Comment pourrait-elle parler, en dehors d’un bavardage répétitif, si elle ignore l’altérité ? Le sens lui échappe et elle semble encore incapable de porter un jugement de vérité. Pour elle, les choses ne sont pas si claires, en tout cas beaucoup moins claires que pour le lecteur lui-même. Ce qui est à l’autre lui appartient aussi. Et elle ne peut imaginer que son enfant soit mort. Donc le sien est celui qui est vivant. D’ailleurs, elle n’est pas prête à affronter la mort. Elle doit l’esquiver à tout prix.

La confusion ou le conflit pour le même enfant

La première femme ne peut en rester là : elle en appelle au roi Salomon, qui a une réputation de grande sagesse. La seconde est d’accord pour faire entendre sa vérité. Le roi se laisse émouvoir et demande aux deux plaignantes de se présenter devant son tribunal avec l’enfant vivant. Il les entend alors l’une après l’autre. Chacune a sa version, ce qui ne permet pas de trancher. Les voyant dans la confusion et le conflit, il a vite fait de résumer la situation. Celle-ci dit :  » Voici mon fils et c’est ton fils qui est mort !  » Celle-là dit :  » Ce n’est pas vrai ! Ton fils est celui qui est mort et mon fils est celui qui est vivant !  » Il a une intuition : il se dit que seule la vraie mère ne peut pas mentir. Il faut trouver un stratagème pour qu’elle puisse se dévoiler. Il pense alors au recours à la violence, dont la vocation la plus saine est de séparer pour introduire une clarté nouvelle.

La menace de l’épée

Salomon imagine une mise en scène. Les femmes seront, avec lui, les actrices d’une pièce de théâtre qu’elles viennent d’ébaucher. Il faudra aller jusqu’au bout pour arriver au dénouement. Il demande qu’on lui apporte une épée. Un serviteur arrive avec l’arme qu’il a sortie de son fourreau. Ceux qui assistent au procès se demandent quelle idée le roi a derrière la tête ; il n’a pas la réputation d’un bourreau. Ils ont pourtant un mouvement de recul lorsqu’il ordonne de partager l’enfant vivant en deux et d’en donner la moitié à l’une et la moitié à l’autre. Le serviteur hésite, regarde Salomon qui reste impassible.

L’interruption du processus de la violence

Lorsque l’épée se lève, la première femme l’arrête. L’interruption de la violence meurtrière fait partie du processus imaginé par Salomon. Et lorsqu’on dit interruption, il s’agit bien d’interrompre et non d’arrêter. Le roi sait qu’il faut détourner l’épée de son objet premier pour lui faire jouer un autre rôle. Cela, la femme ne le sait pas. Elle est engagée dans un jeu qu’elle ne maîtrise pas et dont seul Salomon connaît les règles. Mais elle joue son rôle à merveille.

La symbolisation de la violence

En arrêtant l’épée, la femme dont la pitié s’était enflammée pour son fils interpelle le roi : S’il te plaît Monseigneur ! Qu’on lui donne l’enfant, qu’on ne le tue pas ! Mais l’autre s’exclame : Il ne sera ni à moi ni à toi, partagez ! Dans le premier cas, c’est l’amour maternel qui s’exprime en vérité. Dans le second, c’est la volonté de n’être pas séparée de son amie : si, en effet, celle-ci est la mère de l’enfant vivant, elles ne seront plus dans la même situation et entreront dans la différence séparatrice. Or cela lui paraît impossible.

Ce qui vient de se passer c’est la symbolisation de la violence elle-même. Il s’agissait de détourner la force de mort de sa trajectoire première pour en faire une alliée de la force de vie, figurée par l’amour maternel. Autrement dit la symbolisation de la violence consiste à lui redonner sa véritable fonction, qui consiste à promouvoir la vie. Elle permet ainsi d’entrer dans l’alliance de la vie et de la mort.

La violence symbolisée promeut la vie en séparant

Un léger sourire traverse maintenant le visage de Salomon comme si la lumière venait de faire son entrée dans son esprit. Il ordonne alors à son serviteur de remettre l’arme dans son fourreau. L’épée a déjà tranché. Elle a séparé le mensonge et la vérité, la mère et son enfant vivant, les deux femmes, les deux mères, l’enfant vivant et l’enfant mort. La vie peut désormais poursuivre son élan, plus forte que jamais.

La violence symbolisée donne naissance à la parole de vérité

La symbolisation de la violence a donc permis de révéler la vérité. Il appartient maintenant à la parole du juge de dire ce que la violence a révélé. C’est donc elle qui prend le relais. Donnez l’enfant à la première, ne le tuez pas. C’est elle la mère ! En fait, la parole de vérité n’est pas seulement un dire : elle est remise en ordre ou plus directement organisation d’un ordre créateur. Nous sommes tout près de la Parole divine, qui sépare la lumière et les ténèbres, les eaux d’avec les eaux, la mer et la terre…

La soumission à la Loi d’amour, au fondement du processus de la parole de vérité

Il appartient maintenant à Israël de porter le jugement définitif. Il voit en Salomon une sagesse divine pour rendre la justice. Or la sagesse divine n’est pas d’abord une expression de l’intelligence : elle prend sa source dans le cœur de Dieu comme l’avaient déjà souligné les sages égyptiens. Autrement dit, elle est le fruit de l’amour. C’est donc parce qu’il se soumet à une Loi d’amour, que Salomon, peut, à sa façon, réinventer le processus de la parole de vérité, qui intègre la violence.

Voir également:

Qu’est-ce que la vérité ?

André Comte-Sponvillle

-Le Monde des Religions n°33

1 janvier 2009

« Qu’est-ce que la vérité ? » C’est la question de Ponce Pilate, qu’il est de bon ton, depuis Nietzsche, de juger d’autant plus profonde qu’elle serait sans réponse possible. Que la question fût posée par le chef d’une armée d’occupation – juste avant qu’il se lave les mains pendant qu’on crucifie un innocent – devrait pourtant nous inciter à davantage de vigilance. S’il n’y a pas de vérité, ou si l’on ne peut pas du tout la connaître, quelle différence entre un coupable et un innocent, entre un procès et une mascarade, entre un juste et un escroc ? Non que la vérité, certes, suffise à rendre la justice ! Il y faut aussi une loi, des principes, des valeurs… Mais quelle justice sans vérité ? Ainsi la question revient toujours.

Qu’on ne connaisse jamais toute la vérité, c’est une évidence. Cela n’empêche pas de dire ce qu’elle est, ou plutôt cela suppose qu’on en soit capable. Comment saurait-on, autrement, qu’on ne la connaît pas toute ? Une définition au moins nominale de la vérité est nécessaire, sans laquelle toute définition serait impossible ou sans portée. Mais cette définition, à son tour, n’est concevable que par une certaine expérience que nous avons, en nous, de ce que Spinoza appellera « la norme de l’idée vraie donnée ». Si nous ne savions pas du tout ce qu’est le vrai, comment pourrions-nous le chercher, comment saurions-nous, même, ce qu’est une erreur ? Ce n’est pas seulement la justice qui serait impossible. Les sciences le seraient tout autant, et la philosophie. Ce serait le triomphe des ignorants, des sophistes et des négationnistes.

Qu’est-ce que la vérité ? Inutile, ici, de chercher l’originalité. Les Grecs connaissaient déjà la réponse, bien avant que Pilate ne fasse semblant de se poser la question. Par exemple Épicure : « Est vrai ce qui est comme on le dit être ; est faux ce qui n’est pas comme on le dit être. » C’était comprendre que la vérité est dans l’être (veritas essendi, diront les scolastiques) avant d’être dans la connaissance (veritas cognoscendi), et ne se trouve dans celle-ci qu’à la condition de correspondre, au moins en partie, à celui-là. « La vérité consiste en l’être », dira Descartes, ou dans l’adéquation à ce qui est.

C’est ce que j’illustrerais volontiers par une définition encore plus simple : la vérité, c’est ce que Dieu connaît, s’il existe. On remarquera que ma définition ne dépend aucunement de l’existence de Dieu. C’est ce qui fait sa force. Elle est fondée sur une hypothèse (celle d’un dieu omniscient), mais n’est elle-même nullement hypothétique : ni l’extension ni la compréhension du concept de vérité ne varient en fonction de l’existence ou non de ce dieu qui sert, mais comme simple hypothèse, à le définir. Que Dieu existe ou pas, qu’est-ce que cela change à la vérité de ce qui est ou fut ? Rien : Dreyfus n’en sera pas moins innocent, ni ses juges moins coupables. Les athées le savent bien, s’ils sont rationalistes. C’est ce qui les distingue de Nietzsche ou de Ponce Pilate.

Une conséquence importante de cette définition, c’est que connaissance et vérité ne sont identiques qu’en Dieu, s’il existe. Pour nous, simples mortels, elles sont à jamais deux, et irréductibles l’une à l’autre. C’est ce qui interdit de prétendre connaître toute la vérité, comme de prétendre qu’elle n’existe pas – car il n’y aurait rien, alors, dont on puisse dire qu’on l’ignore, ni qu’on le cherche. Par quoi le doute reste fidèle à la vérité qu’il suppose, aussi sûrement que le mensonge la trahit.

Il faudrait autrement donner raison à Ponce Pilate, et renoncer à défendre les innocents.

André Comte-Sponville est philosophe. Parmi ses ouvrages, Petit traité des grandes vertus (PUF, 1995) et L’Esprit de l’athéisme (Albin Michel, 2006).

Voir encore:

Putnam et la critique de la dichotomie fait/valeur

Antoine Corriveau-Dussault, Université Laval

Phares

Volume 7, 2007

Introduction

Les positivistes logiques défendent la distinction fait/valeur sur la base de leur division tripartite des énoncés[1]. Les énoncés se répartissent selon eux en trois classes : les énoncés analytiques, les énoncés synthétiques, et les énoncés vides de sens. Les énoncés analytiques sont ceux qui sont vrais en vertu de leur seule signification (par exemple les énoncés tautologiques comme « Tous les célibataires sont non-mariés »). Les énoncés synthétiques sont les énoncés empiriques, c’est-à-dire ceux pour lesquels une méthode de vérification expérimentale peut être imaginée. Les énoncés qui n’entrent pas dans ces deux classes sont considérés vides de sens[2]. C’est le cas principalement des énoncés éthiques et métaphysiques. Ces énoncés n’étant ni tautologiques, ni vérifiables empiriquement, ils sont rejetés comme du non-sens. C’est ce qui conduit les positivistes à opposer faits et valeurs. Selon eux, les faits sont du domaine de la science, et sont objectifs parce qu’ils constituent des descriptions du monde tel qu’il est dont l’exactitude peut être vérifiée empiriquement. À l’opposé, les valeurs sont du domaine de l’éthique (et de l’esthétique), et sont subjectives parce qu’elles sont des prescriptions de comment le monde devrait être qui ne réfèrent à rien de vérifiable empiriquement. L’opposition fait/valeur constitue donc, depuis le positivisme logique, le principal argument en faveur du subjectivisme moral[3].

Quiconque voulant défendre la possibilité d’une certaine objectivité en éthique est confronté à cette opposition. Deux types de stratégies sont habituellement employées pour concilier l’opposition fait/valeur avec la possibilité d’une objectivité en éthique. La première est celle de montrer qu’il est possible de déduire des jugements de valeur à partir de jugements de fait. C’est par exemple ce que tente Searle dans l’article « How to Deduce Ought From Is »[4]. La seconde est celle de montrer que les jugements de valeur peuvent être réduits à des jugements de fait d’un certain type (jugements de fait psychologiques, utilitaristes, sociologiques, etc.). C’est ce genre de réduction de l’éthique à des énoncés « naturels » que critique G.E. Moore sous l’étiquette sophisme naturalisme. L’objet de cet exposé n’est toutefois pas d’approfondir ces deux types de stratégies et leurs critiques. Nous nous intéresserons plutôt à un autre type de stratégie employée en regard de l’opposition fait/valeur pour ramener l’objectivité en éthique. Cette stratégie est développée par Hilary Putnam dans The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy[5] et dans quelques-uns de ses ouvrages antérieurs. Elle consiste à contester la légitimité de l’opposition fait/valeur elle-même. Selon Putnam, faits et valeurs ne sont pas aussi opposés que les positivistes logiques ne le prétendent. Sa démarche consiste à montrer que les positivistes exagèrent le fossé qui sépare faits et valeurs. Pour lui, ces derniers transforment une simple distinction en véritable dichotomie. Putnam est donc clair sur cette nuance : il n’en a pas contre une distinction, mais contre une dichotomie fait/valeur. Il argumente donc pour montrer qu’il n’y a pas d’opposition stricte entre faits et valeurs. Les faits et les valeurs sont selon lui imbriqués.

Un premier problème est toutefois que Putnam n’est pas assez explicite sur la différence qu’il veut marquer entre distinction et dichotomie. Cela a pour conséquence qu’il est difficile de cerner quel type de distinction entre faits et valeurs il considère acceptable, et quel type il considère être trop dichotomique. Pouvons-nous encore après les arguments de Putnam décrier comme fallacieuse toute tentative d’inférer le devoir-être à partir de l’être ? Pouvons-nous toujours exiger comme Max Weber que la science soit neutre par rapport aux valeurs ? Un second problème est que Putnam ne précise pas quand son argumentation vise plus directement la dichotomie fait/valeur et quand elle vise d’abord le subjectivisme moral. Putnam semble à mon avis souvent traiter ces deux questions indistinctement. Or, dans l’introduction de The Collapse, il présente sa démarche comme critiquant d’abord la dichotomie fait/valeur afin de ramener ensuite, sur la base de cette critique, l’objectivité en éthique[6]. Sa critique de la dichotomie fait/valeur se veut donc, selon ce qu’il pose en introduction, une prémisse à sa critique du subjectivisme moral. La tendance de Putnam à traiter les deux questions indistinctement a pour conséquence qu’il est difficile de saisir en quoi sa critique de la dichotomie fait/valeur constitue une prémisse à sa critique du subjectivisme moral. Le but du présent article est de répondre autant que possible à ces problèmes d’ambiguïté. Ce que je me propose de faire est donc d’exposer et d’analyser l’argumentation de Putnam afin de dégager comment elle a prise sur ces deux questions. J’analyserai ainsi les arguments de Putnam en précisant d’abord quelles limites ils imposent à l’application de la distinction fait/valeur pour ne pas qu’elle devienne dichotomique, et ensuite en quoi ils sont efficaces à montrer l’objectivité de l’éthique.

De manière très générale, l’argumentation de Putnam consiste à atténuer le fossé entre faits et valeurs, d’abord en montrant que la science est fondée sur des valeurs (les valeurs « épistémiques »), et ensuite en remarquant que certains concepts ont en même temps les caractéristiques principales des jugements de valeur et celles des jugements de fait. En montrant que la science est fondée sur des valeurs, Putnam met en évidence que les jugements de fait qu’elle prononce ne sont pas neutres par rapport aux valeurs. En remarquant que certains concepts ont en même temps les caractéristiques principales des faits et celles des valeurs, Putnam identifie certains concepts qui ne sont pas classables dans une opposition stricte entre faits et valeurs. La principale conséquence que tire Putnam de ces remarques est que l’on ne peut plus opposer faits et valeurs comme le font les positivistes quant à leur rapport à l’objectivité. Si les jugements de fait sont fondés sur des jugements de valeur, alors le subjectivisme des valeurs s’applique aussi aux faits. Il faut donc selon Putnam revoir l’idée que nous nous faisons de l’objectivité, car sinon nous devrons conclure que l’objectivité est impossible.

Son argumentation se divise selon moi en trois arguments. D’abord, l’argument des valeurs épistémiques par lequel Putnam montre que la science présuppose des valeurs. Ensuite l’argument des concepts éthiques épais, par lequel Putnam montre qu’il existe certains concepts qui ont en même temps les principales caractéristiques des faits et celles des valeurs. Et finalement, l’argument de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité par lequel Putnam évite le subjectivisme. Je découperai donc mon exposé et mon analyse de l’argumentation de Putnam en ces trois arguments, et j’évaluerai la prise qu’a chacun, d’abord sur la dichotomie fait/valeur et ensuite sur le subjectivisme moral.

1. L’argument des valeurs épistémiques

a) Exposé de l’argument

L’argument des valeurs épistémiques consiste à montrer que la science présuppose des valeurs. Cet argument se veut une sorte de réfutation par l’absurde. Si la science est fondée sur des valeurs et si les valeurs sont subjectives, alors, la science est elle aussi subjective.

Pour montrer que la science présuppose des valeurs, Putnam rappelle d’abord les amendements apportés à l’empirisme logique par Carnap et Quine. Carnap, confronté à la présence dans les théories scientifiques d’énoncés à propos d’inobservables comme les électrons, s’est résolu à assouplir le critère de vérifiabilité empirique. Dorénavant, ce ne seraient plus les énoncés individuels qui devraient pouvoir être validés empiriquement, mais les théories prises comme des touts unifiés[7]. Dès lors, des énoncés non-empiriques pourraient être acceptés dans les théories scientifiques en tant que « termes théoriques » si des énoncés empiriques pouvaient en être déduits. Il serait alors justifié de faire intervenir certains termes théoriques dans les théories s’ils permettaient à la théorie de prédire plus efficacement les phénomènes empiriques auxquels elle s’intéresse. Carnap maintenait tout de même une distinction marquée entre les termes empiriques et les termes théoriques.

La critique par Quine de la dichotomie analytique/synthétique a toutefois affaibli cette distinction. Les positivistes assimilaient analytique à conventionnel et synthétique à factuel. La critique de Quine consiste à remarquer que de nombreux énoncés ne sont pas nettement classables dans l’une ou l’autre de ces catégories. Par exemple, il est difficile de déterminer si le principe de conservation de l’énergie est factuel ou conventionnel. En fait, selon Quine, le factuel et le conventionnel ne sont pas nettement distincts dans les théories, ils se confondent[8]. Les jugements de fait d’une théorie dépendent des conventions propres à cette théorie et vice versa. Il n’y a donc pas de fait brut purement empirique. Tout jugement de fait présuppose les concepts propres à la perspective dans laquelle la théorie s’inscrit. Les conventions contenues dans une théorie sont confirmées par le succès empirique de la théorie, mais ce succès empirique est lui-même mesuré sur la base de ces mêmes conventions. Il n’y a donc pas de validation empirique ultime et décisive.

Après l’assouplissement du critère de vérifiabilité empirique par Carnap, l’empirique avait encore le dernier mot. Une théorie était valide si les énoncés empiriques que l’on pouvait en déduire étaient conformes à la « réalité empirique ». Toutefois, avec la critique de la dichotomie analytique/synthétique par Quine, une telle validation n’est plus possible. Les énoncés empiriques formulés par les théories présupposent les concepts propres à cette théorie. L’empirique ne peut donc pas servir à valider ces concepts. Pour pouvoir par exemple affirmer qu’il y a des chaises dans la salle où je me trouve, je dois déjà maîtriser les concepts de « salle » et de « chaise ». Mon expérience empirique me confirmant qu’il y a des chaises dans la salle présuppose déjà ces concepts. Elle ne peut donc pas servir à justifier ces concepts comme un découpage adéquat du donné empirique.

Les amendements de Quine et Carnap montrent donc qu’il n’y a pas de fait brut et que les jugements de fait présupposent toujours des concepts et des théories. Selon Putnam qui s’inspire ici du philosophe-économiste Vivian Walsh, en amendant leur épistémologie de la sorte, les positivistes logiques ouvrent la porte à ce que la science présuppose des valeurs[9]. Si les jugements de fait présupposent des concepts, pourquoi ne pourraient-ils pas aussi présupposer des valeurs ? Putnam attire alors l’attention sur les valeurs de cohérence, de plausibilité, de raisonnabilité et de simplicité, qui selon lui sont au fondement de nos théories scientifiques. Selon Putnam, une fois abandonnée l’idée de fait brut validant nos théories, nous devons, pour expliquer ce qui motive en science le choix d’une théorie plutôt qu’une autre, nous en remettre à ces valeurs qu’il appelle « épistémiques ». Une théorie est jugée meilleure qu’une autre non pas parce qu’elle est plus conforme à l’empirique, mais parce qu’elle nous semble plus cohérente, plus plausible, plus raisonnable, plus simple, etc. Évidemment, les positivistes logiques ont voulu éviter cette conclusion. Toutefois, aucune de leurs tentatives pour l’éviter n’a été fructueuse selon Putnam. Ni la « straight rule of induction » de Reichenbach, ni l’approche par algorithme de Carnap, ni le falsificationnisme de Popper ne résolvent adéquatement le problème[10]. Pour Putnam, nos théories scientifiques présupposent des valeurs. Il confirme cette idée en rappelant que la communauté scientifique a favorisé la théorie d’Einstein à celle de Whitehead cinquante ans avant que ne soit imaginée une expérience pouvant les vérifier. Les raisons pour lesquelles la théorie d’Einstein a été jugée meilleure que sa rivale à l’époque étaient qu’Einstein proposait une théorie plus simple et plus conservatrice. Sa théorie ne remettait pas en cause la conception admise de la conservation du mouvement[11]. Les valeurs de simplicité et de conservatisme sont donc à l’origine du choix de la communauté scientifique.

La prise en compte des valeurs épistémiques a pour Putnam un impact important sur la dichotomie fait/valeur. Elle atténue le fossé qui les sépare en montrant que l’un est fondé sur l’autre. Elle a aussi pour conséquence que tous les arguments habituellement employés pour défendre le subjectivisme moral s’appliquent aussi aux faits et à la science.

b) Analyse de l’argument

Impact de l’argument sur la dichotomie fait/valeur

Ce que l’argument des valeurs épistémiques montre, c’est que les faits présupposent des valeurs. Le type d’imbrication auquel il conduit est donc d’ordre logique : l’un est fondé sur l’autre. Cet argument maintient toutefois une distinction entre faits et valeurs. Pour qu’il soit sensé d’affirmer que les faits sont fondés sur des valeurs, il faut de façon évidente que faits et valeurs soient distincts. Ainsi, pour que son argument fonctionne, Putnam doit maintenir une certaine distinction entre les deux. Cela ne pose pas vraiment problème puisque comme nous l’avons noté, il n’en a pas contre une distinction entre faits et valeurs, mais seulement contre une dichotomie. Ce que nous devons donc identifier dans cet argument, c’est quelle(s) limite(s) il impose à l’application de la distinction fait/valeur pour qu’elle ne devienne pas dichotomique. L’argument n’impose qu’une seule limite. Habituellement, la principale conséquence tirée de la dichotomie fait/valeur est le subjectivisme des valeurs. Comme les faits sont validés empiriquement et les valeurs ne peuvent pas l’être, alors les faits sont considérés objectifs et les valeurs subjectives. L’argument des valeurs épistémiques annule cette conséquence. Puisque les faits sont fondés sur des valeurs, si les valeurs sont subjectives, alors les faits le sont aussi. Putnam nous demande donc de cesser d’associer objectif à descriptif. L’argument place ainsi faits et valeurs sur un pied d’égalité quant à leur rapport à l’objectivité. La limite qu’impose l’argument à l’application de la distinction fait/valeur est donc qu’il ne faut pas tirer de cette distinction la conséquence que faits et valeurs ont un rapport différent à l’objectivité.

Efficacité de l’argument à montrer l’objectivité de l’éthique

Strictement parlant, l’argument ne conduit pas à montrer l’objectivité des valeurs. Au contraire, il élargit plutôt aux faits le subjectivisme des valeurs. À la lumière de cet argument, descriptifs et prescriptifs se révèlent donc tous deux subjectifs. Nous verrons plus loin que Putnam renverse cette situation avec son troisième argument qui propose une conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité.

2. L’argument des concepts éthiques épais

a) Exposé de l’argument

L’argument des concepts éthiques épais consiste à montrer que de nombreux concepts employés dans les discussions éthiques réelles défient la dichotomie fait/valeur.

Selon Putnam, il y a dans le langage de nombreux concepts qui sont à la fois descriptifs et prescriptifs. Ils jouent donc à la fois le rôle habituellement associé aux faits et celui habituellement associé aux valeurs. Putnam donne l’exemple d’un concept comme « cruel ». Ce concept éthique sert selon lui à la fois à évaluer et à décrire. Lorsque par exemple un historien qualifie un empereur romain de cruel, cela nous donne une certaine idée du type de comportement de l’empereur. Le concept « cruel » véhicule donc un certain contenu descriptif. Toutefois, si un parent qualifie le professeur de son enfant de cruel, cela constitue de façon évidente une critique du comportement du professeur. Il n’a pas besoin de préciser ensuite qu’il désapprouve ce comportement. « Cruel » véhicule donc aussi une certaine force évaluative. Un concept comme « cruel » ne peut donc pas être classé dans une dichotomie étanche entre faits et valeurs puisqu’il joue ces deux rôles. Selon Putnam, de nombreux concepts défient de cette manière la dichotomie fait/valeur. Il appelle ces concepts « concepts éthiques épais » (thick ethical concepts), empruntant l’expression de Bernard Williams[12].

Ces concepts remettent en cause la forme que donnent les non-cognitivistes au syllogisme pratique. Selon ces derniers, le syllogisme pratique comporte une majeure prescriptive et une mineure descriptive. C’est seulement parce que la composante prescriptive est présente dans l’une des deux prémisses que la conclusion peut légitimement être prescriptive[13]. Le syllogisme pratique doit donc avoir la forme suivante :

M : « Il ne faut pas tuer d’être humain » (prémisse prescriptive)

m : « La peine de mort tue des être humains » (prémisse descriptive)

C : « Il ne faut donc pas pratiquer la peine de mort » (conclusion prescriptive)

Les concepts éthiques épais contredisent ce modèle. Comme certains prédicats sont à la fois prescriptifs et descriptifs, il semble possible pour Putnam de tirer une conclusion prescriptive à partir d’une seule prémisse. Dans l’exemple du professeur cruel, la forme de l’argument serait donc :

m : « Le professeur est cruel » (prémisse prescriptive-descriptive)

C : « Il est donc un mauvais professeur » (conclusion prescriptive)

Un prédicat comme « cruel », bien qu’il comporte un contenu descriptif, contient donc déjà tout ce qu’il faut pour conduire à une conclusion prescriptive.

Cela contredit aussi un des principaux arguments des non-cognitivistes en faveur de la dichotomie fait/valeur. Une formulation contemporaine de cet argument est celle de John Mackie selon laquelle les jugements de valeurs n’ont pas de contenu cognitif, puisque, comme ils ne décrivent rien qui puisse être connu empiriquement, s’ils en avaient un, ils seraient alors ontologiquement bizarres (ontologically queer)[14]. Les concepts éthiques épais répondent à cet argument en montrant comment un certain contenu cognitif peut être attribué aux énoncés éthiques sans que ces derniers soient ontologiquement bizarres. La cruauté d’une action peut être décrite. Un énoncé à propos de la cruauté d’une action n’est donc pas ontologiquement bizarre, puisqu’il porte sur quelque chose qui peut être décrit[15].

Les non-cognitivistes ont bien sûr tenté de nier l’existence des concepts éthiques épais. Putnam rapporte et critique trois types de tentatives. D’abord, celle d’en faire de purs jugements de valeur, qu’il retrouve chez Hume. Ensuite, celle d’en faire de purs jugements de fait, qu’il retrace chez Hare pour certains concepts. Puis, celle de les séparer en deux composantes (descriptive et prescriptive), qu’il retrouve aussi chez Hare, mais pour d’autres concepts. Il serait malheureusement trop fastidieux de présenter ici ces trois tentatives et leurs critiques. Je discuterai donc seulement de la troisième, car cela sera pertinent pour l’analyse que je ferai ensuite de l’argument.

Selon Hare, « cruel » peut être factorisé en une composante descriptive : « faire souffrir profondément », et une composante évaluative : « action qui est mauvaise ». Cette factorisation ne fonctionne pas selon Putnam, car elle suscite des relations de synonymie tordues. Si l’on retranche de « cruel » sa force évaluative, son sens descriptif ne reste pas intact. Faire souffrir profondément n’est pas nécessairement cruel. Par exemple amputer à froid la jambe d’un patient atteint de gangrène n’était pas quelque chose de cruel avant la découverte de l’anesthésie[16]. L’idée de cruauté sous-entend que l’action est commise dans un contexte où elle est injustifiée. Elle contient donc intrinsèquement une évaluation. Il est impossible de lui extraire sa force évaluative sans altérer son sens.

Les aspects descriptifs et prescriptifs des concepts éthiques épais sont indissociables selon Putnam. Les concepts éthiques épais sont donc inclassables dans une dichotomie stricte entre faits et valeurs.

b) Analyse de l’argument

Impact de l’argument sur la dichotomie fait/valeur

L’idée générale de l’argument des concepts éthiques épais est d’observer que la majorité des jugements de valeur prononcés dans nos discussions éthiques sont soudés à des descriptions. Ainsi, contrairement à l’argument précédent, qui supposait une assez forte distinction entre fait et valeur pour que l’un puisse être fondé sur l’autre, ce dernier argument semble, pour sa part, rendre plus floue la ligne qui sépare faits et valeurs. En effet, l’idée d’une distinction fait/valeur est d’affirmer que les faits constituent des descriptions du monde tel qu’il est, alors que les valeurs sont des évaluations ou des prescriptions quant à comment le monde devrait être. Or, l’argument des concepts éthiques épais montre qu’un grand nombre de concepts servent en même temps à décrire et à prescrire. Cela implique donc qu’il y a un grand nombre de concepts pour lesquels la dichotomie fait/valeur ne s’applique pas.

Cependant, il ne faut pas conclure de l’argument davantage qu’il ne le permet. Strictement parlant, l’argument montre bien que la distinction fait/valeur n’est pas étanche. Toutefois, il le fait en préservant en arrière scène une distinction entre descriptif et prescriptif. Ce que l’argument montre en effet, c’est que plusieurs concepts jouent à la fois le rôle de décrire et celui de prescrire. De façon évidente, il a donc besoin pour ce faire de maintenir une distinction entre les deux rôles que sont décrire et prescrire. Ce qu’il montre, c’est qu’entre les faits qui sont purement descriptifs et les valeurs qui sont purement prescriptives, il existe des concepts hybrides qui sont à la fois descriptifs et prescriptifs. La distinction entre décrire et prescrire comme deux rôles que peuvent jouer les concepts reste donc intacte. L’argument maintient donc implicitement une distinction parente de la distinction fait/valeur : la distinction descriptif/prescriptif. Pour bien saisir la portée de l’argument, il est par conséquent indispensable de différencier d’un côté la distinction fait/valeur qui tente d’opposer deux types de concepts, et la distinction descriptif/prescriptif qui oppose deux rôles que peuvent jouer les concepts. Il est possible de distinguer ces deux rôles sans prétendre qu’ils donnent lieu à deux types exclusifs de concepts. Dans cette perspective, il n’est pas nécessaire de pouvoir isoler les composantes descriptives et prescriptives des concepts éthiques épais, comme le tentent (en vain selon Putnam) les non-cognitivistes avec la théorie des deux composantes, pour maintenir une distinction entre descriptif et prescriptif. Ces deux rôles peuvent être distingués même s’ils sont soudés dans certains concepts. Ce que l’argument montre, ce n’est pas que la distinction descriptif/prescriptif est illégitime, mais simplement que ce n’est pas parce qu’un concept a pour rôle de décrire qu’il ne peut pas avoir en même temps pour rôle de prescrire.

Cette idée de distinction entre deux rôles que peuvent jouer les concepts peut être précisée à l’aide de la distinction établie par John R. Searle entre deux directions de l’ajustement[17]. Pour développer cette distinction, Searle s’inspire d’un exemple d’abord présenté par Elizabeth Anscombe dans L’Intention[18]. L’exemple nous demande d’imaginer une situation où un homme se rend au supermarché avec en main une liste d’emplettes remise par sa femme. L’homme, à son insu, est suivi par un détective qui l’observe et note tout ce qu’il achète. Évidemment, quand l’homme aura terminé ses emplettes, s’il a bien observé les consignes de sa femme et si le détective a été assez minutieux, l’homme et le détective auront tous deux la même liste. Searle remarque toutefois que leurs listes ne jouent pas le même rôle. La liste de l’homme a pour rôle de faire en sorte que le monde s’ajuste à la liste (c’est-à-dire, que les articles dans le panier soient conformes à ceux qui sont listés), alors que la liste du détective a la fonction inverse de faire en sorte que la liste s’ajuste au monde (c’est-à-dire, que les articles listés soient conformes à ceux qui sont mis dans le panier). Il devient manifeste que la distinction entre ces deux rôles est incontournable lorsque l’on observe ce qui constitue une « erreur » dans chacun des deux cas. Dans le cas de la liste de l’homme, il y a erreur si l’homme n’achète pas les bons articles, c’est-à-dire, s’il ne parvient pas à faire en sorte que le monde s’ajuste correctement à la liste. Inversement, dans le cas de la liste du détective, il y a erreur si le détective ne note pas les bons articles, c’est-à-dire, s’il ne parvient pas à faire en sorte que la liste s’ajuste correctement au monde.

Searle tire de cet exemple sa célèbre distinction entre deux directions de l’ajustement. La liste du détective a la direction de l’ajustement langage-monde, alors que la liste de l’homme a la direction de l’ajustement monde-langage. Searle classe dans la direction langage-monde les déclarations, les descriptions, les assertions et les explications; et dans la direction monde-langage les requêtes, les commandes, les souhaits et les promesses[19]. Ce classement que fait Searle recoupe presque exactement la distinction classique entre descriptif et prescriptif. Searle arrive toutefois à cette distinction par une analyse des actes de langages et non pas par une théorie de la vérifiabilité empirique des énoncés (comme les positivistes). De plus, Searle ne se prononce pas quant au rapport à l’objectivité de chacune des deux directions, ni sur la possibilité que certains concepts aient les deux directions en même temps. Cette formulation de la distinction descriptif/prescriptif en termes de direction de l’ajustement est donc compatible avec l’analyse que nous avons faite jusqu’à présent des arguments de Putnam[20].

En somme, l’argument des concepts éthiques épais montre que les concepts employés dans nos énoncés peuvent jouer les deux rôles que sont décrire et prescrire. L’argument montre par le fait même que l’éthique ne concerne pas seulement le prescriptif, puisqu’il observe qu’un grand nombre de concepts éthiques possèdent un contenu descriptif. Cela n’a toutefois pas pour conséquence de montrer que décrire et prescrire ne sont pas distincts, puisque l’argument doit distinguer ces deux rôles pour pouvoir montrer que plusieurs concepts les jouent tous les deux. L’argument impose toutefois une limite importante à l’application de la distinction fait/valeur puisqu’il montre que ces deux types ne sont pas exclusifs. Il existe entre les purs faits et les pures valeurs des concepts hybrides qui sont à la fois descriptifs et prescriptifs. L’imbrication à laquelle conduit l’argument est donc d’ordre sémantique : certains concepts servent en même temps à signifier une description et une prescription.

Efficacité de l’argument à montrer l’objectivité de l’éthique

À première vue, en montrant que plusieurs jugements de valeur possèdent un contenu descriptif, l’argument des concepts éthiques épais peut apparaître comme un argument efficace en faveur de l’objectivité de l’éthique. Toutefois, rappelons-nous que l’argument précédent (celui des valeurs épistémiques) avait pour principale conséquence de dissocier objectif de descriptif. Ces deux idées ainsi dissociées, l’argument des concepts éthiques épais se trouve donc impuissant à montrer l’objectivité des valeurs. En d’autres termes, si, comme l’argument des valeurs épistémiques le montre, les faits et les descriptions ne sont pas plus objectifs que les valeurs, alors, montrer que certains concepts éthiques sont descriptifs ne montre d’aucune manière leur objectivité. Par conséquent, l’argument des concepts éthiques épais, puisqu’il ne discute que du caractère descriptif de l’éthique, n’a aucune prise sur la question de l’objectivité des valeurs. Nous verrons toutefois plus loin que le propos de Putnam présente une certaine ambivalence sur ce point, qui crée une certaine tension dans son argumentation.

3. L’argument de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité

a) Exposé de l’argument

Nous avons remarqué qu’au terme du premier argument de Putnam (celui des valeurs épistémiques), son argumentation semblait davantage conduire au subjectivisme de la science qu’à l’objectivité de l’éthique. C’est ce troisième argument, celui de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité, qui renverse cette situation. La manœuvre générale de l’argument est de tracer une voie médiane entre le relativisme et la conception habituelle que nous avons de l’objectivité. Il trace cette voie médiane en s’inspirant des pragmatistes américains classiques.

L’objectivité non-métaphysique

Sur la question de l’objectivité, Putnam est en vif débat avec Richard Rorty. Toutefois, contrairement à ce que suggèrent les choix terminologiques de l’un et de l’autre, Putnam et Rorty défendent des positions très semblables sur cette question. Il est donc judicieux de présenter la position de Putnam en contraste avec celle de Rorty. Le point sur lequel Putnam et Rorty sont d’accord, c’est le rejet de l’objectivité au sens classique du terme. Nous ne pouvons jamais, ni pour Rorty, ni pour Putnam, nous abstraire complètement de l’influence de notre culture pour envisager le monde tel qu’il est indépendamment de toute perspective. Pour Putnam, comme nous l’avons vu, étant donné que toute perception présuppose des concepts et des valeurs, notre appréhension du monde n’est jamais brute. Putnam, autant que Rorty, rejette donc comme chimérique la notion classique d’objectivité qui prétend que notre connaissance peut atteindre quelque chose comme le « point de vue de Dieu ». Ce sur quoi les positions de Putnam et de Rorty diffèrent, c’est sur ce qui reste une fois que l’on rejette cette notion classique d’objectivité. Pour Rorty, il ne reste que la « solidarité »[21]. Selon lui, la fixation de la croyance[22] ne peut jamais résulter d’autre chose que d’un ethnocentrisme délibéré. Nous partageons avec les membres de notre communauté d’appartenance un certain nombre de croyances et de valeurs. Nous sommes donc solidaires avec nos pairs culturels dans notre foi en ces croyances et dans notre engagement à défendre ces valeurs. Rorty abandonne donc complètement l’idée d’objectivité. Nous croyons que la science occidentale est meilleure que les croyances magiques des tribus aborigènes simplement parce que notre culture nous y incite.

Putnam ne partage pas cette conclusion. Selon lui, l’échec de la notion classique d’objectivité ne conduit pas au relativisme. Ce que cet échec montre, c’est simplement que la notion classique d’objectivité ne fonctionne pas. Cette notion classique, trop exigeante parce qu’elle demande qu’une connaissance puisse être en conformité parfaite avec la chose en soi, peut toutefois être remplacée par une notion plus souple. Putnam oppose donc la notion classique d’objectivité qu’il qualifie péjorativement de métaphysique à une notion non-métaphysique d’objectivité. La conception classique définit l’objectivité comme la correspondance de la pensée à un objet extérieur à elle.

Cette exigence est trop forte. Pour croire que les objets auxquels réfère sa pensée existent réellement dans le monde, le sujet humain ordinaire, qui n’est pas troublé par des interrogations métaphysiques, n’a pas besoin de croire que sa pensée décrit le monde tel qu’il est réellement au sens métaphysique[23]. Il nous faut donc, selon Putnam, renouer avec un « réalisme du sens commun » et nous défaire des fantasmes métaphysiques véhiculés par la tradition philosophique. Nous pouvons très bien croire que, pour ce que cela implique dans notre vie concrète, nos idées décrivent (bien que partiellement) les objets tels qu’ils existent dans le monde. Valider un énoncé comme « il y a des chaises dans la salle » n’engage à rien au plan métaphysique. Si nous nous trouvons dans la salle en question et que nous voyons qu’il y a bien des chaises, nous sommes dans des conditions suffisamment bonnes pour valider l’énoncé. Évidemment nous pouvons, à un niveau métaphysique de réflexion, nous demander si la salle et les chaises existent réellement en tant que salle et chaises. Il est probable qu’elles ne soient qu’une construction de notre pensée. Cependant, au niveau non-métaphysique où nous employons les concepts de salle et de chaise, cette existence métaphysique n’est pas en cause. Ce que l’énoncé « il y a des chaises dans la salle » affirme, c’est que dans un univers conceptuel où la réalité est découpée en salles et en chaises, il est vrai d’affirmer qu’il y a des chaises dans la salle. La question de l’existence métaphysique de la salle et des chaises indépendamment de ces concepts n’a donc aucune pertinence.

Putnam fait remarquer que même le relativisme, par exemple celui de Rorty, doit adhérer à ce réalisme du sens commun. Pour affirmer que la vérité dépend du point de vue de chacun, le relativisme doit inévitablement croire que nous pouvons connaître et comprendre ce qu’autrui pense[24]. Un relativisme qui nie ce réalisme du sens commun est donc auto-réfutant. C’est par conséquent la notion métaphysique classique d’objectivité qui doit être abandonnée. L’idée d’objectivité elle-même doit être maintenue.

L’impossibilité d’abandonner la notion d’objectivité renverse donc la conclusion de l’argument des valeurs épistémiques. Puisqu’une notion minimale d’objectivité est indispensable, le constat que les faits présupposent des valeurs ne peut pas conduire à la conclusion que tout est subjectif, comme le suggérait l’argument des valeurs épistémiques. Selon Putnam, ce à quoi ce constat conduit est plutôt que l’objectivité doit exister hors de la science. Le savoir scientifique doit présupposer un savoir non-scientifique[25]. Putnam préfère toutefois appeler ce savoir « a-scientifique » pour insister sur le fait qu’il n’est pas opposé à la science, mais plutôt complémentaire. Nous devons donc reconnaître l’objectivité de ce savoir a-scientifique pour fonder l’objectivité de la science. Même le positivisme logique présuppose cette objectivité a-scientifique puisque ses tenants n’ont jamais réussi à démontrer scientifiquement la validité de leur principe de vérifiabilité empirique. Le constat que la science présuppose des valeurs n’est donc pas un argument en faveur du subjectivisme de la science. Il nous oblige plutôt à reconnaître que le champ de l’objectivité dépasse la science.

L’objectivité pragmatiste

Pour comprendre la conception de l’objectivité présentée par Putnam, il est nécessaire de rappeler quelques particularités du pragmatisme américain. Dans le pragmatisme américain, toute démarche cognitive passe par l’enquête. Nous apprenons par expérience. Il ne s’agit toutefois pas d’un empirisme de l’objet postulant des objets fixes et une pensée-réceptacle qui en reçoit les images. Les pragmatistes ont une conception héraclitéenne du cosmos. Le monde est selon eux en perpétuel changement, et c’est ce qui menace la stabilité de notre savoir. Il est toujours possible qu’une connaissance admise même depuis des siècles soit contredite par une situation nouvelle. Il n’y a donc pas de vérité définitive, mais seulement des croyances suffisamment justifiées. C’est pourquoi certains pragmatistes refusent d’employer le terme « vérité », et préfèrent plutôt parler d’« assertabilité garantie ». Les pragmatistes ont donc une conception faillibiliste du savoir (notre savoir est faillible et voué à être remplacé par un meilleur éventuellement). C’est lorsqu’un problème imprévu vient perturber la stabilité de nos croyances que le processus de l’enquête se met en marche.

Il n’y a toutefois pas de méthode précise et unique selon laquelle mener l’enquête. Par l’enquête, nous cherchons, par les moyens que nous jugeons appropriés dans la situation où nous nous trouvons, à rétablir la stabilité de nos croyances. Nous le faisons en remplaçant certaines de nos croyances par des nouvelles. Ces nouvelles croyances rétablissent la stabilité en solutionnant le problème qui était venu la perturber. Nos croyances sont donc pour les pragmatistes des « solutions appropriées à des situations problématiques ». Nous ne les adoptons que dans la mesure où notre désir de rétablir la stabilité nous y oblige. Il n’est donc jamais question pour les pragmatistes de remettre en cause une croyance qui ne pose aucun problème.

Les pragmatistes évitent de cette manière le scepticisme. Le sceptique est celui qui prétend douter de tout. Pour un pragmatiste, douter de tout est impossible puisque nous ne doutons sincèrement de nos croyances que lorsque la situation dans laquelle nous nous trouvons nous y oblige. Il n’y a pas de doute méthodique. Pour les pragmatistes, le doute doit autant être justifié que la croyance.

Les pragmatistes défendent donc une position médiane entre l’objectivisme classique, qui prétend que nous pouvons connaître les objets indépendamment de toute perspective, et le scepticisme (ou subjectivisme) qui nie complètement notre pouvoir de connaître. Pour un pragmatiste, nous ne pouvons pas nous abstraire de notre perspective, mais cela ne nous empêche pas de construire un savoir et de le justifier. Même si la justification ne transcende jamais la perspective dans laquelle nous nous trouvons, cela ne pose pas problème puisque, comme le doute doit autant être justifié que la croyance, l’idée de douter intégralement de notre perspective n’a pas de sens. En réalité, à moins d’une situation extrême qui entrerait en contradiction avec la totalité de nos croyances, lorsque nous cherchons à savoir si une croyance est justifiée, ce que nous voulons savoir c’est si elle est justifiée dans notre perspective. Nous sous-entendons jusqu’à preuve du contraire qu’elle est la bonne. Pour les pragmatistes, l’objectif et le subjectif ne sont donc pas opposés. Le fait que la justification que nous donnons à nos croyances dépende irrémédiablement de notre perspective (subjective ou intersubjective) n’empêche pas que cette justification soit objective.

Dans le domaine des valeurs

Putnam s’inspire de Dewey pour expliquer comment nous atteignons l’objectivité dans le domaine des valeurs. Selon Dewey, l’objectivité des valeurs s’atteint par la critique de nos évaluations. Par cette critique, nous passons du simplement valorisé à l’objectivement valable[26]. Toutefois, comme Putnam l’anticipe, se pose alors le problème du critère à appliquer pour que la critique soit fondée. Pour Putnam, le jugement rationnel ne peut être formalisé. Il n’a donc pas l’intention de donner un critère précis et définitif sur lequel la critique de nos évaluations doit être fondée. Il donne tout de même quelques pistes de réponses, toujours en s’inspirant de Dewey. Pour Dewey, il faut conduire l’enquête sur les valeurs de la même manière que n’importe quelle enquête. Putnam précise trois caractéristiques principales de la conception pragmatiste de l’enquête. D’abord, il rappelle que l’idée cartésienne de table rase, ou de point de départ vierge en matière de pensée, est irréaliste. Lorsque nous raisonnons afin de solutionner une situation problématique, nous faisons toujours appel à un stock de faits et de valeurs que nous ne remettons pas en question. Nous les tenons pour acquis dans notre raisonnement. C’est dans ce stock que nous puisons les critères nécessaires à notre critique. Ensuite, Putnam note qu’il n’y a pas de critère fixe et universel selon lequel mener notre critique que la philosophie puisse nous prescrire. Le critère à appliquer dépend de la situation dans laquelle nous nous trouvons et des intérêts qui motivent notre démarche. Finalement, il remarque que s’il n’y a pas de critère fixe prescrivant comment mener l’enquête, nous pouvons tout de même nous laisser guider par ce que nous avons appris dans nos enquêtes passées. Ainsi, nous n’avons pas besoin, selon Putnam, de critère fixe orientant notre critique pour que cette critique mène à l’objectivité.

Une objectivité sans objet ?

Définie ainsi par la critique, l’objectivité dont nous parle Putnam n’a à la limite pas besoin d’avoir d’objet. Rappelons-nous, Putnam dissocie objectif et descriptif. Par conséquent, ce n’est pas parce que l’éthique ne réfère à aucun objet empirique, comme le remarquent les positivistes logiques (après G.E. Moore), qu’elle ne peut pas être objective. Toutefois, lorsque Putnam critique les deux approches objectivistes en morale dont il veut se dissocier, il semble accorder un rôle capital aux concepts éthiques épais, et donc à la référence à l’objet qu’ils permettent grâce à leur contenu descriptif.

D’abord, lorsqu’il critique l’intuitionnisme de Moore, il montre comment nous n’avons pas besoin de postuler comme ce dernier une propriété non-naturelle du bien que nous appréhenderions par une faculté spéciale. Il considère cette propriété non-naturelle du bien comme objet métaphysique platonicien ontologiquement inutile. Nous n’avons pas besoin d’en postuler l’existence pour que nos énoncés moraux aient une référence à l’objet, puisque selon lui les concepts éthiques épais suffisent à le permettre[27]. Lorsque j’affirme « X est cruel », mon énoncé a, comme nous l’avons vu, un contenu descriptif. Le prédicat « cruel » suffit par conséquent à donner à mon énoncé une référence à l’objet. Putnam se dissocie donc de l’intuitionnisme en montrant comment une objectivité avec objet de l’éthique est possible sans les « inflations métaphysiques »[28] caractéristiques de l’intuitionnisme.

Ensuite, lorsqu’il critique l’approche intersubjective d’Habermas, il insiste sur le fait que le respect des normes de l’éthique de la discussion ne suffit pas à conduire les interlocuteurs à un consensus en faveur de ce qui est véritablement moralement justifié. Il se peut que les interlocuteurs de la discussion soient tous obtus, c’est-à-dire que des nuances indispensables pour bien juger la situation leur échappent irrémédiablement. Or, être obtus selon Putnam, c’est justement ne pas maîtriser les concepts éthiques épais[29]. Aiguiser notre jugement moral équivaut pour lui à parfaire notre maîtrise des concepts éthiques épais. Ainsi, lorsque Putnam insiste sur le fait que les normes procédurales de l’éthique de la discussion ne suffisent pas à fonder l’objectivité morale, il le fait en soulignant que, en plus de ces normes, les descriptions contenues dans les concepts éthiques épais doivent aussi guider notre jugement. Il s’oppose donc aussi à la conception d’Habermas en proposant une objectivité morale avec objet.

Putnam rappelle toutefois que l’éthique ne concerne pas seulement les concepts éthiques épais, mais aussi les concepts éthiques minces, c’est-à-dire les concepts traditionnels de l’éthique (le bien, le devoir, le devoir-être, la vertu, etc.). Ces concepts sont de pures évaluations et n’ont pas de contenu descriptif comme les concepts éthiques épais. Par conséquent, les énoncés qui en sont composés n’ont pas de référence à l’objet[30]. Putnam admet tout de même la possibilité qu’ils soient objectifs[31]. Il défend cette possibilité sur la base du rejet pragmatiste du doute méthodique. Selon lui, nous ne sommes jamais dans la situation hypothétique décrite par les non-cognitivistes où notre système d’évaluations est intégralement remis en cause. Nous avons toujours un stock d’évaluations tenues pour acquises dont nous pouvons nous servir pour justifier celles que nous remettons en question. Nous n’avons donc jamais besoin de remonter à une prémisse évaluative fondamentale et indubitable qui justifierait l’intégralité de notre système d’évaluations de manière absolue[32]. Nous n’avons besoin que de pouvoir justifier nos évaluations nouvelles sur la base d’évaluations que nous tenons pour acquises. Putnam évite de cette manière le relativisme dans le cas des concepts éthiques minces non pas en rejetant l’idée des non-cognitivistes que toute conclusion évaluative requiert une prémisse évaluative, mais plutôt en rejetant leur idée que l’objectivité exige l’atteinte d’une prémisse fondamentale indubitable. Il y a donc pour Putnam une objectivité possible dans le domaine des pures évaluations. Il défend donc aussi une certaine objectivité sans objet de l’éthique[33].

b) Analyse de l’argument

Impact de l’argument sur la dichotomie fait/valeur

L’argument de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité n’ajoute rien aux conclusions des deux arguments précédents quant au type de distinction fait/valeur non-dichotomique qui est admis par Putnam. Après l’argument des concepts éthiques épais, nous pouvions toujours distinguer descriptif et prescriptif comme deux rôles que peuvent jouer les concepts, mais nous ne pouvions plus tirer de ces deux rôles deux types exclusifs de concepts. L’argument de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité maintient cette situation. Il n’ajoute aucune nouvelle limite à l’application de la distinction fait/valeur, et n’aborde que la question de l’objectivité de l’éthique.

Efficacité de l’argument à montrer l’objectivité de l’éthique

La conception de l’objectivité défendue par Putnam peut sembler insatisfaisante. En concédant que notre savoir est irrémédiablement teinté par la perspective dans laquelle nous nous trouvons, Putnam peut sembler concéder aux subjectivistes l’essentiel de leur position. Putnam prétend toutefois, comme nous l’avons vu, que ce n’est pas le cas puisque selon sa conception, contrairement à celle des subjectivistes, les croyances peuvent être justifiées (même s’il ne s’agit pas d’une justification absolue). Je laisserai en suspens la question de savoir si la conception de l’objectivité que propose Putnam est satisfaisante. Je rappelle que l’objet de cet article n’est pas de juger de la valeur des arguments de Putnam, mais plutôt de répondre à certaines ambiguïtés quant aux conclusions auxquelles ils conduisent. L’argument de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité conduit à la conclusion que Putnam cherchait à établir. Il renverse la conclusion de l’argument des valeurs épistémiques en montrant que l’objectivité n’équivaut pas à la vérifiabilité empirique (une conception restreinte de la référence à l’objet) et qu’elle dépasse le champ de la science. Dans la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité que propose Putnam, les faits et les valeurs peuvent être objectifs.

Conclusion

Les analyses que nous avons faites nous permettent de préciser quel type de distinction fait/valeur reste légitime après les arguments de Putnam, et comment ces arguments ont prise sur la dichotomie fait/valeur et le subjectivisme moral.

Nous avons identifié deux limites que l’argumentation de Putnam impose à l’application de la distinction fait/valeur. D’abord, il ne faut pas chercher à distinguer faits et valeurs quant à leur rapport à l’objectivité. Dans la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité proposée par Putnam, autant les jugements de valeur que les jugements de fait peuvent prétendre à l’objectivité. Ensuite, il ne faut pas envisager faits et valeurs comme deux types exclusifs de concepts. Il peut y avoir des concepts (les concepts éthiques épais) qui servent à la fois à décrire et à prescrire. Ces deux rôles que peuvent jouer les concepts n’engendrent donc pas deux types exclusifs de concepts.

Nous avons aussi précisé comment les arguments de Putnam avaient prise sur la dichotomie fait/valeur et le subjectivisme moral. L’argument des concepts éthiques épais critique la dichotomie fait/valeur en montrant que faits et valeurs ne sont pas deux types exclusifs dans lesquels peuvent être classés tous les concepts. Les arguments des valeurs épistémiques et de la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité rétablissent l’objectivité de l’éthique et montrent que faits et valeurs sont égaux quant à leur rapport à l’objectivité, et que cela nous oblige à reconnaître que l’objectivité dépasse le champ de la science.

Reste maintenant à clarifier en quoi la critique que fait Putnam de la dichotomie fait/valeur constitue dans son argumentation, comme il l’annonce en introduction, une prémisse à sa critique du subjectivisme moral. Avec la conception pragmatiste de l’objectivité qu’il développe, et son idée que l’objectivité dans le domaine des valeurs est atteinte par la critique, Putnam n’aurait en réalité pas besoin de critiquer la dichotomie fait/valeur pour montrer l’objectivité de l’éthique. Si l’objectivité dans le domaine des valeurs se définit par la critique, qu’il y ait ou non des concepts éthiques épais qui donnent à l’éthique un contenu descriptif et une référence à l’objet, cela ne change rien. Même si l’éthique n’avait aucune part descriptive, rien ne nous empêcherait de critiquer nos valeurs, comme Putnam le suggère, pour passer du valorisé à l’objectivement valable. Nous pourrions alors quand même atteindre l’objectivité en éthique. L’argument des concepts éthiques épais par lequel Putnam établit que l’opposition fait/valeur n’est pas étanche semble donc inutile.

En d’autres termes, pour que l’argument des concepts éthiques épais constitue, comme l’annonce Putnam en introduction, une prémisse à sa critique du subjectivisme moral, il faudrait que ce dernier maintienne l’idée des positivistes qu’il rejette, selon laquelle l’objectivité est impossible sans rapport descriptif à l’objet. Il semble donc y avoir une tension dans l’argumentation de Putnam. En même temps qu’il cherche à dissocier objectif et descriptif, Putnam présente sa démonstration que l’éthique a un contenu descriptif comme une prémisse à sa défense de l’objectivité de l’éthique. Or, cette démonstration du contenu descriptif de l’éthique ne peut constituer une telle prémisse que dans la mesure où l’objectivité est impossible sans description, ce que Putnam conteste. Putnam est donc en contradiction avec lui-même lorsqu’il voit un lien de dépendance entre sa critique de la dichotomie fait/valeur et sa critique du subjectivisme moral. La seule manière d’expliquer cette tension dans l’argumentation de Putnam me semble être qu’il reste malgré lui captif de la manière positiviste de poser le problème de l’objectivité de l’éthique, même si pourtant il cherche à rompre avec elle.

1. Hume, considéré par plusieurs comme le premier défenseur explicite de l’opposition fait/valeur, défend cette opposition sur la base d’arguments similaires, bien que les termes kantiens « analytique » et « synthétique » soient absents de son texte. L’épistémologie des positivistes, de laquelle dépend leur défense d’une opposition marquée entre faits et valeurs, est d’ailleurs inspirée de Hume, sous l’influence du philosophe-physicien Mach qui adhérait à une conception résolument humienne de la connaissance. Cf. A. Janik et S. Toulmin, Wittgenstein, Vienne et la Modernité, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1978, chapitre 5.

2. Pour les positivistes, il n’y a pas, comme pour Kant, de jugements synthétiques a priori.

3. Cf. A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, New York, Dover Publication, 1952, chapitre 6.

4. John R. Searle, « How to derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’ » dans W.D. Hudson (dir.), The Is/Ought Question, Londres, The Macmillan Press, 1979, pp. 120-133.

5. Hilary Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2002.

6. Ibid., p. 1.

7. Ibid., p. 23.

8. Ibid., pp. 12-13.

9. Ibid., p. 30.

10. Ibid., chap. 8.

11. Ibid., p. 152.

12. B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Londres, Fontana, 1985. Selon Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, cette expression viendrait d’abord du sociologue Clifford Geertz (The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, Basic Books, 1973), qui l’emprunterait lui-même à Gilbert Ryle (« The Thinker of Thoughts : What is ‘Le Penseur’ Doing ? », dans Collected Papers, vol. II, Londres, Hutchinson, 1971, pp. 480-496.

13. R.M. Hare, The Language of Morals, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 28.

14. J.L. Mackie, Inventing Right and Wrong, chap. 9.

15. Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, p. 109.

16. Ibid., p. 38.

17. Searle, Expression and Meaning, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, chapitre 1.

18. G.E.M. Anscombe, L’Intention, Paris, Gallimard, 2002, pp. 106-108.

19. Searle, Op. cit., p. 4.

20. De plus, Putnam évoque lui-même l’idée d’une distinction descriptif/prescriptif comme deux types d’actes de langage. Cf. Putnam, Raison, Vérité et Histoire, p. 156 et p. 232, et Id., Ethics Without Ontology, pp. 73-74.

21. Richard Rorty, Objectivisme, relativisme et vérité, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1994, chapitre 1.

22. Dans le pragmatisme américain, l’expression « fixation de la croyance » désigne le moment où une croyance est justifiée de manière suffisante pour être admise comme valide.

23. Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, p. 100.

24. Ibid., p. 143.

25. Id., « Pragmatism and nonscientific knowledge » dans Pragmatism and Realism, Londres, Routledge, 2002, chapitre 2.

26. Id., The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, p. 103 et suivantes.

27. Ibid., p. 128.

28. Putnam qualifie l’intuitionisme de Moore de « métaphysique inflationniste » (inflationnary metaphysics) dans Ethics Without Ontology, p. 17.

29. Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, pp. 127-128.

30. Id., Ethics Without Ontology, p. 67.

31. Ibid., p. 73.

32. Ibid., pp. 77-78.

33. Dans Ethics Without Ontology, Putnam défend la possibilité d’une telle objectivité en montrant que la logique et les mathématiques sont objectifs sans référer à des objets. Cf. Putnam, Ethics Without Ontology, Part 1, Lecture 3.

Voir de plus:

Bac Philo 2013, séries S, commentaire d’un texte de Bergson

Robin

18 Juin 2013

Henri Bergson, Henri Bergson, né le 18 octobre 1859 à Paris où il est mort le 4 janvier 1941, est un philosophe français. Il a publié quatre principaux ouvrages : d’abord en 1889, l’Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, ensuite Matière et mémoire en 1896, puis L’Évolution créatrice en 1907, et enfin Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion en 1932. Il a obtenu le prix Nobel de littérature en 1927.

« Qu’est-ce qu’un jugement vrai ? Nous appelons vraie l’affirmation qui concorde avec la réalité. Mais en quoi peut consister cette concordance ? Nous aimons à y voir quelque chose comme la ressemblance du portrait au modèle : l’affirmation vraie serait celle qui copierait la réalité. Réfléchissons-y cependant : nous verrons que c’est seulement dans des cas rares, exceptionnels, que cette définition du vrai trouve son application. Ce qui est réel, c’est tel ou tel fait déterminé s’accomplissant en tel ou tel point de l’espace et du temps, c’est du singulier, c’est du changeant. Au contraire, la plupart de nos affirmations sont générales et impliquent une certaine stabilité de leur objet. Prenons une vérité aussi voisine que possible de l’expérience, celle-ci par exemple : « la chaleur dilate les corps ». De quoi pourrait-elle bien être la copie ? Il est possible, en un certain sens, de copier la dilatation d’un corps déterminé à des moments déterminés, en la photographiant dans ses diverses phases. Même, par métaphore, je puis encore dire que l’affirmation « cette barre de fer se dilate » est la copie de ce qui se passe quand j’assiste à la dilatation de la barre de fer. Mais une vérité qui s’applique à tous les corps, sans concerner spécialement aucun de ceux que j’ai vus, ne copie rien, ne reproduit rien. »

(Bergson, La Pensée et le Mouvant)

Il fallait vous poser les questions suivantes :

1) Quelle est la thèse développée dans ce texte ?

2) Quelle est la définition courante du vrai ? Appliquez cette définition sur un exemple (souvenez-vous du début de votre cours sur la vérité et de la définition de la vérité comme « adéquation de la chose et de l’esprit », du réel et du jugement »).

3) Bergson admet-il cette définition ?

4) Quelle critique lui fait-il ?

5) Qu’est-ce que le « réel » pour Bergson ?

6) Expliquer « c’est du singulier, c’est du changeant ». A quoi peut-on opposer ces deux termes ? (quel est le contraire de « singulier », quel est le contraire de « changeant »)

7) Quelle exemple de vérité Bergson donne-t-il ?

8) Expliquez « même par métaphore ». Que veut dire Bergson ? Relevez et expliquez le mot « copie ».

9) Quelle conception de la vérité se dessine-t-elle dans ce texte ? A quelle conception s’oppose-t-elle ?

La thèse développée par Bergson n’apparaît pas explicitement, elle doit être déduite de la critique de la conception classique de la vérité comme adéquation de la chose et du jugement, du réel et de l’esprit. Une affirmation vraie n’est pas une copie de la réalité, ou seulement dans des cas exceptionnels car il n’y a que du singulier et du changeant.

Pour Thomas d’Aquin, par exemple, la vérité est l’adéquation du réel et de l’esprit, de la chose et de l’objet (adequatio rei et intellectus). Prenons par exemple la proposition : « Il pleut ». Soit il pleut réellement et alors mon affirmation est vraie, conforme au réel, soit il ne pleut pas et alors mon affirmation est fausse : c’est une erreur, une illusion ou un mensonge.

Bergson précise que nous « aimons » à voir dans le jugement vrai quelque chose comme la ressemblance du portrait au modèle. Le mot « aimer » suggère que cette attitude n’a rien de rationnel, qu’elle est de l’ordre de l’opinion (de la doxa), plutôt que le fruit d’un véritable raisonnement. L’affirmation vraie serait celle qui « copierait » la réalité » : l’emploi du conditionnel indique que Bergson ne souscrit pas à cette conception de la vérité comme copie du réel.

Pour Bergson, cette définition de la vérité comme « copie » ne s’applique qu’à des cas exceptionnels, par exemple celui que nous avons pris (« il pleut »/ »il ne pleut pas »). En effet cette affirmation porte sur un événement singulier et changeant : il pleut maintenant, mais dans dix minutes, la pluie s’arrêtera de tomber.

Mais « la plupart de nos affirmations sont générales et impliquent une certaine stabilité de l’objet ». Bergson refuse cette conception de la vérité. Pour lui, la vérité ne réside pas dans la généralité et la stabilité car il n’y a que des événements singuliers, rien ne demeure semblable à lui-même, tout est en mouvement, les « étants » passent sans cesse d’un état à l’autre. La conception habituelle de la vérité dénature le réel. Nous cherchons à nous approprier le réel en le saisissant dans le concept, mais pour « saisir » le réel, nous sommes obligés de généraliser et de stabiliser, d’en faire tout autre chose que ce qu’il est vraiment. En définissant la vérité comme adéquation de la pensée et du réel, du réel et du jugement, et ramenant le réel au concept, nous manquons la vérité car nous manquons le réel lui-même qui se caractérise par la singularité et le mouvement.

Bergson donne comme exemple une vérité « aussi voisine que possible de l’expérience », c’est-à-dire un phénomène que l’on peut observer réellement la dilatation des corps, et non, par exemple, la gravitation. « la chaleur dilate les corps ». Bergson se demande de quoi cette affirmation pourrait être la copie, autrement dit, à quel phénomène « réel » elle « correspond ». On pourrait mettre ce phénomène en évidence en le photographiant, c’est-à-dire en le stabilisant dans le temps et dans l’espace, chaque cliché témoignerait ainsi d’un état de la barre de fer en un instant t, t’, t »… Mais qu’avons-nous fait en photographiant la barre de fer ? Nous avons transformé le temps (la durée) en espace et nous avons manqué par conséquent la réalité du phénomène de dilatation qui se produit dans la durée. Bergson explique dans La Pensée et le mouvant, l’œuvre d’où est extrait ce texte, que la science « spatialise » la durée. L’affirmation « la barre de fer se dilate » est une métaphore du réel et non le réel lui-même, une façon de parler et non une façon d’être.

La dernière phrase du texte : « Mais une vérité qui s’applique à tous les corps, sans concerner spécialement aucun de ceux que j’ai vus, ne copie rien, ne reproduit rien. » porte sur la singularité du réel. Pour Bergson, il n’y a que des événements singuliers. L’affirmation : « Les barres de fer se dilatent », ou encore l’expression de cette « vérité » dans une loi scientifique exprimée dans une formule mathématique, applicable à tous les corps ne copie rien, ne reproduit rien, puisqu’elle s’applique à toutes les barres de fer en général et à aucune en particulier. Bergson veut dire ici que la science ne copie pas le réel, mais qu’elle le construit.

Un jugement vrai n’est donc pas une simple copie de la réalité. Le réel pour Bergson a deux caractères : la singularité et le changement, alors que la plupart de nos jugements sont généraux et impliquent une stabilité de l’objet. Bergson conteste implicitement l’idée que la science, puisqu’il n’y de science que de l’universel, constituerait le seul et unique critère de la vérité et nous invite à chercher, au-delà du jugement une manière d’appréhender le réel sans le dénaturer, d’aller « aux choses mêmes » dans leur singularité jaillisssante… Il nomme cette faculté « l’intuition ».

Le corrigé en Philosophie sujet 3, Bac S 

L’Etudiant

L’auteur examine la question de la définition d’un jugement vrai. Si la réponse à cette question semble satisfaisante comme adéquation de la vérité à la réalité, il n’en reste pas moins difficile à comprendre que cette adéquation n’est pas à penser comme le rapport d’une copie à son modèle. La vérité ne copie pas la réalité affirme Bergson, ce qui met en question la définition du vrai. L’auteur appuie son argumentation sur l’opposition entre le réel singulier et changeant et les jugements sur la réalité qui, à l’inverse, sont généraux et stables. C’est par un exemple tiré d’une vérité physicienne qu’il illustre sa thèse en montrant qu’une vérité scientifique n’est pas la copie de ce qui se passe en fait, dans la réalité. Si la définition traditionnelle est par là même remise en question, qu’est-ce que la vérité, quel est son rapport à la réalité ?

I. Qu’est-ce qu’un jugement vrai ?

D’après la définition classique de la vérité, un jugement est vrai lorsqu’il s’accorde avec la réalité. En ce sens la vérité est toujours un jugement sur les choses et, par le biais du langage, c’est une concordance entre la réalité et ce que nous en disons. Or Bergson s’interroge sur cette concordance en montrant qu’il ne s’agit pas d’un rapport de la copie à la réalité. Si tel était le cas, il y aurait une adéquation approximative car la copie est un dégradé de son modèle ; la vérité serait alors une convention, un pâle reflet (au sens Platonicien) de ce qui est. D’où la nécessité de définir la réalité indépendamment de ce qui en est dit, de toute représentation

II. L’opposition entre vérité générale et réalité particulière

Le réel est singulier, il s’agit du réel dont nous avons affaire, de la perception sensible, qui est changeant et surtout subjectif. C’est notre perception sensible qui nous permet de l’appréhender mais qu’en est-il de la représentation que nous voulons exprimer par un jugement, par le langage ? La plupart de nos affirmations sont générales car on suppose que ce dont on parle ne change pas, que l’objet de notre jugement est relativement stable. D’autre part, on suppose que nos jugements sont universels, c’est-à-dire peuvent être partagés par tous.

III. L’expérience montre que la vérité n’est pas une copie de la réalité

Bergson illustre sa thèse par un exemple qui montre que le jugement vrai n’est pas une copie de l’expérience sensible. « la chaleur dilate les corps » est une proposition générale qui utilise des notions qui ne viennent pas de la ressemblance avec la réalité sensible qu’elle pense et permet de penser. Cette proposition vaut pour tous les corps en faisant abstraction des cas particuliers et des changements qui peuvent advenir (pensons au morceau de cire de Descartes). Ainsi l’affirmation selon laquelle la vérité est une copie de la réalité est contestable. Car la vérité est un discours, elle dit quelque chose de la réalité, quelque chose de stable et d’universel alors même que le réel est variable et singulier.

L’intérêt de ce texte est qu’il nous renvoie à la condition même du discours vrai mais aussi de l’activité de penser. En effet, notre esprit ne copie pas des réalités données dans l’expérience mais il est lui-même la condition de possibilité de saisir la vérité. C’est le sens du célèbre texte de Platon « l’allégorie de la caverne » qui souligne que le monde sensible (le monde de la caverne) en lui-même n’est pas vrai mais que c’est par la pensée que se constitue le véritable discours (logos = la raison) permettant la vérité. Cependant, Platon perçoit ce rapport entre le monde sensible et le monde des Idées comme une véritable imitation, une copie de la véritable réalité intelligible. Bergson insiste sur l’opposition entre le monde réel et le jugement de l’esprit en montrant toutefois qu’il y a une différence qui ne se réduit pas à la représentation. Nous parvenons à des vérités par les jugements de la raison, c’est à dire par la construction de propositions,de concepts qui ne copient pas l’expérience sensible. La raison et le langage, désignés en grec par le même mot, LOGOS sont les conditions même de notre accès à la vérité c’est-à-dire à la connaissance de la réalité.

Voir encore:

The Brilliant Wisdom of King Solomon

Baruch C. Cohen

July 10, 1998

The Book of Kings [Melachim 1 3:12] states that Israel’s great King Solomon was twelve years old when God promised him that he would be granted great wisdom. He turned out to be the wisest man ever to live. As an illustration of the fulfillment of this blessing of wisdom, the Book of Kings reports the following account of a case that was brought before King Solomon’s court in Jerusalem.

Two women came to King Solomon and stood before him. One woman (#1) said: « My Lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while with her in the house. On the third day after I gave birth, she also gave birth. We live together; there is no outsider with us in the house; only the two of us were there. The son of this woman died during the night because she lay upon him. She arose during the night and took my son from my side while I was asleep, and lay him in her bosom, and her dead son she laid in my bosom. when I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead! But when I observed him (later on) in the morning, I realized that he was not my son to whom I had given birth! »

The other woman (#2) replied: « It is not so! My son is the live one and your son is the dead one! »

The first woman (#1) responded: « It is not so! Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one! »

They argued before King Solomon.

King Solomon said: « this woman (#2) claims ‘My son is the live one and your son is the dead one, ‘and this woman (#1) claims ‘Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one! »‘

King Solomon said, « Bring me a sword! » So they brought a sword before the King. The King said, « Cut the living child in two, and give half to one and half to the other »

The woman (#2) turned to the King, because her compassion was aroused for her son, and said: « Please my Lord, give her the living child and do not kill it! »

But the other woman (#1) said: « Neither mine nor yours shall he be. Cut! »

The King spoke up and said: « Give her (#2) the living child, and do not kill it, for she is his mother! » All of Israel heard the judgment that the King had judged. They had great awe for the King, for they saw that the wisdom of God was within him to do justice. [I Melachim 3:16 – 27]. The woman was rightfully awarded custody of her son.

It should be noted, that King Solomon’s was the first major recorded and published decision in the history of legal jurisprudence, and I believe that with the help of the commentaries, one can begin to appreciate the magnificent depth of his wisdom.

OBSERVATIONS

Some say that King Solomon truly knew who was the real mother as soon as he saw the two women. This was the nature of the special divine wisdom that God gave him. As King Solomon was able to understand the speech of the animals and the birds, so he could see the truth in someone’s face. His knowledge was of Divine origin. It was infallible.

According to the Abarbanel and Metzudas David, King Solomon studied the countenance of each woman as they presented their claims and counter-claims, and by means of his penetrating and heavenly wisdom, understood which of the two women was telling the truth.

Still, to prove this to the people, he had to demonstrate it in a way that everyone would acknowledge. Perhaps that is why he pretended not to know who said what, and repeated their arguments in reverse order, by repeating Woman #2’s argument first, and Woman #1’s argument second.

He even pretended to apply the well-known law of dividing disputed property. If two people come to court holding on to the ends of a piece of clothing, and each claims it to be his, the court divides it and gives each one half. King Solomon seemed to pretend to be ignorant of the many complicated details of this law, and to think that it applied to babies as well, which would have been ridiculously simpleminded. No judge would ever make such a foolish mistake. Yet, he succeeded in convincing the two women that he was serious.

Nonetheless, he was careful not to let the trick go too far. He specifically commanded his servants to bring the sword to him, not to give it to one of the guards. They too, were no doubt fooled and he did not want them to divide the baby before he had a chance to stop them. In fact, the King’s ministers said « Woe to you Oh Land, whose king is but a boy! » They thought « what has God done to us to give us such a king? How long will we have to suffer with such foolish judgments? » But afterwards, when they saw the women’s reactions they knew that he had recently received Divine inspiration and rejoiced saying « Happy are you, oh Land, whose king is a free man! » – i.e., one who studies Torah (Koheles – Ecclesiastes 10:16-17).

King Solomon’s trick succeeded. The imposter revealed herself by her heartless cruelty. After all, no mother would have let her own child be killed just to spite another woman.

But how could King Solomon have been sure the other woman would not also have mercy on the child? Wouldn’t most people break down in such a situation and relinquish their claims? What sort of person would want to be responsible for the death of an innocent child, even if it were not her own?

Perhaps this was an aspect of the depth of King Solomon’s insight – he knew that no normal mother lies on her own child and crushes him in her sleep. Babies always sleep with their mothers and fathers, yet this never happens, for perhaps God implants within a human being an innate sensitivity that prevents her from doing such a thing. A woman who lies on her child must be lacking basic human feeling, and such a person would certainly have no mercy on the child of another. According to the Abarbanel, perhaps such a woman developed a blood lust and possessed a cruel desire to see another life snuffed out.

And what of the compassionate one? Was it not possible that she was acting cunningly to impress the King with a false sense of motherly commiseration?

WHO HAD THE BETTER ARGUMENT?

Notwithstanding the outcome, many believe that Woman #1 still made a convincing and persuasive argument. She made it clear that there were no witnesses because they lived alone. Perhaps she suspected that Solomon would be able to tell how old the baby was and identify the mother. According to the Radak and the Metsudas David, her argument was bolstered by the claim that no one else knew the identities of the babies, nor had one been sick, that the neighbors might remember whose baby it was. When she first got up, it was still dark. She could not recognize the baby, so she did not suspect that it was not hers. All she knew was that it was dead. But when it got light, she saw it and realized what had happened. She asserted that her baby boy was born three days earlier, and therefore there was some reliable distinction available.

Woman #2 had only a brief presentation and did not claim to have any proof. She simply said that the child was hers. All she did was state her case.

Based on the first round of oral arguments, it would appear that Woman #1 had the better claim, and that she was the real mother.

It is noteworthy, that the women did not bring the corpse of the dead child for further identification. Perhaps the child was buried already, or its features were already changed making recognition difficult.

SUBTLE TRUTHS BEGIN TO UNRAVEL

Yet, as the women’s dispute continued, their respective positions seemed to change ever so slightly. There was something disturbing and disingenuous about the way in which Woman #1 continued arguing her case, in that she subsequently seemed less concerned with having a live child and focused more on the other having the dead one. The fact that she mentioned the dead child first, in itself, was an indication of this (« It is not so! Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one! »).

Woman #2, by contrast, always spoke of her own son first (« No. my son is the living one and your son is the dead one »). It seemed as if her heart was with her son. She spoke out of love and was apparently heartbroken at the thought of potentially losing her child.

According to the Devorim Rabah, King Solomon then repeated the arguments of both women, verbatim, without adding anything, making sure that he properly understood the arguments of both sides, listening carefully, and if there was anything that he misunderstood, the women had an opportunity to correct him.

ODD DEVELOPMENTS IN THE STORY

King Solomon’s wisdom surely gave him the insight to foresee that the real mother (#2) would recoil in terror when she heard of his intention to kill the infant, nevertheless, could his wisdom have possibly predicted the liar (#1)’s response – to comply with this grotesque compromise?

Second, the woman who was lying (#1) was initially interested in taking the living child for herself, otherwise she never would have asserted such a bold and aggressive claim.

As soon as the real mother offered to let the liar keep the child in order to spare its life, the liar should have accepted the real mother offer’s and kept the child. She could have played up her victory by saying: « Aha! She admits that the baby was truly mine all along! She is a kidnapper but not a murderer. The baby is mine. » Instead, she did something totally unpredictable. She refused saying « Neither mine nor yours shall he be. Cut. »

I have always wondered what made her suddenly lose interest in having the child for herself?

A brilliant and original answer to these questions is offered by Rabbi Mordechai Kornfeld of

Har Nof Jerusalem, of the Shmayisroel Torah Network (www.shemayisroel.co.il), who cited two 13th century commentators: Rav Yehoshua Ibn Shu’ib in his Drasha for Parshas Mishpatim, and Rav Menachem HaMeiri in his commentary to Yevamos 17a; and another 14th century commentator, the author of Shemen Rokeach and Sha’arHachazokas. They believe that in order to understand the real story behind King Solomon’s decision, an understanding of the laws of Yibbum is necessary.

THE LAWS OF YIBBUM.

The Torah describes the practice of Yibbum in the Parsha of Ki Setzei (Devarim 25:5,7,9):

« If there are brothers, and one of them dies without children, the wife of the deceased man may not marry out to another man. Her brother-in-law (her deceased husband’s brother) must marry her and thus perform Yibbum on her … If the man does not want to marry her, she shall approach the elders and declare ‘My brother-in-law refuses to establish his brother’s name in Israel; he does not consent to perform Yibbum on me’

… Then she shall approach him in the presence of the elders and remove his shoe from his foot, and spit in front of him and proclaim « Such should be done to a man who would not build up his brother’s house! »

Yibbum is a Halachic rite which must be performed when a man who has a living brother dies childless. If this uncommon situation occurs, the widow must not remarry unless one of two actions are taken – either she must marry the brother of the deceased or she must be released from the obligation of marrying her brother-in-law by having him perform the Chalitzah (« removing » of the shoe) ceremony.

It is obviously uncomfortable for a woman to be trapped in this situation, wherein she would be subject to the will of another man. Her brother-in-law may not be locatable, compliant or appealing.

There are several fundamental laws concerning the childless nature of the deceased and the age of the bother that control whether Yibbum applies:

LAWS CONCERNING THE CHILDLESS NATURE OF THE DECEASED

1. Rule #1: The man must die childless. According to the Talmud Yevamos 87b, Dying childless includes instances where a man once had children, but these children were already dead at the time of his own death.

2. Rule #2: Grandchildren: According to the Talmud Yevamos 70a, if the deceased man has no living children but he does have living grandchildren, he is not considered to be childless, and therefore, there is no Yibbum obligation.

3. Rule #3: Offspring: According to Talmud Yevamos 11 lb and Shabbos 136a, if the deceased left behind any offspring at all, there is no Yibbum – even if the offspring is only one day old. Even if the offspring is still a viable fetus at the time of the husband’s death, its mother is exempted from being bound to the living brother. If the fetus is a stillborn or is aborted, or dies, or is killed before it lived for thirty days, it is not considered to have ever been a viable offspring, and Yibbum would be required.

LAWS CONCERNING THE AGE OF THE DECEASED’S BROTHER

4. Rule #4: Brother-In-Law: According to the Talmud Yevamos 17b, the widow is obligated to marry her deceased husband’s brother. If the deceased husband does not leave a living brother, his wife is free to marry whoever she pleases.

5. Rule #5: Minor: According to the Talmud Yevamos 1 05b, if the brother of the deceased is a minor, the widow is still bound to him, and does not have the option of freeing herself through Chalitzah since a minor lacks capacity to perform the ceremony. Instead she must wait until the brother reaches the age of majority (Bar Mitzvah 13) in order for him to render Chalitzah at that time. Only then may she remarry. According to the Talmud Niddah 45a if she wants to marry him, she must wait until he reaches 9 years of age.

APPLICATION & CONCLUSION

We now return to King Solomon’s judgment.

The Midrash (Koheles Rabah 10:16) tells us that the reason both of these women were so desperate to have the living child declared theirs was that they were both potential Yevamos (widows subject to Yibbum). Neither of the two had any other offspring. Whoever would be judged to be the childless woman would not only lose the infant, but would also be trapped in the unpleasant status of Yevamah, being dependent upon her brother-in-law’s good will.

The Midrash (Yalknt Shimoni 2:175) asserts that the husbands of the two women were father and son, making the two women, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law to each other.

According to the Meiri in his commentary to Yevamos 17a, the two Midrashim may be complementing each other – thanks to our 5-rule Yibbum analysis.

The two women – mother-in-law and daughter-in-law – had just lost their husbands, and needed a live child to exempt them from the status of a Yevamah. Both women gave birth to babies. However, these two babies were still less than 30 days old at the time that one of them died. The mother of the dead child would therefore be subject to the laws of Yibbum (Rule #3). This was the lying mother’s motivation for taking the other woman’s child.

If it were the mother-in-law’s child who had died, she would have no incentive to kidnap her daughter-in-law’s child. Even though her son (the deceased husband of her daughter-in-law) had passed away before her own husband had, and therefore he would not exempt her from Yibbum (Rule #1), nevertheless, she would be exempt from Yibbum for another reason. The living child was her son’s child, and a grandchild exempts one from Yibbum (Rule #2).

Only the daughter-in-law had the motive to lie and try to claim that the child was hers. If it was her baby who had died within 30 days of its birth, leaving her childless, she would have been bound to her husband’s brother as a Yevamah (Rule #4) – and that brother would have been -none other than the living baby (who was in fact her mother-in-law’s child – i.e., her deceased husband’s bother)! Since her brother-in-law was a newborn, the daughter-in-law would have had to wait 13 years before this baby would be able to perform Chalitzah on her and free her to remarry (Rule #5).

King Solomon realized all of this and suspected that since the only one with a strong motive to lie was the daughter-in-law, the child must really belong to the mother-in-law.

Perhaps this also explains why King Solomon ordered that the child be cut in half.

If the remaining child were to be killed, this too would free the daughter-in-law from her Yevamah status – since the living baby was her only brother-in-law (Rule #3). From the daughter-in-law’s perspective, in fact, killing the child would result in a better solution for her. By just kidnaping the child she might have convinced the earthly court that she was not a Yevamah. However, she herself would know that the child was not really hers and that she really was not permitted to remarry, until Chalitzah was performed. By having the baby killed, though, she would truthfully be released from the bonds of Yibbum.

This is the reason the daughter-in-law suddenly lost interest in keeping the child when she saw that King Solomon was ready to cut the child in half. This would serve her interests even more if she took the child for herself. Therefore she insisted: « Cut! »

Young King Solomon guessed that this would be the woman’s reaction. By tricking her into making a seemingly ludicrous statement, he revealed her true motives and that she was lying.

This is why, « All of Israel heard the judgment that the King had judged. They had great awe for the King, for they saw that the wisdom of God was within him to do justice. »

Respectfully,

BARUCH C. COHEN

FOOTNOTES

Baruch C. Cohen’s practice includes all aspects of creditors’ and debtors’ rights, corporate reorganizations, personal bankruptcies, and all types of bankruptcy litigation in state, federal and bankruptcy courts.

Jewish Law Home Page Copyright © 1997-2008 by Ira Kasdan. All rights reserved.

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Voir enfin:

Gen. Helms and the Senator’s ‘Hold’

An Air Force commander exercised her discretion in a sexual-assault case. Now her career is being blocked by Sen. Claire McCaskill. Why?

James Taranto

WSJ

June 17, 2013

Lt. Gen. Susan Helms is a pioneering woman who finds her career stalled because of a war on men—a political campaign against sexual assault in the military that shows signs of becoming an effort to criminalize male sexuality.

Gen. Helms is a 1980 graduate of the Air Force Academy who became an astronaut in 1990. She was a crewman on four space-shuttle missions and a passenger on two, traveling to the International Space Station and back 51⁄2 months later. Two days after arriving at the station in 2001, she, along with fellow astronaut Jim Voss, conducted history’s longest spacewalk—8 hours, 56 minutes—to work on a docking device.

In March, President Obama nominated Gen. Helms to serve as vice commander of the Air Force Space Command. But Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who sits on the Armed Services Committee, has placed a « permanent hold » on the nomination.

At issue is the general’s decision in February 2012 to grant clemency to an officer under her command. Capt. Matthew Herrera had been convicted by a court-martial of aggravated sexual assault. Ms. McCaskill said earlier this month that the clemency decision « sent a damaging message to survivors of sexual assault who are seeking justice in the military justice system. »

To describe the accuser in the Herrera case as a « survivor » is more than a little histrionic. The trial was a he-said/she-said dispute between Capt. Herrera and a female second lieutenant about a drunken October 2009 sexual advance in the back seat of a moving car. The accuser testified that she fell asleep, then awoke to find her pants undone and Capt. Herrera touching her genitals. He testified that she was awake, undid her own pants, and responded to his touching by resting her head on his shoulder.

Two other officers were present—the designated driver and a front-seat passenger, both lieutenants—but neither noticed the hanky-panky. Thus on the central questions of initiation and consent, it was her word against his.

On several other disputed points, however, the driver, Lt. Michelle Dickinson, corroborated Capt. Herrera’s testimony and contradicted his accuser’s.

Capt. Herrera testified that he and the accuser had flirted earlier in the evening; she denied it. Lt. Dickinson agreed with him. The accuser testified that she had told Lt. Dickinson before getting into the car that she found Capt. Herrera « kind of creepy » and didn’t want to share the back seat with him; Lt. Dickinson testified that she had said no such thing. And the accuser denied ever resting her head on Capt. Herrera’s shoulder (although she acknowledged putting it in his lap). Lt. Dickinson testified that at one point during the trip, she looked back and saw the accuser asleep with her head on Capt. Herrera’s shoulder.

In addition, the accuser exchanged text messages with Capt. Herrera after the incident. She initially claimed to have done so only a « couple times » but changed her testimony after logs of the text traffic revealed there were 116 messages, 51 of them sent by her.

Based on all this, Gen. Helms concluded that the defendant was a more reliable witness than the accuser, and that prosecutors had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Capt. Herrera did not reasonably believe the accuser had consented. He did not escape punishment: Gen. Helms accepted a reduced plea of guilty to an « indecent act. » Capt. Herrera was thereby spared the lifelong stigma of being listed on a sex-offender registry—but not of involuntary discharge from the service, which took effect in December.

« Immediately after this incident, there was no indication by any party that a sexual assault had taken place, » Gen. Helms wrote in a Feb. 24, 2012, memo explaining her decision. « The time delay between the event and the court-martial was approximately two years, and none of the witnesses, including the accused and the [alleged] victim, knew for at least a year that a court-martial would be convened for it. »

In the interim, another servicewoman, Staff Sgt. Jennifer Robinson, had come forward to accuse Capt. Herrera of sexual assault. In her case, the incident had occurred in his bedroom, where she voluntarily accompanied him. The court-martial acquitted him of that charge on the ground that she had consented. (Sgt. Robinson, who has since been promoted to technical sergeant, revealed her identity in a March interview with the Air Force Times.)

It’s fair to say that Capt. Herrera seems to have a tendency toward sexual recklessness. Perhaps that makes him unsuitable to serve as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. But his accusers acted recklessly too. The presumption that reckless men are criminals while reckless women are victims makes a mockery of any notion that the sexes are equal.

More important, Sen. McCaskill’s blocking of Gen. Helms’s nomination makes a mockery of basic principles of justice. As the general observed in her memo: « Capt Herrera’s conviction should not rest on [the accuser’s] view of her victimization, but on the law and convincing evidence, consistent with the standards afforded any American who finds him/herself on trial for a crime of this severity. »

On Friday the House passed a defense bill that would strip commanders of the authority to grant clemency. That would be a mistake. The Herrera case demonstrates that the authority offers crucial protection for the accused.

Military officers and lawmakers alike swear an oath to « support and defend the Constitution of the United States. » In the case of Matthew Herrera, Gen. Helms lived up to that commitment. Will Sen. McCaskill?

Mr. Taranto, a member of the Journal’s editorial board, writes the Best of the Web Today column for WSJ.com.

Catastrophes: Le Déluge ferait de Dieu le plus grand tueur de masse de l’histoire (The Flood would make God the biggest mass murderer in history)

 

On tue un homme : on est un assassin. On en tue des millions : on est un conquérant. On les tue tous : on est un Dieu. Jean Rostand

Et l’Éternel dit: J’exterminerai de la face de la terre l’homme que j’ai créé, depuis l’homme jusqu’au bétail, aux reptiles, et aux oiseaux du ciel; car je me repens de les avoir faits. Genèse 6: 7

Je suis l’Éternel, et il n’y en a point d’autre. Je forme la lumière, et je crée les ténèbres, Je donne la prospérité, et je crée l’adversité; Moi, l’Éternel, je fais toutes ces choses. Esaïe 45: 6-7

Comment un homme aurait-il raison contre Dieu? “Ami” de Job (25: 4-6)

Suis-je vraiment intègre? Je ne saurais le dire (…) Que m’importe, après tout! C’est pourquoi j’ose dire: «Dieu détruit aussi bien l’innocent que l’impie.» Quand survient un fléau qui tue soudainement, Dieu se rit des épreuves qui atteignent les justes. (…) Et si ce n’est pas lui, alors, qui est-ce donc? Job (9: 21-24)

Ses disciples lui firent cette question: Rabbi, qui a péché, cet homme ou ses parents, pour qu’il soit né aveugle? Jésus répondit: Ce n’est pas que lui ou ses parents aient péché. Jean 9: 2-3

Quelques personnes qui se trouvaient là racontaient à Jésus ce qui était arrivé à des Galiléens dont Pilate avait mêlé le sang avec celui de leurs sacrifices. Il leur répondit: Croyez-vous que ces Galiléens fussent de plus grands pécheurs que tous les autres Galiléens, parce qu’ils ont souffert de la sorte? (…) Ou bien, ces dix-huit personnes sur qui est tombée la tour de Siloé et qu’elle a tuées, croyez-vous qu’elles fussent plus coupables que tous les autres habitants de Jérusalem? Non, je vous le dis. Jésus (Luc 13: 1-5)

Philosophes trompés qui criez: « Tout est bien » (…) Direz-vous, en voyant cet amas de victimes: « Dieu s’est vengé, leur mort est le prix de leurs crimes »? Quel crime, quelle faute ont commis ces enfants sur le sein maternel écrasés et sanglants? Lisbonne, qui n’est plus, eut-elle plus de vices que Londres, que Paris, plongés dans les délices? Lisbonne est abîmée, et l’on danse à Paris. Voltaire (1756)

Je ne vois pas qu’on puisse chercher la source du mal moral ailleurs que dans l’homme libre, perfectionné, partant corrompu (…) Sans quitter votre sujet de Lisbonne, convenez, par exemple, que la nature n’avoit point rassemblé là vingt mille maisons de six à sept étages, et que, si les habitants de cette grande ville eussent été dispersés plus également et plus légèrement logés, le dégât eût été beaucoup moindre et peut-être nul. Rousseau

Après Auschwitz, nous pouvons affirmer, plus résolument que jamais auparavant, qu’une divinité toute-puissante ou bien ne serait pas toute bonne, ou bien resterait entièrement incompréhensible (dans son gouvernement du monde, qui seul nous permet de la saisir). Mais si Dieu, d’une certaine manière et à un certain degré, doit être intelligible (et nous sommes obligés de nous y tenir), alors il faut que sa bonté soit compatible avec l’existence du mal, et il n’en va de la sorte que s’il n’est pas tout-puissant. C’est alors seulement que nous pouvons maintenir qu’il est compréhensible et bon, malgré le mal qu’il y a dans le monde. Hans Jonas

C’est comme une fête foraine, les jeux avec les pinces… Le monde est atroce, mais il y a bien pire : c’est Dieu. On ne peut pas comprendre Haïti. On ne peut même pas dire que Dieu est méchant, aucun méchant n’aurait fait cela. Christian Boltanski

Et si la survie de la terre ne pouvait être que fondée sur la morale évangélique ? Je crois que la violence, qui était au fondement des religions archaïques, n’est plus productrice de sacré, elle ne produit plus que de la violence. C’est ici que le christianisme a quelque chose de singulier à nous dire : renoncer à la violence, c’est sortir du cycle de la vengeance et des représailles. L’apocalypse n’est pas la violence de Dieu comme le croient les fondamentalistes, c’est la montée aux extrêmes de la violence humaine. Seul un nouveau rationalisme qui intègre la dimension religieuse de l’homme peut nous aider à affronter la nouvelle donne. René Girard

Huit cents ressortissants européens combattent actuellement le régime de Bachar el-Assad en Syrie, selon les estimations d’un diplomate de l’Union européenne (UE), confirmées par un dirigeant de l’opposition. Certains ont rejoint le groupe djihadiste Jabhat al-Nosra, classé terroriste par les États-Unis, qui vient de prêter allégeance à al-Qaida. Jamais autant d’habitants du Vieux Continent n’ont afflué en aussi grand nombre sur une période aussi courte – un peu plus d’une année – pour livrer la «guerre sainte» à un régime qui réprime de manière sanglante ses opposants et que l’Europe elle-même combat depuis deux ans. Parmi ces 800 Européens figurent une centaine de Français ou de Franco-Syriens, 50 à 70 Belges, une centaine de Britanniques, de nombreux Allemands, notamment d’origine turque, des Irlandais, des Kosovars, des Danois. Bref pratiquement tous les pays européens sont concernés. (…) Le retour de jeunes, radicalisés au contact de vieux briscards du djihad, est la hantise des services de sécurité européens. Certains auront acquis un savoir-faire qui peut servir à perpétrer des opérations terroristes dans leur pays d’origine. Mais la justice pourra-t-elle criminaliser leurs voyages en Syrie, dont le régime est dénoncé par les capitales européennes? En outre, des binationaux figurent parmi ces candidats au djihad. «Il est difficile de leur dénier le droit d’aller résister à un pouvoir qui massacre sa population», soulignait récemment le juge antiterroriste Marc Trévidic. Le Figaro

These great tragedies and collective punishments that are wiping out villages, towns, cities and even entire countries, are Allah’s punishments of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims. We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant. The fact that it happened at this particular time is a sign from Allah. It happened at Christmas, when fornicators and corrupt people from all over the world come to commit fornication and sexual perversion. That’s when this tragedy took place, striking them all and destroyed everything. It turned the land into wasteland, where only the cries of the ravens are heard. I say this is a great sign and punishment on which Muslims should reflect. All that’s left for us to do is to ask for forgiveness We must atone for our sins, and for the acts of the stupid people among us and improve our condition. We must fight fornication, homosexuality, usury, fight the corruption on the face of the earth, and the disregard of the lives of protected people. Sheik Fawzan Al-Fawzan (member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body and professor at the Al-Imam University)

When we try, however inadequately, to see things from God’s viewpoint rather than our own, things become quite different. There is suddenly nothing unfair about the deaths of any one of us, no matter what the circumstances. God is the sovereign Judge who is totally holy (1 John 1:5). It would therefore be impossible to overstate His utter abhorrence of even the slightest sin. From His perspective, it would be totally lawful and just to wipe out all of us, in whatever fashion. But God is also merciful and loving (2 Peter 3:9), and longsuffering. In the most profound display of mercy and grace imaginable, He stepped into our shoes as a man, God the Son. He came to suffer and die, not in some sort of ooey-gooey martyrdom, but so that His righteous anger against sin could be appeased and the penalty paid for those who place their trust in Jesus Christ and receive His free gift—forgiveness of their sin and admission into God’s family—by faith. (…) A skeptic at one of my talks said publicly that  the Flood would make God “the biggest mass murderer in history.” But murder is defined as the unlawful killing of innocent human life. First, from God’s perspective post-Fall, there is no such thing as an “innocent human”. And second, the concept of murder presupposes a universal law that such things are wrong, which can only be so if there is a Lawgiver, which the skeptic was trying to deny. As Creator, God has decreed that it is unlawful for a human being to take another human’s life, but the Judge of all the earth does not Himself do wrong when He takes a life, which in a very real sense happens whenever any of us die, regardless of what is called the “proximate” cause (whether tsunami, heart attack or even suicide). Carl Wieland

Attention: un tueur de masse peut en cacher un autre !

Au lendemain du passage d’une des plus dévastatrices tornades de l’histoire récente américaine …

Où l’on ne peut s’empêcher de penser aux familles des dizaines de victimes dont nombre d’enfants dans leurs écoles hélas sans abris …

Pendant que chez nous un Heidegerrien s’éclate au nom du contre-printemps arabe en plein Notre-Dame et qu’au Levant nos futurs cavaliers de l’Apocalypse font leurs classes façon brigades internationales dans une réédition jihadiste de la guerre d’Espagne …

Comment ne pas repenser  aux inanités qui avaient été prononcées suite au tsunami de 2005 …

Et ne pas être révolté devant l’aberration d’un certain discours littéraliste de fondamentalistes chrétiens ou musulmans ….

Qui passant complètement à côté de l’apport spécifique du récit biblique par rapport aux textes manifestement mythiques et babyloniens dont il s’inspire …

A savoir la perspective monothéiste et éthique mais aussi par voie de conséquence l’attribution à ladite divinité de l’origine du bien comme du mal: le dieu qui punit est aussi celui qui sauve) …

En arrive, à l’instar des prétendus amis de Job, à justifier l’injustifiable, faisant de Dieu le plus grand tueur de masse de l’histoire ?

Waves of sadness

Tsunami terror raises age-old questions

Carl Wieland

CMI–Australia

30 December 2004

Compared to seeing a plane plunge into a skyscraper, the first amateur video shots showing a surge of brown water overpowering the blue of a resort pool didn’t seem to rate high on the scale of horror.

But as the images kept pouring in and the estimated death toll kept rising, into the six figures even, it became apparent that the Asian tsunami disaster makes 9/11 seem tame by comparison.

Of course, 9/11 was triggered by the deliberate actions of people, whereas the tsunami disaster is in quite a different category. No human action, nor any failure to act, caused this Indian Ocean catastrophe.

The killer waves were set off by a massive undersea earthquake, apparently the result of slippage of tectonic plates after years of pent-up strain. Some coastlines are estimated to have moved as much as 20 meters (65 ft.).1 An earthquake of magnitude 9, like this one, sounds “almost twice as bad” as a more common one of magnitude 5; but the Richter scale is an logarithmic one. That means a “9” is really 10,000 times as violent as a “5”. [In fact, this refers only to the wave amplitude. The energy involved is actually a million times greater.] The giant quake shook the world with the force of millions of Hiroshima-size atomic bombs. Sensitive instruments were said to have picked up an effect on the earth’s rotation; the globe was described as “ringing like a bell” afterwards.

Philosophers refer to the problem of “natural evil”—people suffering and dying from things that have no apparent link to “human evil”—or even human carelessness. So much seemingly senseless sorrow and loss, regardless of the cause, inevitably raises the same sorts of questions about God, death and suffering as 9/11 did. Namely, regardless of whether people or “natural disaster” are the cause, if God is all-powerful and loving, why does He allow it?

In earlier times, insurance jargon for such an event, especially one for which adjectives like “biblical” or “near-biblical” have been applied by newspapers to its scale of tragedy, would have been “an act of God”. In our more secular, evolutionized times, reports have generally used terms such as “nature’s fury” or “Mother Nature’s wrath”. But does God just sit back and “let things happen”? I.e., is “nature” independent of God? That would have the advantage for the Christian of removing some of the responsibility for natural disasters, but would it be a biblical view of God?

If He is who He says He is, the sovereign of the universe—the One who is continually upholding the entire cosmos with the Word of His power—there are implications for events such as this. I suggest that when I let go of a compressed spring and watch it cavort in seeming randomness as it releases its stored energy, it is, despite appearances, not something that “just happens” without the involvement of God. (I would submit that reflection on the meaning of God’s sovereignty leads to the conclusion that God is either in everything, or He is in nothing.)

Similarly, as the tectonic plates off Sumatra slipped past one another and released their huge amount of pent-up power, this (and the titanic consequences for so many) was not something that just “happened”, independent of God. Just as it is not mere happenstance when the sparrow falls from the sky (Matthew 10:29).

But that does not mean that it was a “supernatural” or miraculous event. The sparrow falling can be described in terms of “natural” laws like gravity, but God is “in it” totally, completely. (As has been said before, “natural law” describes God’s “normative” way of operating within this universe. Miracles refer to his non-normative operation.)

Equally, the combinations of genes as sperm meets egg follow the (from our viewpoint) random laws of chance. Thus, if a couple with a certain mix of genes were to have enough children, one could predict that ¾ would be brown-eyed, the remaining ¼ blue, for example—just as determined by the laws of chance. But it would be a gross caricature of God if we were to imagine Him to be uninvolved in the inherited makeup of an individual. Hopefully, not many readers will think that God is helplessly dependent on the outcome of a genetic lottery when it comes to our own abilities and predispositions, both positive and negative. But if we try to avoid God’s responsibility for the killer tsunami, and pass the event off as “natural” (read “truly random”) then we are doing the same thing—we have reduced God, the all-powerful Creator God who created countless galaxies in the blink of an eye, to a helpless or impotent bystander.

To put God at the helm of events, while thoroughly biblical, raises disturbing questions, of course, in the face of the Indian Ocean nightmare. The immense unfairness of it all, for one thing. Poor villagers, already facing enormous handicaps in their ordinary lives, battered emotionally and physically beyond belief. Young children, brutally torn out of their mother’s arms and suffocated by water. But before raging at the unfairness of it all, and at God, we would do well to “zoom out” and look at the bigger picture.

Each day, some hundreds of thousands of people die. We see this as somehow “natural”, yet humanly speaking, what’s fair about that, either? In fact, what’s “fair” about any death? If God prevented all deaths except the death of one solitary person, that one death would also be “unfair”—perhaps even more so.

So the question becomes much bigger; not just “why 9/11” or “why the tsunami tragedy”—it becomes one of “why is there any death and suffering at all?” And it has to be faced squarely by Christians, since we claim to have the answers to the true meaning of life, the universe and everything.

But how can one even begin to give a Christian answer, one with biblical integrity, without taking Genesis history seriously?2 That history tells of the creation of a once-good world, in which death and suffering are not “natural” at all, but are intruders. They occur because of humanity’s rebellion against its maker (Genesis 3). But if fossils formed over millions of years, which so many Christians just blithely accept as “fact”, then that wipes out the Fall as an answer to evil, especially “natural evil”. Because the fossils show the existence of things like death, bloodshed and suffering. So if these were there millions of years ago, they must have been there before man, and hence before sin. This is the rock against which old-age compromises inevitably founder. This is also the reason why the age of things is not some obscure academic debate that Christians can put in the “too-hard-for-now” basket. Because it strikes to the heart of the hugest questions of all in relation to the nature of God, sin, evil, death; questions at the very core of Christian belief (or reasons given for nonbelief, for that matter).

The tsunami and the Flood

The superquake that set off the recent Asian tsunami disaster is believed to have resulted from the sudden slippage of two tectonic plates in the earth’s crust. The most prominent theory today concerning the mechanism of the Genesis Flood is that of Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT). Its chief proponent is leading creationary scientist Dr. John Baumgardner. Dr. Baumgardner, who recently retired after years of service at Los Alamos National Laboratories, is also a world-renowned expert on plate tectonics (involving the current models of the mechanics and dynamics of the earth’s crust). He rejects the millions of years normally associated with plate tectonics and its corollary, “continental drift”, and points to ample scientific evidence to support the view that the movements of continents, for instance, had to have happened relatively quickly. (See The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 11.) Watching the results of a relatively minor (though horrific in its consequences) slippage of two plates against each other, it’s not hard to imagine some of the forces which would have been unleashed at the time of Noah’s Flood—CPT has the entire ocean floor recycled in a matter of weeks. No wonder the Bible has a special Hebrew word (mabbul, different from the ordinary word for “flood”) which it reserves exclusively for the Flood, the cataclysm in the days of Noah that destroyed the earth and is responsible for vast amounts of sedimentary and fossil-bearing layers. Incidentally, Korean naval architects showed that the Ark could have withstood waves 4–5 times taller than this tsunami (only about 20 feet or 6 metres high) see Safety investigation of Noah’s Ark in a seaway.

When we try, however inadequately, to see things from God’s viewpoint rather than our own, things become quite different. There is suddenly nothing unfair about the deaths of any one of us, no matter what the circumstances. God is the sovereign Judge who is totally holy (1 John 1:5). It would therefore be impossible to overstate His utter abhorrence of even the slightest sin. From His perspective, it would be totally lawful and just to wipe out all of us, in whatever fashion.3

But God is also merciful and loving (2 Peter 3:9), and longsuffering. In the most profound display of mercy and grace imaginable, He stepped into our shoes as a man, God the Son. He came to suffer and die, not in some sort of ooey-gooey martyrdom, but so that His righteous anger against sin could be appeased and the penalty paid for those who place their trust in Jesus Christ and receive His free gift—forgiveness of their sin and admission into God’s family—by faith.

There are daily reminders of His Curse on all creation all around us. When they are punctuated by horrifically sad concentrated bursts such as this recent disaster, we are doubly reminded of the awfulness of sin. Does knowing the answers to the “big picture” make us callous to suffering? Far from it. We are moved even more by compassion, just as the Lord Jesus was when He lived among us. Because of Jesus, Christians—those who take the Bible as the Word of God, and know Jesus Christ as the Creator incarnate—will tend to be at the forefront of digging into their pockets to help alleviate the agony. Let me explain how I can say this with confident hope.

A World Vision representative once told me confidentially that it is conservative, Bible-believing churches and Christians who are far and away the most generous givers to that organisation’s efforts to help people in poor countries.4 That makes sense, of course; God’s Word commands us to do good to all men. But if one did not believe the Bible to be really, truly true, there would be a shortage of strong motivating factors to sacrifice heavily for others. Whereas (if I may be forgiven a modest adjustment of the magnificent words of the great missionary, C.T. Studd): “If (since) Christ is God and died for me [i.e., the Bible is really, truly, totally true], then nothing I can do in obedience to Him can ever be too much”.

Addendum (01/04/05)—further resources on our website

Why is there Death and Suffering?—by Ken Ham and Jonathan Sarfati

Why Would a Loving God Allow Suffering

How can you help?

While Creation Ministries International (formerly Answers in Genesis) is not involved directly in any disaster relief efforts, we recognize that many of our readers might want to help. May we recommend that you participate through your local church or a mission agency with which you are familiar. If you are interested in other Christian ministries, please take a look at http://www.gospelcom.net/content/disaster. To participate with the world wide efforts, you can do a google search on “christian tsunami relief.”

References and notes

Even higher figures have been mooted. Some experts have suggested that much of the movement may have been horizontal, not vertical, however.

Incidentally, despite various challenges by unbelievers, there is no burden of explanation on the Christian as to why particular things happened. E.g., why certain people or groups of people died when others did not. As discussed here, a “natural” disaster, despite being totally God’s activity, will (in the absence of the miraculous or non-normative activity of God) follow a pattern that looks “random”. I.e., it will obey the natural laws that describe God’s normative activity. So there is no need to feel philosophically intimidated by reports of a Christian dying while the Hindu next to him is spared, for example. When the Tower of Siloam collapsed and killed people (Luke 13:4-5), Jesus made it plain that they did not die because they were “more sinful” than those who were spared. For more (admittedly inadequate) thoughts on apparent randomness and God’s actions, see my discussion in the book Walking Through Shadows on “butterfly effects” and the “cockroach that killed Princess Diana”.

A skeptic at one of my talks said publicly that the Flood would make God “the biggest mass murderer in history.” But murder is defined as the unlawful killing of innocent human life. First, from God’s perspective post-Fall, there is no such thing as an “innocent human”. And second, the concept of murder presupposes a universal law that such things are wrong, which can only be so if there is a Lawgiver, which the skeptic was trying to deny. As Creator, God has decreed that it is unlawful for a human being to take another human’s life, but the Judge of all the earth does not Himself do wrong when He takes a life, which in a very real sense happens whenever any of us die, regardless of what is called the “proximate” cause (whether tsunami, heart attack or even suicide).

Liberal Christians (i.e., those who take alarming liberties with biblical truths) talk a lot about social justice and helping poor countries—all noble concepts, of course. But in practice, although keen to see laws passed to take money from others, they are as a group less enthusiastic about dipping into their own pockets.

Tsunami Timeline (most recent first)

1/20/05 – 8:00 am — the death toll continues to rise — 225,000 now believed dead throughout the region. Billions of dollars and other forms of aid are pouring in. The UN is spearheading a number of projects, including a world-wide tsunami warning system.

1/4/05 — 1:54 pm — over $2 billion has been donated by governments around the world. An additional $520 million is coming in from private donations.

12/30/04 — 2:30 pm — official estimates top 116,000 dead.

12/30/04 — Indonesian officials change the estimated deaths from 45,000 to 79,940.

12/27/04 — by late Monday official estimates are set at 26,000 dead.

12/26/04 — 10:58 am — only 500 are assumed dead.

12/26/04 — 10:43 am — the tsunami hits Sri Lanka, South India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Bangladesh

12/26/04 — 10:30 am — a 15 foot (5 m) wave hits Sumatra.

12/26/04 — shortly after 7:00 am — a number of aftershocks and subsequent earthquakes are registered by tracking stations around the world.

12/26/04 (Sunday) — 12:00 am GMT, 8:00 am Sri Lanka an undersea earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale shakes the area 160 km off shore.

The tsunami and the Flood

The superquake that set off the recent Asian tsunami disaster is believed to have resulted from the sudden slippage of two tectonic plates in the earth’s crust. The most prominent theory today concerning the mechanism of the Genesis Flood is that of Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT). Its chief proponent is leading creationary scientist Dr. John Baumgardner. Dr. Baumgardner, who recently retired after years of service at Los Alamos National Laboratories, is also a world-renowned expert on plate tectonics (involving the current models of the mechanics and dynamics of the earth’s crust). He rejects the millions of years normally associated with plate tectonics and its corollary, “continental drift”, and points to ample scientific evidence to support the view that the movements of continents, for instance, had to have happened relatively quickly. (See The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 11.) Watching the results of a relatively minor (though horrific in its consequences) slippage of two plates against each other, it’s not hard to imagine some of the forces which would have been unleashed at the time of Noah’s Flood—CPT has the entire ocean floor recycled in a matter of weeks. No wonder the Bible has a special Hebrew word (mabbul, different from the ordinary word for “flood”) which it reserves exclusively for the Flood, the cataclysm in the days of Noah that destroyed the earth and is responsible for vast amounts of sedimentary and fossil-bearing layers. Incidentally, Korean naval architects showed that the Ark could have withstood waves 4–5 times taller than this tsunami (only about 20 feet or 6 metres high) see Safety investigation of Noah’s Ark in a seaway.

Voir encore:

Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Tsunami: It was a Punishment from Allah for Celebrating Christmas and Other Sins; It was Caused by the U.S., Israel, India

Special Dispatch No. 842

MEMRI

January 7, 2005

Following practically all international events of importance, conspiracy theories are raised in the Arab and Muslim worlds. This occurred most recently following the Asian tsunami. Some of these conspiracy theories focused, as they often do, on allegations that it was a plot by the U.S. and Israel. Others speculated that the tsunami was a divine punishment for sins, including that of celebrating Christmas. The following are speeches and articles which appeared in the Arab media raising conspiracy theories about the cause of the tsunami; more will be posted on the MEMRI TV Project website (www.memritv.org) in the coming days:

Palestinian Friday Sermon by Sheik Mudeiris: The Tsunami is Allah’s Revenge at Bangkok Corruption

The following are excerpts from a Friday mosque sermon aired on Palestinian Authority TV by Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, which was recorded and translated by the MEMRI TV Monitor Project:

 » What happened there, in South-East Asia … we ask God to have mercy upon all the martyrs – for he who dies by drowning is a martyr. We ask God to have mercy upon all the Muslims who died there. Allah willing, they are martyrs. But, don’t you think that the wrath of the earth and the wrath of the sea should make us reflect? Tens of thousands dead, and many predict that the number will be in the hundreds of thousands. We ask God for forgiveness. When oppression and corruption increase, the law of equilibrium applies. I can see in your eyes that you are wondering what the ‘universal law of equilibrium’ is. This law is a divine law. If people are remiss in implementing God’s law and in being zealous and vengeful for His sake, Allah sets his soldiers in action to take revenge.

« The oppression and corruption caused by America and the Jews have increased. Have you heard of these beaches that are called ‘tourists’ paradise?’ You have all probably heard of Bangkok. We read about it, and knew it as the center of corruption on the face of this earth. Over there, there are Zionist and American investments. Over there they bring Muslims and others to prostitution. Over there, there are beaches, which they dubbed ‘tourists’ paradise,’ while only a few meters away, the locals live in hell on earth. They cannot make ends meet, while a few meters away there is a paradise, ‘tourists’ paradise.’

« Do you want the earth to turn a blind eye to the corrupt oppressors? Do you want the sea… Do you want the sea to lower its waves in the face of corruption that it sees with its own eyes?! No, the zero hour has come. »[1]

Advisor to Saudi Arabia’s Justice Minister: The Nations were Destroyed for Lying, Sinning, and being Infidels

Ibrahim Al-Bashar, an advisor to Saudi Arabia’s Justice Minister, argued on the Saudi Arabian/UAE Al-Majd TV channel that the sins of the affected countries caused the tsunami:

« Whoever reads the Koran, given by the Maker of the World, can see how these nations were destroyed. There is one reason: they lied, they sinned, and [they] were infidels. Whoever studies the Koran can see this is the result…

« Some intellectuals, philosophers, and journalists – may Allah show them the straight path – say this is the wrath of nature. Whoever is angry must have a soul and a brain in order to act out his anger. Does the earth have a brain and a body with a soul? They talk about the wrath of nature, or else they claim that what happened was due to a fissure in the depths of the earth, which the earth’s crust could not bear. They connect cosmic matters.

« But who is the one that cracked it, split it, and commanded it to quake?! Why don’t we ask that question? Who is the one that sent the wind? Who sent the floods? But they tell you that it was due to the ebb and tide, and that the barometric depressions are to blame. Who commanded them to do so?

« These countries, in which these things occurred – don’t they refrain from adopting Allah’s law, which is a form of heresy? Man-made laws have been chosen over Allah’s law, which has been deemed unsuitable to judge people?! Whoever does not act according to Allah’s law is a heretic, that’s what Allah said in the Koran. Don’t these countries have witchcraft, sorcery, deceitfulness, and abomination? »[2]

Saudi Professor Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan: Allah Punishes for Homosexuality and Fornication at Christmas

The following are excerpts from an interview on Saudi/UAE’s Al-Majd TV with Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan, a professor at the Al-Imam University, which was recorded and translated by the MEMRI TV Monitor Project:

« These great tragedies and collective punishments that are wiping out villages, towns, cities, and even entire countries, are Allah’s punishments of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims.

« Some of our forefathers said that if there is usury and fornication in a certain village, Allah permits its destruction. We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant. The fact that it happened at this particular time is a sign from Allah. It happened at Christmas, when fornicators and corrupt people from all over the world come to commit fornication and sexual perversion. That’s when this tragedy took place, striking them all and destroyed everything. It turned the land into wasteland, where only the cries of the ravens are heard. I say this is a great sign and punishment on which Muslims should reflect.

« All that’s left for us to do is to ask for forgiveness. We must atone for our sins, and for the acts of the stupid people among us and improve our condition. We must fight fornication, homosexuality, usury, fight the corruption on the face of the earth, and the disregard of the lives of protected people. »[3]

Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajjid: Allah Finished Off the Richter Scale in Revenge of Infidel Criminals

The following are excerpts from an interview on Saudi/UAE’s Al-Majd TV with Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajjid, which was recorded and translated by the MEMRI TV Monitor Project:

« The problem is that the [Christian] holidays are accompanied by forbidden things, by immorality, abomination, adultery, alcohol, drunken dancing, and … and revelry. A belly dancer costs 2500 pounds per minute and a singer costs 50,000 pounds per hour, and they hop from one hotel to another from night to dawn. Then he spends the entire night defying Allah.

« Haven’t they learned the lesson from what Allah wreaked upon the coast of Asia, during the celebration of these forbidden? At the height of immorality, Allah took vengeance on these criminals.

« Those celebrating spent what they call ‘New Year’s Eve’ in vacation resorts, pubs, and hotels. Allah struck them with an earthquake. He finished off the Richter scale. All nine levels gone. Tens of thousands dead.

« It was said that they were tourists on New Year’s vacation who went to the crowded coral islands for the holiday period, and then they were struck by this earthquake, caused by the Almighty Lord of the worlds. He showed them His wrath and His strength. He showed them His vengeance. Is there anyone learning the lesson? Is it impossible that we will be struck like them? Why do we go their way? Why do we want to be like them, with their holidays, their forbidden things, and their heresy? »[4]

Egyptian Nationalist Weekly: U.S.-Israel-India Nuclear Testing May have Caused Asian Tsunami; The Goal: Testing how to Liquidate Humanity

The Egyptian nationalist weekly Al-Usbu’ has published an investigation by correspondent Mahmoud Bakri, titled « Humanity in Danger, » claiming that the earthquake and tsunami in Asia may have resulted from joint nuclear testing by the U.S., Israel, and India. The following are excerpts from the article:

« Was [the earthquake] caused by American, Israeli, and Indian nuclear testing on ‘the day of horror?’ Why did the ‘Ring of Fire’ explode?

« … According to researchers’ estimates, there are two possible [explanations] for what happened. The first is a natural, divine move, because the region is in the ‘Ring of Fire,’ a region subject to this destructive type of earthquakes.

 » The second possibility is that it was some kind of human intervention that destabilized the tectonic plates, an intervention that is caused only in nuclear experiments and explosions. What strengthens this direction [of thought] are the tectonic plates [under] Indian soil [ sic ], since in the recent few months, India conducted over seven nuclear tests to strengthen its nuclear program against the Pakistani [nuclear program].

« [Various] reports have proven that the tectonic plates in India and Australia collided with the tectonic plates of Europe and Asia. [It has also been proven] that India recently obtained high[-level] nuclear technology, and a number of Israeli nuclear experts and several American research centers were [involved in preparing this].

« The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate humanity. In the[ir] most recent test, they began destroying entire cities over extensive areas. Although the nuclear explosions were carried out in desert lands, tens of thousands of kilometers away from populated areas, they had a direct effect on these areas.

« Since 1992, many research [institutes] monitoring earthquakes across the world, such as the International Center for the [Study] of Earthquakes [sic] in Britain and in Turkey and other countries, [indicated] the importance of no nuclear testing in the ‘Ring of Fire,’ where the most recent earthquake struck, because this region is thought to be one of the most geologically active regions over millions of years. Thus, the international centers have always classified it as one of the most dangerous regions [and] likely to shift at any given moment, even without human interference.

« But the scientific reports stated that there had been nuclear activity in this region – particularly after America’s recent decision to rely largely on the Australian desert – part of which is inside the ‘Ring of Fire’ – for its secret nuclear testing.

« Similarly, many international reports spoke of joint Indian-Israeli nuclear activity. Moreover, only this year Arab and Islamic countries intervened more than three times in the U.S. to stop this joint nuclear activity.

« Nevertheless, although so far it has not been proven that secret Indian-Israeli nuclear testing is what caused the destructive earthquake, there is evidence that the recent nuclear tests, the exchange of nuclear experts between India and Israel, and the American pressure on Pakistan regarding its nuclear cooperation with Asian and Islamic countries [by providing India with advanced nuclear technology in an attempt to stop Pakistani activity] – all these pose a big question mark regarding the causes of the severe earthquake in Asia.

« Scientific studies prove that there is increasing nuclear activity under the waters of the oceans and seas … and that America is the first country in the world responsible for this activity. This raises an enormous question mark… What is puzzling is that all the previous earthquakes did not cause such great destruction [as this one], particularly [in light of the fact that] the earthquake’s center was some 40 kilometers under the seabed of the Indian Ocean.

« One of the American researchers, Merrills Kinsey,[5]pointed out an important fact in the scientific report that he prepared after the last disaster, which is that the center of an earthquake that took place some 40 kilometers under the ocean floor could not have caused such destruction unless nuclear testing had been conducted close to the tectonic plates in these countries, or unless several days previously there had been [nuclear] activity that caused these plates to shift and collide – which constitutes a danger to all humanity, not only to the inhabitants of these countries… »[6]

[1]Palestinian Authority TV, December 31, 2005. To view the clip, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=451.

[2]Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia/UAE), January 5, 2005. To view the clip, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=462.

[3]Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia/UAE), December 31, 2004. To view the clip, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=459.

[4]Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia/UAE), January 1, 2005. To view the clip, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=452.

[5]The name was not identified by MEMRI.

[6]Al-Usbu’ (Egypt), January 1, 2005.

Voir encore:

Powerlessness of God?

A Critical Appraisal of Hans Jonas’s Idea of God after Auschwitz

Hans Hermann Henrix

I. On the truth of authentic and fictional texts

Among the Jewish contributions that echo the abysmal terror of Auschwitz and express the horror of the Shoah, many touching and authentic reports are found. To those who are driven by the question of how, in the face of the reality of Auschwitz, we can think and talk about God at all, texts exploring the existence and the perception of God in view of the events of the Shoah take on a definitive importance for their life and faith. One person’s heart and mind may have been indelibly branded by Elie Wiesel’s story in which the boy Pipel, during his protracted death at the gallows on the Auschwitz roll-call square, asks « Where is God? »1 Another may turn again to a text such as « Jossel Son of Jossel Rackower of Tarnopol Talks to God, » that « beautiful and true text, as true as only fiction can be, » presented as a document reporting on the final hours of resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.2

A third person, fearing perhaps to be touched too closely by such fictional witnesses to the struggle for God and looking instead to the theoretical/intellectual debate, may turn to Emil Fackenheim’s « commanding voice of Auschwitz »3– a text that, by keeping an equilibrium between theodicy and anthropodicy, wants to transmit to the Jewish people the call issuing from Auschwitz for a new, eleventh commandment: namely, to protect and maintain the Jewish people and the Jewish faith, so as not to give Hitler a posthumous victory.

II. Hans Jonas – a Jewish voice in dark times

Does « The Idea of God After Auschwitz » by Hans Jonas (1903-1993)4 also belong among these texts? The author understands his contribution to be « a Jewish voice in dark times. » Not mincing words, he calls his lecture « a piece of undisguisedly speculative theology. » (p.7) It is theology in the garb of a theodicy, and theodicy not so much as a question but as an answer, an answer that seems to exonerate God from being responsible for the evil in the world, and thus for Auschwitz. Maybe it is this character of his contribution that has attracted considerable appreciation for Hans Jonas’s lecture within German-language Christian theology and philosophy5 – a kind of attention that Christian theology has only very hesitantly given to the other Jewish voices mentioned.6 What then is special about his « idea of God after Auschwitz »?

Anyone who approaches Hans Jonas’s thought by way of his works on the philosophy of nature and technology as well as on ethics7 would not in the first instance expect to find an interest in theology and the history of religion, since his philosophical work seems to breathe a pronounced scepticism in respect of the idea of God, which he considers in the context of modern nihilism. His ethics has a causal horizon that does not seem to have a place for God.8 And yet, the God-question has never let go of him. This became apparent to the German-speaking public when in his expression of thanks on receiving the Dr. Leopold Lucas Award from the Faculty of Protestant Theology at Tübingen University in 1984, he chose to speak on the « The Idea of God After Auschwitz, » a line of thought that he presented again later that year before a large audience at the Munich Assembly of German Catholics. During the final years of his life, he frequently revisited the tension between the nihilistic scepticism in his philosophical works on the one hand and his continued interest in the question of God on the other.9

The theme for his Tübingen speech of thanks « pressed » itself on him « irresistibly » because Jonas’s mother and the mother of the donor of the award had shared the fate of being murdered at Auschwitz. He chose the topic in « fear and trembling, » since it had existential depth: « I believe I owed it to those shadows, not to deny them some sort of answer to their long faded-away cries to a mute God » (7). The screams of the murdered souls still echo in the lament of the survivor, expressed in the phrase « a mute God. » Hans Jonas’s answer to the faded-away cries of the murdered drives a profoundly human and existential wedge into the philosophical/theological rock face. This context of real-life history must be kept in mind whenever his deliberations take on a speculative hue that might seem to be removed from everything human.

« What is it that Auschwitz has added to the measure of the fearsome and horrible misdeeds that human beings could perpetrate on other human beings, and ever have perpetrated? » (10) This is the question that Auschwitz has provoked in Hans Jonas. He answers it in an indirect manner, by explaining that traditional answers do not apply to the question of God any longer. The idea of the Shoah as something that God has visited on the disloyal people of the covenant is of no more help to him in explaining the Shoah than the idea, first formulated in the age of the Maccabees, of the witness of the suffering one, the martyr, who by his sacrifice and the giving of his life strengthens the promise of redemption by the coming Messiah. In accordance with this, even the « sanctifying of the name » (kiddush-hashem) in medieval martyr-piety is not longer of any use. « Auschwitz, devouring even the innocent children, knew nothing of all this…. Not a trace of human nobility was left to those who were destined to undergo the « final solution, » not a trace of it was recognizable in the figures of those ghostly skeletons who survived long enough to see the camp liberated » (12f.). For Jews, who consider this life the arena of God’s creation, revelation, and redemption, God is the guardian of this arena, the Lord of history. Thus Auschwitz, to the believing Jew, calls into question « the entire traditional idea of God. » It adds to the Jewish notion of history « a new dimension that has never existed before, something that the inherited theological categories cannot cope with » (14). This is the preface, the prologue to the credo of Hans Jonas, who does not want to give up the idea of God. He can also express the preliminary sketch of his credo, which despite everything still reckons with the existence of God, in another way:

« The notion of ‘the Lord of history’ will have to be given up » – this is the anticipated outcome of his credo (14). By employing the twin perspectives of theology and philosophy of religion, Jonas asks, as it were, under what conditions a history could be possible in which something like Auschwitz could happen. From his point of view, a God ruling history and interfering in its course of events « with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm » is not one of the conditions of possibility of a history containing the fact of the Shoah. Jonas sees the relationship of God to history in a different light. To think of God in view of Auschwitz means to him that we already have to think differently of God the Creator. This notion of God the Creator Jonas proceeds to delineate in a way « that makes it possible to articulate the experience of Auschwitz in a theological sense. »10 In order to develop the idea of God on a transcendental level, Hans Jonas turns to a « self-conceived myth. » (15)

III. Hans Jonas’s self-conceived myth and its theological significance

In the beginning, for unknowable reasons, the ground of being, or the divine, chose to give itself over to the chance and risk and endless variety of becoming. And wholly so: entering into the adventure of space and time, the deity held back nothing of itself – no uncommitted or unimpaired part remained to direct, correct, and ultimately guarantee the roundabout working out of its destiny in the creation. On this unconditional immanence the modern temper insists. It is its courage or despair, in any case its bitter honesty, to take our being-in-the-world seriously: to view the world as left to itself, its laws as brooking no interference, and the rigour of our belonging to it as not softened by an extramundane providence. Our myth demands the same for God’s being-in-the-world. Not, however, in the sense of a pantheistic immanence…. But rather, in order that the world might be, and be for itself, God renounced his own being, divesting himself of his deity – to receive it back from the Odyssey of time laden with the chance harvest of unforeseeable temporal experience; transfigured, or possibly even disfigured, by it. In such self-forfeiture of divine integrity for the sake of an unprejudiced becoming, no other foreknowledge can be admitted than that of possibilities which cosmic being offers in its own terms. To these conditions God committed his cause, effacing himself for the sake of the world. (15-17)

Jonas traces the fate of God’s effacing himself into the world through the course of time. He conceives of this course of time in an evolutionary manner. In the aeons before life begins to stir, the world does not yet harbour any danger to the God abandoning himself to it. This danger only begins to accrue when biological evolution becomes ever more multifarious and intensive: Eternity gathers strength, « filling little by little with the contents of self-affirmation, and for the first time now the awakening God can say that the creation is good » (18). Along with life, however, there arose death; mortality thus became the price to pay for a higher kind of existence, which out of the momentum of its evolutionary development produces the human being. The arrival of the human being also has its price, that is to say, God will have to pay the price now for his cause « possibly going wrong » (20), as the innocence of life now « has given way to the task of responsibility under the disjunction of good and evil. To the promise and risk of this agency, the divine cause, revealed at last, henceforth finds itself committed: and its issue trembles in the balance. The image of God … passes into the precarious trust of human beings, to be completed, saved, or spoiled by what they will do to themselves and the world. » (23) God’s fate is accomplished within a context of worrying and hopeful observing, accompanying, and tracking human activities, or rather, as Jonas himself puts it: Transcendence « from now on accompanies (human) actions with baited breath, hoping and wooing, rejoicing and sorrowing, with satisfaction and disappointment, and, as I would like to believe, making itself felt to humanity, without however intervening in the dynamics of that scene of mundane activities. » (23f.)

Hans Jonas’s myth has originality, rhetorical power, and speculative strength. His preferred means of expression is imagery. We at once begin to notice the wealth of consequences for the traditionally accepted notion of God arising from this scheme. As he himself admits, Jonas became aware of this only gradually. And he feels himself obliged to « link » his scheme « in a responsible way with the tradition of Jewish religious thought. » (24)

His myth speaks implicitly of a suffering God as well as a developing and a caring God. The biblical « idea of divine majesty » (26) only at first sight contradicts the notion of the suffering God, for the Hebrew Bible is certainly capable of describing quite eloquently the grief, remorse, and disappointment God experiences with regard to humans and in particular with regard to his chosen people. The thought of a becoming God may run counter to the idea emanating from classical Greek philosophy and introduced into the theological teaching of the attributes and its claim of the unchangeability of God; but as far as Jonas is concerned, it in inherent « in the sheer fact » that God « is affected by what happens in the world, and that ‘being affected’ means being altered, being in a changed situation. So that if in fact God has any kind of relationship to the world … then by virtue of this alone, the Eternal has become ‘temporized’ » (28f.). The notion of a caring God then defines more closely this « temporization » of God: « That God takes care of and cares for his creatures belongs among the most familiar tenets of Jewish faith » (31).11

Up to this point Hans Jonas considers his myth compatible with the Jewish theological tradition. He admits to incompatibility with it, though, at the point where he feels compelled to negate God’s omnipotence. « In our speculative venture, the most critical point is reached when we have to say: He is not an omnipotent God! For the sake of our image of God and our whole relationship to the divine, we cannot maintain the time-honored (medieval) doctrine of absolute, unlimited divine power » (33). His negation of divine omnipotence at this early stage, before coming to the problem of Auschwitz, Jonas derives from problems inherent in the concept of omnipotence. Thus he argues on the level of logical thought that omnipotence, as « absolute auto-potency, » in its solitude was in no position to exert power on anything. It was a power without resistance, and hence without power (33f.). Theologically, he formulates it as follows: « We can have divine omnipotence together with divine goodness only at the price of complete divine inscrutability…. More generally speaking, the three attributes … absolute goodness, absolute power, and understandability, stand in such a relationship that any combination of two of them excludes the third. »12

To deny the qualities of goodness and understandability to God would mean to destroy his divinity and to state an idea of God quite unacceptable « according to Jewish norms. » Therefore the notion of omnipotence, already seen to be dubious, must be relinquished.

Doing away with the omnipotence of God could however, Jonas believes, still be expressed theologically « within the continuity of the Jewish heritage, » for this limitation of divine power might be interpreted as « a concession made by God … which he could revoke whenever he felt like it. » (40) Here we have the idea of a self-chosen, retractable limitation of God’s power. This self-limitation of God, however, does not satisfy Jonas, for it would leave incomprehensible what has actually happened in history. Auschwitz would not have been confronted theologically; God would be conceived of without taking Auschwitz into account. For in Jonas’s view a freely chosen self-limitation of God with regard to his own power that could be revoked at any time would allow us « to expect that the good Lord might now and again break his self-imposed rule of exercising extreme restraint in imposing his power, and might intervene with a miraculous rescue. But no such miracle occurred; throughout the years of the Auschwitz slaughter, God remained silent. The miracles that occurred were the work of human beings alone: the acts of bravery of those individual, mostly nameless « righteous among the nations » who did not shrink from even the ultimate sacrifice to rescue others, to relieve their suffering, and even, if there was no alternative, to share in the fate of Israel. … But God remained silent. At this point I say: He did not interfere not because he did not wish to, but because he was not able to. » (41f.)

Jonas now can simultaneously think of Auschwitz and God only at the price of foregoing talk of a God with « a strong hand and an outstretched arm. » In view of Auschwitz, one must posit « the powerlessness of God » with regard to physical events. God, however, not only opts for this powerlessness in the course of history, but wills it into creation itself. Already creation out of nothing was by itself an act of self-restriction, « a self-limitation that allows for the existence and autonomy of a world. Creation itself was the act of an absolute sovereignty that for the sake of the existence of self-determined finiteness agreed no longer to be absolute. » (45)

Jonas finds a clue for his speculative venture of formulating his concept of God and the Creator in this manner in the « highly original and quite unorthodox speculations » of the Jewish Kabbalah surrounding the idea of zimzum. The divine zimzum as a form of « contraction, a retreat, a form of self-imposed moderation » is a precondition for the creation of the world. « In order to create space for the world to exist … the Eternal One had to withdraw into himself, thus creating emptiness, the void in which and from which he could create the world. Without this withdrawal into himself there could be nothing else outside of God. » (46)13

Jonas is able to support his myth of God renouncing his power with reference to the medieval idea of zimzum, while at the same time revising it. In zimzum, as the Kabbalah understands it, God retains his sovereignty vis-à-vis a creation that has become possible. In this context he remains a sovereign counterpart to the world; his contraction and withdrawal is only partial. Jonas, however, postulates a total contraction, a contraction not towards a void, but towards an unconditional immanence (cf. 16): Infinity in terms of its power empties itself « as a whole into finiteness » and in this way hands itself over to the latter. » (46) God retains nothing that remains untouched and immune (cf.16). This, however, raises the question: « Does this leave any room for a relationship to God? » Transcendence seems entirely steeped in and dissolved into immanence. Whether transcendence emerges once more from immanence is, paradoxically enough, up to the decision of human beings. For this is the sense in which Hans Jonas answers the question he himself has raised: « Having given himself wholly to the becoming world, God has no more to give, it is our turn now to give to him. » This is what humans do, whenever they take care that God must not regret having created the world. Hans Jonas is of the opinion that « this could well be the secret of the unknown « thirty-six righteous ones » who, according to Jewish teaching, the world will never be without, in order to safeguard its continued existence. » (47)14 Jonas counts on the possibility that further « righteous ones » have existed even « in our times, » and so in Auschwitz as well; in this context he remembers « the righteous among the nations » whom he has mentioned before, who in the abyss of the Shoah gave their lives for Israel. In the thirty-six righteous ones, a transcendence wholly hidden in immanence manifests itself as « holiness, » a holiness that « is capable of offsetting immeasurable guilt, of settling the debt run up by a whole generation, and of saving the peace of the invisible realm. »(48) Auschwitz, in Jonas’s thought, is the place where the notion of a God who has restricted himself fails; it is also the place where, from the ashes of this failed notion of God, God’s inscrutable transcendence appears in the form of holiness in the figures of the righteous one. Here his self-conceived myth is transformed into existential thought.

IV. An appraisal of Hans Jonas’s understanding of God

The myth Hans Jonas has created is a moving and challenging proposal. He weighs the traditional manner of speaking of God. In the face of the Shoah he wishes to speak of God. And he does this with pointed reference to the modern problematic of theodicy: any talk of God’s kindness and omnipotence is tested in the face of Auschwitz and in relation to the demand for understandability in God. The understandability of God is a guiding principle for Jonas. It is in the face of this criterion that talk of God has to prove itself. This is where it has its forensic element, based on reason.15 Although Jonas does not demand a thoroughgoing intelligibility, he nevertheless insists on the requirement « that we be able to understand God, not entirely of course, but to some extent…. If God, however, is to be understandable (in certain ways and to a certain extent) – and this is something we must adhere to – then his goodness must be compatible with the existence of evil, which it can only be if he is not omnipotent. » (38f.)

Jonas finds his principle of understandability quite centrally anchored in Jewish tradition: « a deus absconditus, a hidden God (not to speak of an absurd God), is a deeply un-Jewish notion. » (38) That this is somewhat controversial, however, within Jewish thought, is evident in any understanding of Jewish faith that orients itself to the testing of Abraham, i.e. God’s demand that he sacrifice his son Isaac. Thus Michael Wyschogrod can state that « Jewish belief … from the very beginning is a belief that God can do what is incomprehensible in human terms, » and with a view to Auschwitz he adds: « In our day and age this includes the belief that despite Auschwitz, God will fulfil his promise to redeem Israel and the world. Am I able to grasp how this is possible? No. »16

This Jewish position refuses to accept the modern variant of theodicy, since it does not consider valid a judging of God-talk before the tribunal of reason. Jonas, however, following his basic principle of understandability, opts for a discourse within the context of the modern problem of theodicy. For what he has to say, he is quite well able to find the appropriate Jewish words,17 and is capable also of transmitting his ideas in the traditional categories of Jewish thought, even though he describes them as « self-invented » (15), that is to say, developed in his own name and at his own risk. He is well aware of this. And by his own acknowledgment, he deviates « rather decisively from the most ancient Jewish teaching » (42).18 Does that mean, then, that he finds himself even more removed from Christian teaching? The Christian reader should not be too quick to jump to conclusions on this point. Rather, such a reader is left with an ambiguous impression of closeness and difference at the same time. One is tempted to associate the impression of closeness with what Hans Urs von Balthasar calls « formal Christology »19, whereas the difference may consist in his theodicy being a « Christology without Christ. »

As to associating Jonas’s myth with the term « formal Christology, » one finds a basis for this in his own writings. More than twenty years before his Tübingen word of thanks, Jonas had outlined his myth for the first time in a lecture on « Immortality and Our Contemporary Existence »20 and had submitted this idea to his teacher and colleague Rudolf Bultmann. In the enjoining correspondence with his colleague21, Jonas depicts the adventure of God of getting involved in the world and its history by using a Christian notion, and in conversing with his Christian partner he does not shy away from speaking of a « total incarnation » or of the « full risk » or « sacrifice of the incarnation. » He even tolerated his myth being labeled a « non-trinitarian myth of incarnation. » Knowing of such characterizations, Jonas twenty years later warned his Tübingen audience against getting the terminology of his own myth mixed up with the Christian connotations implied in it: « It [his myth] does not, like the Christian expression ‘the suffering God,’ speak of a unique act in which the Deity, at a certain moment in time and for the express purpose of the redemption of humanity, send part of itself into a certain situation characterized by suffering. Rather, in his view the almost incarnate relationship of God to the world had been a relationship full of suffering on the part of God « from creation onwards. » (25) Yet the fact that he had to warn of confusing them and had to make a clear distinction between them, points to the closeness of the two notions.

A further indication of the closeness of Jonas’s thought to Christian theology in this point, a closeness that of course implies neither congruence nor agreement, is seen in the fact that also on the Christian side, the classical idea of God has entered a critical stage, and that this crisis of the Christian theistic understanding of God is, above all, a crisis of the idea of divine power.22 Dogmatics, which had been shaped by Hellenistic philosophy, has rediscovered the « human » features in the biblical image of God, not least on the basis of contemporary experience, as with Hans Jonas (cf. 41f.). God’s predicates of compassion and the ability to experience pain are again increasingly emphasized in Christian theology. Such developments, however, lead to new interpretations of God’s omnipotence as the power of God’s love. Even before Hans Jonas spoke up, Jürgen Moltmann, quite significantly, interpreted the role of God’s power of creation in terms of the Jewish kabbalistic notion of zimzum, and postulated that a kind of self-limitation of the omnipotent and ubiquitous God had preceded the act of creation: « God creates … by means of and through withdrawing from creation. » The power of creation had to be considered « a self-humiliation of God towards his own impotence, » « a work of divine humility and equally a divine form of self-communion. When God acts as Creator, he acts upon himself. His actions are founded in his passion. »23 In the context of the theology of Creation, Jonas’s concept also forces Eberhard Jüngel to specify the notion of the original beginning « in terms of divine self-limitation. »24 Thus these Christian theologians and Hans Jonas are equally inspired by the kabbalistic idea of zimzum as a point of reference for interpreting the myth of creation.

Such closeness is not restricted to the idea of God’s power of creation and God the Creator alone. It also arises from considering the Christian understanding of divine power in relation to history. According to the myth established by Jonas, God attends human activities « with baited breath, hoping and wooing » (23), and for « the period of the world proceeding on its way, » i.e., as long as history lasts, he has « foregone all power of intervention in the physical course of mundane events. » God responds « to the impact of such mundane events on his own being … not by a show of ‘mighty hand and outstretched arm,’ … but by the mutely penetrating wooing of his unachieved aim » (42). There is a school of Christian theology that likewise interprets the attitude of the powerful God towards history and the actions of humans in terms analogous to this idea of God’s « wooing. » American process theology, which thinks of God, by virtue of his being a loving God, as sensitive, vulnerable, even dependent, aims to modify the idea of the omnipotence of God towards the notion that « God executes his power only in terms of his wooing humans and desiring to convince them, without being able to guarantee success. Thus God, in his love towards the world he created, runs a daring risk. »25

One need not agree with the controversial theological assumptions and conclusions of process theology to be able to understand from a Christian viewpoint the intervention of God and his power in history under the image of divine wooing. Johannes B. Brantschen, for instance, finds it possible, in connection with the New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), to speak of God’s omnipotence as the coexistence of power and the powerlessness of love, and to interpret it in the following way: « This is the unprecedented event: God, the sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth, begs for our love, but the almighty Father is powerless, as long as we humans do not answer the call of his obliging love from our very heart – for love without freedom is nothing but a piece of rigid iron. This powerlessness of love we experience today as the silence of God, or perhaps better, the discretion of God. God is discrete, at times even frighteningly discrete. … However, God in his discrete love has put enough light into his signs to be discovered by those who search for him. God takes us seriously. He is discrete, because he loves us. That is the divine delicacy. … God suffers as long as his love is not appreciated … This waiting is God’s way of experiencing pain. »26

Brantschen formulates his thoughts with special reference to the individual’s experience of illness and suffering, rather than vis-a-vis Auschwitz. That gives a somewhat parenetic and pastoral touch to his words and can lead to the aesthetic realm. Interestingly, Rudolf Bultmann asked Jonas the critical question of whether his myth might not remain « in the realm of aesthetics, » and whether his idea of God in the last resort might not be « an aesthetic concept. »27 In his reply, Hans Jonas insists that God’s committing his fate to human beings demands of the latter not an aesthetic, but an ethical response.28 And yet one has to ask Jonas whether his depiction of God’s response to what is happening in the world as an « intense but mute wooing » does not remain too firmly imbedded in the area of aesthetic judgement, which has the character not of a demand, but a request. « Time is the waiting of God, who begs for our love, » Simone Weil once said. Emmanuel Levinas, when confronted with this statement, at once put in a correction, by adding: « [Time is the waiting of God] who commands our love. »29 Instead of God’s wooing, his command; instead of an aesthetic « enticement, » an ethical summons before the tribunal of never ending responsibility.

Another question arises from the coordination of immanence and transcendence of God in Hans Jonas’s myth. If the divine basis of all existence retains no unaffected and immune « part » of itself, but entirely and unconditionally melts into immanence, then God’s transcendence not only becomes unknowable epistemologically, but also dissolves ontologically. The total immanence of transcendence, when taken with radical seriousness, is in the last resort a lonely kind of immanence, in which an intense but mute wooing of transcendence cannot take place any longer, nor can an uprising, an epiphany of transcendence be expected. Christian theology responds to the intellectual difficulties of Jonas’s myth with the Incarnation, understood on a Trinitarian basis: the Son enters history and the world, while the Father who sends out his Son in the Spirit continues to be God as a counterpart to the world.30 A formal Christology lacking the figure of Christ along the lines of Hans Jonas’s myth will hardly be able to solve the intellectual problem involved in the coordination of transcendence and immanence.31 Not all Jewish descendence or kenosis theology, though, is affected by this objection. The classical Jewish teaching about God’s bending down to humans refers to the God who is « seated on high » being enthroned in the heights » and « looks far down on the earth, and raises the poor from the dust » (cf. Psalm 113:6f.). Post-biblical tradition urges: « Wherever you find the greatness of the Holy One, praised be He, you will also find his humbleness. This is written in the Torah, is repeated in the words of the Prophets, and returns in the Writings for the third time » (bMeg 31a). The link between the descending God and the God of the heights is inseparable, so that transcendence does not dissolve into immanence.

The theoretical/intellectual problem in the myth of Hans Jonas of not being able to find one’s way out of the contradiction between total immanence and a nevertheless maintained transcendence, returns on the level of his more existentialist mode of expression. On the one hand, Jonas states regarding Auschwitz « no miraculous rescue happened; throughout the years of the fury at Auschwitz, God kept silent, » while on the other hand, he continues, « the miracles that occurred were the work of human beings alone: [they were] the acts of those individual, often unknown ‘righteous among the nations’ who did not shun even the ultimate sacrifice. » (41) Jonas now says of these righteous among the nations that « their hidden holiness is capable of making up for immeasurable guilt. » (48) Yet must not the holiness of the righteous in the context of Jonas’s mythological manner of speaking be understood as the salvation of God’s own cause, arising from the innermost essence of divine existence (cf. 23f.), as an echo of his intense but mute wooing, indeed, as the very manner of his being present, of his speaking? Looked at from the vantage point of Jonas’s own assumptions, would it not then be God himself speaking in the holiness of the righteous? And would we not then confront the tension between the absence of miracles and the simultaneous occurring of miracles, the tension between God being silent and yet speaking through the holiness of the righteous?

Finally, we will consider the contribution of Hans Jonas’s proposal to theodicy. His concept of God presents a powerless God, a defenseless God – a figure whom Christian theology has every reason to think about. In an exchange with E. Levinas about this question, Bishop Klaus Hemmerle spoke most impressively about God’s defenselessness, which in a process of self-denial reaches the point where he can do nothing but ask humans for their love. To this Levinas replied: « Such defenselessness in this situation, however, costs many suffering human lives. Can we speak in such a manner? We are not involved in a disputation on God’s capacity to sympathize with those who suffer. I don’t understand this notion of ‘defenselessness’ today, after Auschwitz. After what happened at Auschwitz, it sometimes seems to me to mean that the good Lord is asking for a kind of love that holds no element of promise. That is how I think of it: the meaning of Auschwitz is a form of suffering and of believing quite without any promise in return. That is to say: tout-à-fait gratuit. But then I say to myself: it costs too much – not to the good Lord, but to humankind. That is my critique, my lack of understanding with regard to the idea of defenselessness. This powerless kenosis has cost humanity all too dearly. »32

If Levinas’s objection is a Jewish critique of the Christian understanding of divine self-renunciation in Jesus Christ, it also touches Jonas’s own myth of God relinquishing himself towards immanence. Here as well, God has undergone a powerless kenosis which « costs humanity all too dearly. » The price of the truth of Jonas’s myth appears to be too high. The objection that God’s powerless kenosis costs human beings too much moves toward an understanding which – here going beyond Levinas – contains the promise of justice even to those who perished at Auschwitz. Suing for such justice means to make room for the « lamenting human complaint to God about the horrors occurring in his creation. » This is the whole point of the question of theodicy, as Johann Baptist Metz so insistently keeps asking it.33 And in this respect, Jonas’s scheme seems oppressive, and lacking in any form of promise. His call for God-talk to appear before the bar of understandability and be challenged by this-worldly history leads to forsaking the idea of God’s omnipotence and leaves a total absence of promise to those who have suffered in the past and to the dead of the Shoah.34

Do we really have to forsake talking about the omnipotence of God? Must we indeed renounce the yearning for a powerful God? Do those who at Auschwitz proved to be the righteous ones, the saints of the Shoah, tell us that what they longed for, namely, the omnipotence of God, must – according to another statement of Emmanuel Levinas – in the very yearning for it « remain apart, must appear holy as something worthy of desire – close, yet separate »? God’s omnipotence awakens our yearning for it, calls into being a move towards it, and yet at the very moment when that divine omnipotence is most urgently needed, it seems to yield place to the other person, to the neighbor, in a kind of responsibility that can go as far – and with the saints of the Shoah has indeed done so – as substituting oneself for the other person. This would seem to be the omnipotence of God remaining apart to the point of its very absence. It would seem to be an « intrigue » of the omnipotent God, entrusting my fellow human to me. This « intrigue » of God would be a kind of self-limitation that calls us into unlimited responsibility for our fellow human beings.35

The notion of God’s omnipotence and the yearning contained in it36 must pass the acid test of the ethical demand. This is where it finds its real meaning for each respective present; it will not let us avoid this test. Therein one could see the prospective meaning of any talk of God’s omnipotence; this could be its ethical content. At the same time, such talk contains a dimension of « going beyond » that is of particular relevance to those who cannot be reached by my responsible action in each present moment: to the suffering and the dead of history. Beyond its, so to speak, prospective meaning, the word of God’s omnipotence is a cry for God’s saving power, appealing to him to be effective and powerful for those who suffered and died. One could speak of a commemorating and an appealing meaning of talk of God’s omnipotence. Talking about God without appealing to him, and without any promise for the dead of history and the Shoah, is challenged by the question of theodicy, as it is pointedly formulated by Johann Baptist Metz. Such a challenge is also pertinent to Hans Jonas’s concept.

Conclusion

As insistently as we have sought a note of hope for the dead of Auschwitz in Hans Jonas’s concept of God, and as seriously as the question of the dissolution of God as the counterpart to humans (and thus the continuing possibility of prayer) must be directed to Jonas’s myth and its theological explication, it is equally appropriate to mention that Jonas accompanies his theoretical exposition with a very personal confession. This confession is clearly a move onto a different level of human expression, while still representing Hans Jonas the person. His concept breathes the pathos of candidness; he seeks understandability to be able to go on living. This seeking reflects the integrity and autonomy of Hans Jonas as a human being, one who at the same time can be quite humble. The answer he gives in his myth to the question of Job « is opposed to that put in the Book of Job, which looks to the omnipotence of the Creator God, while mine posits his renunciation of power. » To Jonas, both answers constitute « praise, » their countermovement being held together by what they have in common. Of his « poor word » of praise he would like to hope « that it would not be excluded from what Goethe in his ‘Vermächtnis altpersischen Glaubens’ (Legacy of Ancient Persian Belief) expresses as follows: ‘And all that stammers praise to the Supreme / in circle by circle there gathered does seem’ » (48f.). This is a personal avowal of faith in a God who is on high, who is a counterpart, and thus is praiseworthy. This must be pointed out so that the critique directed at Jonas’s intellectual scheme not be extended to a critique of Jonas as a person.

By creating his myth, Hans Jonas has echoed the faded screams of his mother, who was murdered at Auschwitz. From the standpoint of Auschwitz, he has directed his question to God, in a speculative gesture as it were. The appraisal of his urgent proposal attempted here follows him in this speculative gesture, on the level of thought and argumentation. What Jonas says about his own scheme is even more true of this appraisal: « All this is mere stammering » (48). Stammering it has been in its agreement with Jonas and in its questioning of him. The agreement revealed characteristics that Jonas’s scheme has in common with contemporary Christian theology. The questioning presented possible objections from outside as well as examining the inner coherence of Jonas’s understanding of God. Our appraisal did not see its task as that of submitting a definitive alternative scheme. Nor was it bent on attempting to make sense of the events of Auschwitz. Like Hans Jonas himself, our appraisal also does not wish to forsake the idea of God. Indeed, it does not wish to forsake the idea of a powerful God; it wants to acknowledge the yearning for an omnipotent God. This is a yearning that cannot avoid the acid test of ethical demands, and is challenged not to seek solace for oneself, but to live in hope for others.

Notes

E. Wiesel, Die Nacht zu begraben, Elischa, Eßlingen o. J., 93f.

So E. Levinas, Die Tora mehr zu lieben als Gott (1955), in: E. Levinas, Schwierige Freiheit. Versuch über das Judentum, Frankfurt a.M. 1992, 109-113, who presents the most impressive interpretation of this text. Other interpretations: U. Bohn, Thora in der Grenzsituation, in: P. von der Osten-Sacken (ed.), Treue zur Thora. FS Günther Harder, Berlin 1977, 124-134; P. Lenhardt/P. von der Osten-Sacken, Rabbi Akiva, Berlin 1987, 332ff; H. Luibl, Wenn der Herr sein Gesicht von den Betenden abwendet. Zu Zwi Kolitz: „Jossel Rackower spricht zu Gott », in: Orientierung 52 (1988) 5-8. The German translation of this text itself was published in: Almanach für Literatur und Theologie 2, Wuppertal 1986, 19-28; M. Stöhr (ed.), Erinnern – nicht vergessen, München 1979, 107-118; P. von der Osten-Sacken (ed.), Das Ostjudentum, Berlin 1981, 161-168; Judaica 39 (1983) 211-220. Compare the attempt of a strophic transliteration of R. Brandstaetter, in: K. Wolff (ed.), Hiob 1943. Ein Requiem für das Warschauer Getto, Berlin 1983, 274-276.

The Commanding Voice of Auschwitz (1970), in: E. L. Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History. Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections, New York 1970, 67-98. Fackenheim has repeated his position in further publications: Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy, New York 1973; The Jewish Return to History, New York 1978; To Mend the World, New York 1982; The Jewish Bible after Auschwitz. A Re-reading, New York 1990; Jewish-Christian Relations after the Holocaust. Toward Post-Holocaust Theological Thought, Chicago 1996; Was ist Judentum? Eine Deutung für die Gegenwart, Berlin 1999. Literature on Fackenheim: B. Dupuy, Un theologien juif de l’Holocauste, Emil Fackenheim, in: Foi et Vie 73. No. 4 (1974) 11-21; E.Z. Charry, Jewish Holocaust Theology. An Assessment, in: JES 18 (1981) 128-139; S. Lubarsky, Ethics and Theodicy. Tensions in Emil Fackenheim’s Thought, in: Encounter 44 (1983) 59-72; M.J. Morgan, The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim. A Reader, Detroit 1987; G. Niekamp, Christologie nach Auschwitz, Freiburg 1994, 131-135.

The text of H. Jonas was published: H. Jonas, Der Gottesbegriff nach Auschwitz. Eine jüdische Stimme (suhrkamp taschenbuch 1516), Frankfurt 1987 (the pages in the ongoing text of this manuscript are of this edition); other publications of the text in: O. Hofius (ed.), Reflexionen finsterer Zeit. Zwei Vorträge von Fritz Stern und Hans Jonas, Tübingen 1984, 61-86; Von Gott reden in Auschwitz?, in: Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken (ed.), Dem Leben trauen, weil Gott es mit uns lebt. 88. Deutscher Katholikentag vom 4. bis 8. Juli 1984 in München. Dokumentation, Paderborn 1984, 235-246 and: Hans Jonas, Philosophische Untersuchungen und metaphysische Vermutungen, Frankfurt 1992, 190-208. A french translation: Le Concept de Dieu après Auschwitz. Une voix juive. Suivi d’un essai de Catherine Chalier, Paris 1994.

E. Jüngel, Gottes ursprüngliches Anfangen als schöpferische Selbstbegrenzung. Ein Beitrag zum Gespräch mit Hans Jonas über den »Gottesbegriff nach Auschwitz«, in: H. Deuser u.a. (eds.), Gottes Zukunft -Zukunft der Welt (FS Jürgen Moltmann), München 1986, 265-275; W. Oelmüller, Hans Jonas. Mythos – Gnosis – Prinzip Verantwortung, in: StZ 113 (1988) 343-351; Marcus Braybrooke, Time to meet. Towards a deeper relationship between Jews and Christians, London/Philadelphia 1990, 123ff.; H. Kreß, Philosophische Theologie im Horizont des neuzeitlichen Nihilismus. Philosophie und Gottesgedanke bei Wilhelm Weischedel und Hans Jonas, in: ZThK 88 (1991), 101-120; H. Küng, Das Judentum, München/Zürich 1991 714ff; W. Oelmüller (ed.), Worüber man nicht schweigen kann. Neue Diskussionen zur Theodizeefrage, München 1992, passim; W. Groß/H.J. Kuschel, »Ich schaffe Finsternis und Unheil!« Ist Gott verantwortlich für das Übel?, Mainz 1992, 170-175; C. Thoma, Das Messiasprojekt. Theologie jüdisch-christlicher Begegnung, Augsburg 1994, 394ff; G. Schiwy, Abschied vom allmächtigen Gott, München 1995, 10ff, 36f.,76-85, 92-98, u.ö.; G. Greshake, Der dreieine Gott. Eine trinitarische Theologie, Freiburg 1997, 279ff.; K.-H. Menke, in: H. Wagner (ed.), Mit Gott streiten. Neue Zugänge zum Theodizee-Problem, Freiburg 1998, 125ff.; V. Lenzen, Jüdisches Leben und Sterben im Namen Gottes. Studien über die Heiligung des göttlichen Namens (Kiddusch-HaSchem), München/Zürich 2000 (2. Auflage), 140ff. u.a.

Cf. R. McAfee Brown, Elie Wiesel. Zeuge für die Menschheit, Freiburg 1990; W. Groß/ K.-J. Kuschel, ibidem (Footnote 5), 135-153; E. Schuster/R. Boschert-Kimmig (eds.), Trotzdem hoffen. Mit Johann Baptist Metz und Elie Wiesel im Gespräch, Mainz 1993; R. Boschki, Der Schrei. Gott und Mensch im Werk von Elie Wiesel, Mainz 1994; G. Langenhorst, Hiob unser Zeitgenosse. Die literarische Hiob-Rezeption im 20. Jahrhundert als theologische Herausforderung, Mainz 1994, passim.

H. Jonas, Das Prinzip Verantwortung. Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation, Frankfurt 1979, 21984. The main stations of his work are indicated by: Der Begriff der Gnosis, Göttingen 1930; Augustin und das paulinische Freiheitsproblem, Göttingen 1930, 21965; Gnosis und spätantiker Geist. Zwei Teile, Göttingen 1934, 21954 und 1954, 21993; The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology, New York 1963; Organismus und Freiheit. Ansätze zu einer philosophischen Biologie, Göttingen 1973; Technik, Medizin und Ethik. Zur Praxis des Prinzips Verantwortung, Frankfurt 1985. Compare the ongoing reception of Jonas’s work: W. Fasching, article „Jonas, Hans », in: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexion, Band XV (1998), 723-733; C. Albert, article „Jonas, Hans », in: B. Lutz (ed.), Die großen Philosophen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Biographisches Lexikon, München 1999 and the informations of the Hans Jonas-Centre Berlin in: http://www.fu-berlin.de/~boehler/Jonas-Zentrum.

So H. Kreß, ibidem (Footnote 5), 109ff and similarly W. Lesch, Ethische Argumentation im jüdischen Kontext. Zum Verständnis von Ethik bei Emmanuel Levinas und Hans Jonas, in: FZPhTh 38 (1991) 443~69, 464. Compare the own statement of Jonas in: H. Koelbl, Jüdische Portraits. Photographien und Interviews, Frankfurt 1989, 120-123, 123.

Cf. the articles in: »Philosophische Untersuchungen« (footnote 4).

E. Jüngel, ibidem (footnote 5), 269.

Compare the statements of the Jewish traditional literature only in: P. Kuhn, Gottes Selbsterniedrigung in der Theologie der Rabbinen, München 1968; A.M. Goldberg, Untersuchungen über die Vorstellung der Schekhinah in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur, München 1972; P. Kuhn, Gottes Trauer und Klage in der rabbinischen Überlieferung, Leiden 1978; H. Ernst, Rabbinische Traditionen über Gottes Nähe und Gottes Leid, in: C. Thoma/M. Wyschogrod (eds.), Das Reden vom einen Gott bei Juden und Christen, Berlin 1984, 157-177, C. Thoma/ S. Lauer, Die Gleichnisse der Rabbinen. Erster und zweiter Teil, Bern 1986 and 1992; E.E. Urbach, The Sages. Their Concepts and Beliefs, Cambridge, Mass. 1987, 37-79; M.E. Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit. Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion, New York/ Mahwah 1992; C. Thoma, Messiasprojekt (footnote 5), 78ff, 409ff u.ö.

In the Middle Ages the Jewish discussion of the possibility to mediate the three attributes of God reflected the mediation of the omnipotencce, goodness and providence; compare the study of B.S. Kogan, »Sorgt Gott sich wirklich?« – Saadja Gaon, Juda Halevi und Maimonides über das Problem des Bösen, in: H.H. Henrix (ed.), Unter dem Bogen des Bundes, Aachen 1981, 47-73. See as an example of the early Christian discussion of the issue only: Laktanz, Vom Zorne Gottes (Texte zur Forschung 4), Darmstadt 21971, 45ff.

Jonas follows to: G. Scholem, Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen, Frankfurt/M. 1967, 285ff; idem, Über einige Begriffe des Judentums, Frankfurt 1970, 53-89 (= Schöpfung aus Nichts und Selbstbeschränkung Gottes). Cf. idem, Art. »Kabbalah«, in: Encyclopaedia Judaica XI (Jerusalem 41978), 489-653, 588-597 and M. Fritz, A Midrash: The Self-Limitation of God, in: JES 22 (1985) 703-714.

Cf. to this motif: G. Scholem, Die 36 verborgenen Gerechten in der jüdischen Tradition, in: idem., Judaica, Frankfurt 1968, 216-225; article »Lamed Vav Zaddikim«, in: Encyclopaedia Judaica X (Jerusalem 41978), 1367f.

C.-F. Geyer requires the „tribunal of reason » in his studies on the history of the discernable concept of theodicy, in: W. Oelmüller (ed.), Worüber man nicht schweigen kann (Footnote 5), 209-242. His position is critized by G. Neuhaus, Theodizee – Abbruch oder Anstoß des Glaubens?, Freiburg 1993, 144ff; cf. also the discussion in: H. Wagner (ed.), Mit Gott streiten. Neue Zugänge zum Theodizee-Problem (QD 169), Freiburg 1998.

M. Wyschogrod, Gott – ein Gott der Erlösung, in: M. Brocke/H. Jochum, ibidem (Footnote 2), 178-194, 185. See also V. Lenzen, ibidem (Footnote 5), 141.

So in reception of F. Rosenzweig and his reflection of the question in what sense his »Star of Redemption« is a Jewish book: Das neue Denken (1925), in: idem, Zweistromland (= Franz Rosenzweig, Der Mensch und sein Werk. Gesammelte Schriften III), Dordrecht 1984, 139-161,155.

A. Goldberg, Ist Gott allmächtig? Was die Rabbinen Hans Jonas antworten könnten, in: Judaica 47 (1991) 51-58 critized the absolute renunciation of the divine power; the rabbinical understanding of the concept of God’s power could accept a partial renunciation and preserved the possibility of the divine judgement. Interpretating Is. 45,7 and its daily recitation in the morning prayer Goldberg argued: »He, who claims that only the good can come from God, denies one of the few dogmas of Judaism» (56). The provocation of the biblical speech of God as the creator of the light and darkness is reflected by: W. Groß/ K.J. Kuschel, ibidem (Footnote 5) and M. Görg, Der un-heile Gott. Die Bibel im Bann der Gewalt, Düsseldorf 1995.

H.U. von Balthasar spoke on Israel as »a formal Christology« in his booklet on Buber: Einsame Zwiesprache. Martin Buber und das Christentum, Köln/ Olten 1958, 83. But he develops unsufficiently the affirmative dimension of such a caracterization; this is critized by: H.H. Henrix, »Israel ist seinem Wesen nach formale Christologie«. Die Bedeutung H.U. von Balthasars für F.-W. Marquardts Christologie, in: BThZ 9 (1993) 135-153.

H. Jonas, Zwischen Nichts und Ewigkeit. Drei Aufsätze zur Lehre vom Menschen. Göttingen 1963, 44-62, 55ff.

Ibidem, 63-72; Jonas’s using of the term of incarnation: 68.69.70.71.

The concept of omnipotence – long generations a firm component of the Christian teaching of the divine attributes – is marginalized in contemporary dogmatics; compare only: Mysterium Salutis. Volumes 1 to 5 and the supplement, Einsiedeln/ Zürich/ Köln 1965-1981; Lexikon der katholischen Dogmatik, Freiburg 1987; P. Eicher (ed.), Neue Summe Theologie. Bände 1 und 2, Düsseldorf 1992. But see also J. Auer, Gott – der Eine und Dreieine (Kleine Katholische Dogmatik II), Regensburg 1978, 422-431 and the discussion of O. John, Die Allmachtsprädikation in einer christlichen Gottesrede nach Auschwitz, in: E. Schillebeeckx (ed.), Mystik und Politik. Theologie im Ringen um Geschichte und Gesellschaft (FS Johann Baptist Metz), Mainz 1988, 202-218 and Th. Pröpper, article »Allmacht Gottes», in: 3LThK Bd. 1 (1993), 412-417.

J. Moltmann, Trinität und Reich Gottes. Zur Gotteslehre, München 1980, 124f.

E. Jüngel, ibidem (Footnote 5), 271. But compare the striking criticism of this reflection by H. Küng, ibidem (Footnote 5), 717ff.

So after H. Vorgrimler, Theologische Gotteslehre, Düsseldorf 1985, 150ff.

J.B. Brantschen, Die Macht und Ohnmacht der Liebe. Randglossen zum dogmatischen Satz: Gott ist veränderlich, in: FZPhTh 27 (1980) 224-246, 238f. Cf. also G. Neuhaus, ibidem (footnote 15), 264ff and H. Fronhofen, Ist der christliche Gott allmächtig?, in: StZ 117 (1992) 519-528, 523.

R. Bultmann, in: H. Jonas, Zwischen Nichts und Ewigkeit, ibidem (footnote 20), 66f

H. Jonas, ibidem, 70f.

So the manuscript of the dialogue on the Judaism and Christianity in the thinking of Franz Rosenzweig which was published in a shortened version: Judentum und Christentum nach Franz Rodsenzweig. Ein Gespräch, in: G. Fuchs/H.H. Henrix (eds.), Zeitgewinn. Messianisches Denken nach Franz Rosenzweig, Frankfurt 1987, 163-183.

Similarly the criticism of E. Jüngel, ibidem (Footnote 5), 272f and W. Oelmüller, Hans Jonas, ibidem (Footnote 5), 346.

Compare the literature according to the footnote 11 and: W. Orbach, The four Faces of God: Toward a Theology of Powerlessness, in: Judaism 32 (1983) 236-247; E. Levinas, Judaïsme et Kénose, in: Archivi di Filisofia LIII (1985) Nr.2-3 (Ebraismo. Ellenismo. Cristianesimo), 13-28 and R. Neudecker, Die vielen Gesichter des einen Gottes, München 1989, 69-105.

In. G. Fuchs/H.H. Henrix, ibidem, (footnote 29), 170.

J.B. Metz, Theologie als Theodizee?, in: W. Oelmüller (ed.), Theodizee – Gott vor Gericht?, München 1990, 103-118; Plädoyer für mehr Theodizee-Empfindlichkeit in der Theologie, in: W. Oelmüller (ed.), Worüber man nicht schweigen kann (footnote 5), 125-137; Die Rede von Gott angesichts der Leidensgeschichte der Welt, in: StZ 117 (1992) 311-320; Karl Rahners Ringen um die theologische Ehre des Menschen, in: StZ (1994) 383-393 (quotation there: 391); Religion und Politik auf dem Boden der Moderne, Frankfurt 1996; Gottesgedächtnis im Zeitalter kultureller Amnesie, in: Th. Faulhaber/B. Stubenrauch (eds.), Wenn Gott verloren geht. Die Zukunft des Glaubens in der säkularisierten Gesellschaft (QD 174), Freiburg 1998, 108-115.

Strangely enough the momentum of the lack of any form of promise to the victims of the history is faded out by G. Schiwy’s plea for the »discharge of the almighty» (Footnote 5).

See the idea of an »intrigue« of God – here in our context applied on the idea of the divine omnipotencce – by E. Levinas: Gott und die Philosophie, in: B. Casper (ed.), Gott nennen. Phänomenologische Zugänge, Freiburg/München 1981, 81-123, 104ff.

This in nearness to thoughts of H. Küng, ibidem (footnote 5), 731ff and O. John, ibidem (footnote 22).

Pâque/3626e: Cachez cette épuration ethnique que je ne saurai voir ! (Exodus: Why can’t we recognize a real episode of ethnic cleansing when we see one ?)

Le Pharaon (…)  dit à son peuple: Voilà les enfants d’Israël qui forment un peuple plus nombreux et plus puissant que nous. (…) Alors Pharaon donna cet ordre à tout son peuple: Vous jetterez dans le fleuve tout garçon qui naîtra. Exode 1 : 9-22

L’Éternel dit à Moïse et à Aaron dans le pays d’Égypte: (…) C’est la Pâque de l’Éternel. Cette nuit-là, je passerai dans le pays d’Égypte, et je frapperai tous les premiers-nés du pays d’Égypte, depuis les hommes jusqu’aux animaux, et j’exercerai des jugements contre tous les dieux de l’Égypte. (…) Le sang vous servira de signe sur les maisons où vous serez; je verrai le sang, et je passerai par-dessus vous, et il n’y aura point de plaie qui vous détruise, quand je frapperai le pays d’Égypte. (…) Au milieu de la nuit, l’Éternel frappa tous les premiers-nés dans le pays d’Égypte, depuis le premier-né de Pharaon assis sur son trône, jusqu’au premier-né du captif dans sa prison, et jusqu’à tous les premiers-nés des animaux. Pharaon se leva de nuit, lui et tous ses serviteurs, et tous les Égyptiens; et il y eut de grands cris en Égypte, car il n’y avait point de maison où il n’y eût un mort. Dans la nuit même, Pharaon appela Moïse et Aaron, et leur dit: Levez-vous, sortez du milieu de mon peuple, vous et les enfants d’Israël. Allez, servez l’Éternel, comme vous l’avez dit.Prenez vos brebis et vos boeufs, comme vous l’avez dit; allez, et bénissez-moi.Les Égyptiens pressaient le peuple, et avaient hâte de le renvoyer du pays, car ils disaient: Nous périrons tous. Exode 12 : 1-14

Israël est détruit, sa semence même n’est plus. Amenhotep III (Stèle de Mérenptah, 1209 or 1208 Av. JC)

Je me suis réjoui contre lui et contre sa maison. Israël a été ruiné à jamais. Mesha (roi de Moab, Stèle de Mesha, 850 av. J.-C.)

J’ai tué Jéhoram, fils d’Achab roi d’Israël et j’ai tué Ahziahu, fils de Jéoram roi de la Maison de David. Et j’ai changé leurs villes en ruine et leur terre en désert. Hazaël (stèle de Tel Dan, c. 835 av. JC)

Qui veut noyer son chien l’accuse de la rage. Molière

Après ce, vint une merdaille Fausse, traître et renoïe : Ce fu Judée la honnie, La mauvaise, la desloyal, Qui bien het et aimme tout mal, Qui tant donna d’or et d’argent Et promist a crestienne gent, Que puis, rivieres et fonteinnes Qui estoient cleres et seinnes En plusieurs lieus empoisonnerent, Dont pluseurs leurs vies finerent ; Car trestuit cil qui en usoient Assez soudeinnement moroient. Dont, certes, par dis fois cent mille En morurent, qu’a champ, qu’a ville. Einsois que fust aperceuë Ceste mortel deconvenue. Mais cils qui haut siet et louing voit, Qui tout gouverne et tout pourvoit, Ceste traïson plus celer Ne volt, enis la fist reveler Et si generalement savoir Qu’ils perdirent corps et avoir. Car tuit Juif furent destruit, Li uns pendus, li autres cuit, L’autre noié, l’autre ot copée La teste de hache ou d’espée. Et maint crestien ensement En morurent honteusement.  Guillaume de Machaut (Jugement du Roy de Navarre, v. 1349)

Le poète et musicien Guillaume de Machaut écrivait au milieu du XIVe siècle. Son Jugement du Roy de Navarre mériterait d’être mieux connu. La partie principale de l’œuvre, certes, n’est qu’un long poème de style courtois, conventionnel de style et de sujet. Mais le début a quelque chose de saisissant. C’est une suite confuse d’événements catastrophiques auxquels Guillaume prétend avoir assisté avant de s’enfermer, finalement, de terreur dans sa maison pour y attendre la mort ou la fin de l’indicible épreuve. Certains événements sont tout à fait invraisemblables, d’autres ne le sont qu’à demi. Et pourtant de ce récit une impression se dégage : il a dû se passer quelque chose de réel. Il y a des signes dans le ciel. Les pierres pleuvent et assomment les vivants. Des villes entières sont détruites par la foudre. Dans celle où résidait Guillaume – il ne dit pas laquelle – les hommes meurent en grand nombre. Certaines de ces morts sont dues à la méchanceté des juifs et de leurs complices parmi les chrétiens. Comment ces gens-là s’y prenaient-ils pour causer de vastes pertes dans la population locale? Ils empoisonnaient les rivières, les sources d’approvisionnement en eau potable. La justice céleste a mis bon ordre à ces méfaits en révélant leurs auteurs à la population qui les a tous massacrés. Et pourtant les gens n’ont pas cessé de mourir, de plus en plus nombreux, jusqu’à un certain jour de printemps où Guillaume entendit de la musique dans la rue, des hommes et des femmes qui riaient. Tout était fini et la poésie courtoise pouvait recommencer. (…) aujourd’hui, les lecteurs repèrent des événements réels à travers les invraisemblances du récit. Ils ne croient ni aux signes dans le ciel ni aux accusations contre les juifs mais ils ne traitent pas tous les thèmes incroyables de la même façon; ils ne les mettent pas tous sur le même plan. Guillaume n’a rien inventé. C’est un homme crédule, certes, et il reflète une opinion publique hystérique. Les innombrables morts dont il fait état n’en sont pas moins réelles, causées de toute évidence par la fameuse peste noire qui ravagea la France en 1349 et 1350. Le massacre des juifs est également réel, justifié aux yeux des foules meurtrières par les rumeurs d’empoisonnement qui circulent un peu partout. C’est la terreur universelle de la maladie qui donne un poids suffisant à ces rumeurs pour déclencher lesdits massacres. (…) Mais les nombreuses morts attribuées par l’auteur au poison judaïque suggèrent une autre explication. Si ces morts sont réelles – et il n’y a pas de raison de les tenir pour imaginaires – elles pourraient bien être les premières victimes d’un seul et même fléau. Mais Guillaume ne s’en doute pas, même rétrospectivement. A ses yeux les boucs émissaires traditionnels conservent leur puissance explicatrice pour les premiers stades de l’épidémie. Pour les stades ultérieurs, seulement, l’auteur reconnaît la présence d’un phénomène proprement pathologique. L’étendue du désastre finit par décourager la seule explication par le complot des empoisonneurs, mais Guillaume ne réinterprète pas la suite entière des événements en fonction de leur raison d’être véritable. (…) Même rétrospectivement, tous les boucs émissaires collectifs réels et imaginaires, les juifs et les flagellants, les pluies de pierre et l’epydimie, continuent à jouer leur rôle si efficacement dans le récit de Guillaume que celui-ci ne voit jamais l’unité du fléau désigné par nous comme la « peste noire ». L’auteur continue à percevoir une multiplicité de désastres plus ou moins indépendants ou reliés les uns aux autres seulement par leur signification religieuse, un peu comme les dix plaies d’Egypte.

Tout ce que je viens de dire, ou presque, est évident. Nous comprenons tous le récit de Guillaume de la même façon et mes lecteurs n’ont pas besoin de moi. Il n’est pourtant pas inutile d’insister sur cette lecture dont l’audace et la puissance nous échappent, précisément parce qu’elle est admise par tous, parce qu’elle n’est pas controversée. L’unanimité s’est faite autour d’elle il y a littéralement des siècles et jamais elle ne s’est défaite. C’est d’autant plus remarquable qu’il s’agit d’une réinterprétation radicale. Nous rejetons sans hésiter le sens que l’auteur donne à son texte. Nous affirmons qu’il ne sait pas ce qu’il dit. A plusieurs siècles de distance, nous autres, modernes, le savons mieux que lui et nous sommes capables de rectifier son dire. Nous nous croyons à même de repérer une vérité que l’auteur n’a pas vue et, par une audace plus grande encore, nous n’hésitons pas à affirmer que cette vérité, c’est lui qui nous l’apporte, en dépit de son aveuglement. (…) Devant un texte du type Guillaume de Machaut, il est légitime de suspendre la règle générale selon laquelle l’ensemble d’un texte ne vaut jamais mieux, sous le rapport de l’information réelle, que la pire de ses données. Si le texte décrit des circonstances favorables à la persécution, s’il nous présente des victimes appartenant au type que les persécuteurs ont l’habitude de choisir, et si, pour plus de certitude encore, il présente ces victimes comme coupables du type de crimes que les persécuteurs attribuent, en règle générale, à leurs victimes, il y a de grandes chances pour que la persécution soit réelle. Si le texte lui-même affirme cette réalité, il y a plus de raisons de l’accepter que de la rejeter. Dès qu’on pressent la perspective des persécuteurs, l’absurdité des accusations, loin de compromettre la valeur d’information d’un texte, renforce sa crédibilité mais sous le rapport seulement des violences dont il se fait lui-même l’écho. Si Guillaume avait ajouté des histoires d’infanticide rituel à son affaire d’empoisonnement, son compte rendu serait plus invraisemblable encore mais il n’en résulterait aucune diminution de certitude quant à la réalité des massacres qu’il nous rapporte. Plus les accusations sont invraisemblables dans ce genre de textes, plus elles renforcent la vraisemblance des massacres : elles nous confirment la présence d’un contexte psychosocial au sein duquel les massacres devaient presque certainement se produire. Inversement, le thème des massacres, juxtaposé à celui de l’épidémie, fournit le contexte historique au sein duquel même un intellectuel en principe raffiné pourrait prendre au sérieux son histoire d’empoisonnement. Les représentations persécutrices nous mentent, indubitablement, mais d’une façon trop caractéristique des persécuteurs en général et des persécuteurs médiévaux en particulier pour que le texte ne dise pas vrai sur tous les points où il confirme les conjectures suggérées par la nature même de son mensonge. Quand c’est la réalité de leurs persécutions que les persécuteurs probables affirment, ils méritent qu’on leur fasse confiance. C’est la combinaison de deux types de données qui engendre la certitude. Si l’on ne rencontrait cette combinaison qu’à de rares exemples cette certitude ne serait pas complète. Mais la fréquence est trop grande pour que le doute soit possible. Seule la persécution réelle, envisagée dans l’optique des persécuteurs, peut expliquer la conjonction régulière de ces données. 

Tout document du type Guillaume de Machaut a une valeur considérable parce qu’on retrouve en lui le vraisemblable et l’invraisemblable agencés de telle façon que chacun explique et légitime la présence de l’autre. Si notre certitude a un caractère statistique, c’est parce que n’importe quel document, envisagé isolément, pourrait être l’œuvre d’un faussaire. Les chances sont faibles mais elles ne sont pas nulles au niveau du document individuel. Au niveau du grand nombre, en revanche, elles sont nulles. La solution réaliste que le monde occidental et moderne a adoptée pour démystifier les « textes de persécution » est la seule possible et elle est certaine parce qu’elle rend parfaitement compte de toutes les données qui figurent dans ce type de textes. Ce ne sont pas l’humanitarisme ou l’idéologie qui nous la dictent, ce sont des raisons intellectuelles décisives. Cette interprétation n’a pas usurpé le consensus unanime dont elle fait l’objet. L’histoire n’a pas de résultats plus solides à nous offrir. Pour l’historien « des mentalités », un témoignage en principe digne de foi, c’est-à-dire le témoignage d’un homme qui ne partage pas les illusions d’un Guillaume de Machaut, n’aura jamais autant de valeur que le témoignage indigne des persécuteurs, ou de leurs complices, plus fortement parce que inconsciemment révélateur. Le document décisif est celui de persécuteurs assez naïfs pour ne pas effacer les traces de leurs crimes, à la différence de certains persécuteurs modernes, trop avisés pour laisser derrière eux des documents qui pourraient être utilisés contre eux. J’appelle naïfs les persécuteurs encore assez persuadés de leur bon droit et pas assez méfiants pour maquiller ou censurer les données caractéristiques de leur persécution. Celles-ci apparaissent dans leurs textes tantôt sous une forme véridique et directement révélatrice, tantôt sous une forme trompeuse mais indirectement révélatrice. Toutes les données sont fortement stéréotypées et c’est la combinaison des deux types de stéréotypes, les véridiques et les trompeurs, qui nous renseigne sur la nature de ces textes. ? Nous savons tous repérer, aujourd’hui, les stéréotypes de la persécution. Il y a là un savoir qui s’est banalisé mais qui n’existait pas ou très peu au XIVe siècle. Les persécuteurs naïfs ne savent pas ce qu’ils font. Ils ont trop bonne conscience pour tromper sciemment leurs lecteurs et ils présentent les choses telles que réellement ils les voient. Ils ne se doutent pas qu’en rédigeant leurs comptes rendus ils donnent des armes contre eux-mêmes à la postérité. C’est vrai au XVIe siècle pour la tristement fameuse « chasse aux sorcières ». C’est encore vrai de nos jours pour les régions « arriérées » de notre planète.

Le passage de Guillaume, cité plus haut, constitue un bon exemple de ce que j’ai nommé dans Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde les « textes de persécution». J’entends par là les comptes rendus de violences réelles, souvent collectives, rédigés dans la perspective des persécuteurs, et affectés, par conséquent, de distorsions caractéristiques. Il faut repérer ces distorsions pour les rectifier et pour déterminer la réalité de toutes les violences que le texte de persécution présente comme justifiées. Il n’est pas nécessaire d’examiner longuement le compte rendu d’un procès de sorcellerie pour constater qu’on y retrouve la même combinaison de données réelles et de données imaginaires mais nullement gratuites que nous avons rencontrée dans le texte de Guillaume de Machaut. Tout est présenté comme vrai et nous n’en croyons rien mais nous n’en croyons pas pour autant que tout est faux. Nous n’avons aucune peine, pour l’essentiel, à faire le partage du vrai et du faux. Là aussi les chefs d’accusation paraissent ridicules même si la sorcière les tient pour réels, et même s’il y a lieu de penser que ses aveux n’ont pas été obtenus par la torture. L’accusée peut fort bien se prendre pour une sorcière véritable. Peut-être s’est-elle réellement efforcée de nuire à ses voisins par des procédés magiques. Nous n’en jugeons pas pour autant qu’elle mérite la mort. Il n’y a pas pour nous de procédés magiques efficaces. Nous admettons sans peine que la victime puisse partager avec ses bourreaux la même foi dérisoire en l’efficacité de la sorcellerie mais cette foi ne nous atteint pas nous-mêmes ; notre scepticisme n’en est pas ébranlé. Pendant ces procès aucune voix ne s’élève pour rétablir, ou plutôt pour établir la vérité. Personne n’est encore capable de le faire. C’est dire que nous avons contre nous, contre l’interprétation que nous donnons de leurs propres textes, non seulement les juges et les témoins mais les accusées elles-mêmes. Cette unanimité ne nous impressionne pas. Les auteurs de ces documents étaient là et nous n’y étions pas. Nous ne disposons d’aucune information qui ne vienne d’eux. Et pourtant, à plusieurs siècles de distance, un historien solitaire, ou même le premier individu venu se juge habilité à casser la sentence prononcée contre les sorcières. C’est la même réinterprétation radicale que dans l’exemple de Guillaume de Machaut, la même audace dans le bouleversement des textes, c’est la même opération intellectuelle et c’est la même certitude, fondée sur le même type de raisons. La présence de données imaginaires ne nous amène pas à considérer l’ensemble du texte comme imaginaire. Bien au contraire. Les accusations incroyables ne diminuent pas mais renforcent la crédibilité des autres données. Ici encore nous avons un rapport qui semble paradoxal mais en réalité ne l’est pas entre l’improbabilité et la probabilité des données qui entrent dans la composition des textes. C’est en fonction de ce rapport, généralement informulé mais néanmoins présent à notre esprit que nous évaluons la quantité et la qualité de l’information susceptible d’être extraite de notre texte.  (…) La mentalité persécutrice suscite un certain type d’illusion et les traces de cette illusion confirment plutôt qu’elles n’infirment la présence, derrière le texte qui en fait lui-même état, d’un certain type d’événement, la persécution elle-même, la mise à mort de la sorcière. Il n’est donc pas difficile, je le répète, de démêler le vrai du faux qui ont l’un et l’autre un caractère assez fortement stéréotypé. Pour bien comprendre le pourquoi et le comment de l’assurance extraordinaire dont nous faisons preuve devant les textes de persécution, il faut énumérer et décrire les stéréotypes. Là non plus, la tâche n’est pas difficile. Il ne s’agit jamais que d’expliciter un savoir que nous possédons déjà mais dont nous ne soupçonnons pas la portée car nous ne le dégageons jamais de façon systématique. Le savoir en question reste pris dans les exemples concrets auxquels nous l’appliquons et ceux-ci appartiennent toujours au domaine de l’histoire, surtout occidentale. Jamais encore nous n’avons essayé d’appliquer ce savoir en dehors de ce domaine, par exemple aux univers dits « ethnologiques ». René Girard

Aujourd’hui on repère les boucs émissaires dans l’Angleterre victorienne et on ne les repère plus dans les sociétés archaïques. C’est défendu. René Girard

« Ils m’ont haï sans cause »? (…) « Il faut que s’accomplisse en moi ce texte de l’Écriture : ” On l’a compté parmi les criminels [ou les transgresseurs] (…) C’est tout simplement le refus de la causalité magique, et le refus des accusations stéréotypées qui s’énonce dans ces phrases apparemment trop banales pour tirer à conséquence. C’est le refus de tout ce que les foules persécutrices acceptent les yeux fermés. C’est ainsi que les Thébains adoptent tous sans hésiter l’hypothèse d’un OEdipe responsable de la peste, parce qu’incestueux ; c’est ainsi que les Égyptiens font enfermer le malheureux Joseph, sur la foi des racontars d’une Vénus provinciale, tout entière à sa proie attachée. Les Égyptiens n’en font jamais d’autres. Nous restons très égyptiens sous le rapport mythologique, avec Freud en particulier qui demande à l’Égypte la vérité du judaïsme. Les théories à la mode restent toutes païennes dans leur attachement au parricide, à l’inceste, etc., dans leur aveuglement au caractère mensonger des accusations stéréotypées. Nous sommes très en retard sur les Évangiles et même sur la Genèse. René Girard

From the Egyptian standpoint the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt was actually a justifiable expulsion. The main sources are the writings of Manetho and Apion, which are summarized and refuted in Josephus’s work Against Apion . . . Manetho was an Egyptian priest in Heliopolis. Apion was an Egyptian who wrote in Greek and played a prominent role in Egyptian cultural and political life. His account of the Exodus was used in an attack on the claims and rights of Alexandrian Jews . . . [T]he Hellenistic-Egyptian version of the Exodus may be summarized as follows: The Egyptians faced a major crisis precipitated by a group of people suffering from various diseases. For fear the disease would spread or something worse would happen, this motley lot was assembled and expelled from the country. Under the leadership of a certain Moses, these people were dispatched; they constituted themselves then as a religious and national unity. They finally settled in Jerusalem and became the ancestors of the Jews. James G. Williams

Le saviez-vous ? 900 000 Juifs ont été exclus ou expulsés des Etats arabo-musulmans entre 1940 et 1970. L’histoire de la disparition du judaïsme en terres d’islam est la clef d’une mystification politique de grande ampleur qui a fini par gagner toutes les consciences. Elle fonde le récit qui accable la légitimité et la moralité d’Israël en l’accusant d’un pseudo « péché originel ». La fable est simpliste : le martyre des Juifs européens sous le nazisme serait la seule justification de l’État d’Israël. Sa « création » par les Nations Unies aurait été une forme de compensation au lendemain de la guerre. Cependant, elle aurait entraîné une autre tragédie, la « Nakba », en dépossédant les Palestiniens de leur propre territoire. Dans le meilleur des cas, ce récit autorise à tolérer que cet État subsiste pour des causes humanitaires, malgré sa culpabilité congénitale. Cette narration a, de fait, tout pour sembler réaliste. Elle surfe sur le sentiment de culpabilité d’une Europe doublement responsable : de la Shoah et de l’imposition coloniale d’Israël à un monde arabe innocent.  Dans le pire des cas, cette narration ne voit en Israël qu’une puissance colonialiste qui doit disparaître. Ce qui explique l’intérêt d’accuser sans cesse Israël de génocide et de nazisme : sa seule « raison d’être » (la Shoah) est ainsi sapée dans son fondement. La « Nakba » est le pendant de la Shoah. La synthèse politiquement correcte de ces deux positions extrêmes est trouvée dans la doctrine de l’État bi-national ou du « retour » des « réfugiés » qui implique que les Juifs d’Israël mettent en oeuvre leur propre destruction en disparaissant dans une masse démographique arabo-musulmane. Shmuel Trigano

L’accusation de crime rituel à l’encontre des Juifs est l’une des plus anciennes allégations antijuives et antisémites de l’Histoire. En effet, bien que l’accusation de crime de sang ait touché d’autres groupes que les Juifs, dont les premiers chrétiens, certains détails, parmi lesquels l’allégation que les Juifs utilisaient du sang humain pour certains de leurs rituels religieux, principalement la confection de pains azymes (matza) lors de la Pâque, leur furent spécifiques. (…) Le premier exemple connu d’accusation de ce type précède le christianisme, puisqu’il est fourni, selon Flavius Josèphe, par Apion, un écrivain sophiste égyptien hellénisé ayant vécu au Ier siècle. (…) Après la première affaire à Norwich (Angleterre) en 1144, les accusations se multiplient dans l’Europe catholique. De nombreuses disparitions inexpliquées d’enfants et de nombreux meurtres sont expliqués par ce biais. Wikipedia

The purpose of ethnic cleansing is to remove competitors. The party implementing this policy sees a risk (or a useful scapegoat) in a particular ethnic group, and uses propaganda about that group to stir up FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in the general population. The targeted ethnic group is marginalized and demonized. It can also be conveniently blamed for the economic, moral and political woes of that region. Physically removing the targeted ethnic community provides a very clear, visual reminder of the power of the current government. It also provides a safety-valve for violence stirred up by the FUD. The government in power benefits significantly from seizing the assets of the dispossessed ethnic group. The reason given for ethnic cleansing is usually that the targeted community is potentially or actually hostile to the « approved » population.[weasel words] Suddenly your neighbour becomes a « danger » to you and your children. In giving in to the FUD, you become as much a victim of political manipulation as the targeted group. Although ethnic cleansing has sometimes been motivated by claims that an ethnic group is literally « unclean » (as in the case of the Jews of medieval Europe), it has generally been a deliberate (if brutal) way of ensuring the complete domination of a region. Wikipedia

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD, littéralement « peur, incertitude et doute », prononcé « feude ») est une technique rhétorique utilisée notamment dans la vente, le marketing, les relations publiques et le discours politique. Elle consiste à tenter d’influencer autrui en diffusant des informations négatives, souvent vagues et inspirant la peur. Terme initialement utilisé pour qualifier une tactique de désinformation d’IBM, la FUD est utilisée plus largement au XXIe siècle. Wikipedia

Les déplacements forcés de population ont été beaucoup pratiqués dans l’Antiquité. On en trouve des relations dans l’Ancien Testament. Les grands Empires, assyrien, babylonien, romain, pratiquèrent la déportation des peuples conquis. En Europe, les Juifs furent expulsés d’Angleterre (1290), de France (1306, 1322 et 1394), de Hongrie (1349–1360), d’Occitanie (1394 et 1490), d’Autriche (1421), d’Espagne après la Reconquête (1492), du Portugal (1497), de Russie en 1724, et de régions d’Allemagne à différentes périodes. L’Espagne expulsa sa communauté musulmane en 1502, puis les morisques qui étaient des musulmans convertis au catholicisme à partir de 1609. La France expulsa des protestants, on peut parler ici d’un nettoyage religieux. La colonisation eut son lot de nettoyages ethniques en Amérique (Indiens d’Amérique, Acadiens), Australie, Afrique du Sud (voir également le « grand dérangement » des Acadiens en 1755). Les années 1920 voient l’expulsion des Grecs d’Asie Mineure et, de façon symétrique, des Turcs ou musulmans des îles grecques. Le phénomène se répète à Chypre après 1974. L’époque moderne est marquée par des nettoyages ethniques tel que le génocide arménien, la Shoah, le génocide rwandais, les guerres de Yougoslavie, la guerre civile au Darfour, les massacres au Congo, les persécutions envers les Tamouls au Sri Lanka… De 1935 à 1938, Staline déporte les Polonais de Volhynie orientale. C’est la première déportation ethnique dans l’histoire de l’URSS, bien que de telles actions aient déjà été réalisées à plusieurs reprises à l’époque des tsars. D’autres peuples suivront, des Allemands de la Volga aux Tchétchènes en passant par les Tatars de Crimée et les Meskhètes, qui furent déportés vers le Kazakhstan et ne furent autorisés à revenir dans leurs régions d’origine qu’après la mort de Staline (voir en). À partir de juillet 1941, les nazis planifient la mise à disposition systématique du Lebensraum, colonisation germanique essentiellement au détriment des peuples slaves : cette organisation d’un nettoyage ethnique se nomme « Schéma directeur pour l’Est ». En 1945 les Soviétiques décidèrent de transporter massivement les populations de langue et de culture allemandes vivant en Europe centrale et orientale à l’intérieur des frontières de l’Allemagne post-hitlérienne, réduite aux quatre zones d’occupation, arguant que l’existence de ces minorités avait servi de prétexte à l’Allemagne nazie pour justifier sa politique d’expansion. Wikipedia

The earliest non-Biblical account of the Exodus is in the writings of the Greek author Hecataeus of Abdera: the Egyptians blame a plague on foreigners and expel them from the country, whereupon Moses, their leader, takes them to Canaan, where he founds the city of Jerusalem. Hecataeus wrote in the late 4th century BCE, but the passage is quite possibly an insertion made in the mid-1st century BCE. The most famous is by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BCE), known from two quotations by the 1st century CE Jewish historian Josephus. In the first, Manetho describes the Hyksos, their lowly origins in Asia, their dominion over and expulsion from Egypt, and their subsequent foundation of the city of Jerusalem and its temple. Josephus (not Manetho) identifies the Hyksos with the Jews. In the second story Manetho tells how 80,000 lepers and other « impure people, » led by a priest named Osarseph, join forces with the former Hyksos, now living in Jerusalem, to take over Egypt. They wreak havoc until eventually the pharaoh and his son chase them out to the borders of Syria, where Osarseph gives the lepers a law-code and changes his name to Moses.  Manetho differs from the other writers in describing his renegades as Egyptians rather than Jews, and in using a name other than Moses for their leader, although the identification of Osarseph with Moses may be a later addition. Wikipedia

Attention: une épuration ethnique peut en cacher une autre !

Babylone, Assyrie, Rome, Carthage, Alexandrie, Angleterre, France, Hongrie, Occitanie, Autriche, Espagne, Portugal, Russie, Allemagne, Pays arabes …

Empoisonnement des sources, rivières ou puits, sorcellerie ou magie noire, crime rituel d’enfants …

En ces jours où, quelques jours avant nous chrétiens et sous protection policière, nos amis juifs commémorent leur libération du goulag égyptien …

Pendant qu’après toutes les autres et du côté cette fois de Téhéran (ou même, sans compter les sept dernières guerres, de Ramallah ou Gaza), de nouveaux « égyptiens » se préparent à la prochaine expulsion …

Comment, avec René Girard et James Williams, ne pas s’étonner de cet étrange négationnisme à une époque on en voit des génocides partout tant des historiens juifs ou chrétiens que laïques …

Qui, derrière le récit manifestement retravaillé de l’exode biblique, continue à refuser l’évidence d’un épisode somme toute parfaitement classique de nettoyage ethnique …

Où, selon le bon vieux principe du bouc émissaire, une société en pleine crise multiplie les accusations les plus objectives comme les plus fantaisistes contre la population à expulser (les fameuses « plaies »: fleuve changé en sang et ulcères, invasion de grenouilles, poux, mouches et sauterelles, grêle et ténèbres, mort des troupeaux et des premiers-nés) …

Mais qu’en un premier (certes partiel) mouvement démystificateur tendant à démontrer la toute-puissance de leur propre divinité, les rédacteurs bibliques auraient « retournées » en une véritable contre-histoire en attribuant l’origine à cette dernière?

Christianity and the Problem of Human Violence

Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.

Part 21: Exodus

At first glance, the story of the exodus from Egypt seems to demonstrate God’s violence. Many have been troubled by the suffering of the Egyptian citizens and soldiers, victims of the ten plagues, particularly the killing of the first-born son. Why should Egyptian citizens suffer so much on account of their hard-hearted Pharaoh? And, Pharaoh himself could be regarded as an victim, in that the text attributes his hardened heart to God.

James G. Williams (The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred) argues that a non-sacrificial reading of the Bible is compatible with the Exodus account. First, the account focuses on the innocent victims—in this case the Hebrews. Williams notes that this story is distinctive not because the Hebrews were once oppressed—nearly all peoples have been oppressed at some point in their history. Rather, the Hebrews’ sacred story relates their oppression and abuse in detail. Most people have origin stories in which they arise and conquer according to the wishes of their gods. The Hebrews’ acknowledgement of their disreputable origins makes God’s justice, mercy, and compassion more clear.

Second, there is a series of substitutions that reduce violence, particularly violence against the innocent. For example, the killing of the first-born is less violent than the previous Egyptian edict to kill all of the Hebrews’ male infants. Similarly, the sacrifice of lambs constitutes a substitution that promises, ultimately, to reduce sacred violence. Of course, the later prophets (who we will discuss next week) and Jesus go much farther in their opposition to sacrifice, but such ancient people could not imagine a God who does not want some kind of blood sacrifice.

A remarkable point about the Exodus story is that the Hebrews did not aim to retaliate against the Egyptians, only to leave. Traditionally, people sought revenge as much as their freedom, but the Exodus story suggests a different approach to injustice.

Interestingly, there are Greek accounts of the Exodus that derive from now-lost Egyptian sources. According to those accounts, the Egyptians faced a major crisis related to a group of people suffering from various diseases, and the Egyptians decided to expel this group from the country. One remarkable way by which the Egyptian account differs from that of the Bible is that the Egyptian story blames the Hebrews for the diseases (or whatever crises they experienced) and then, like the scapegoat sent into the wilderness, banned the accused troublemakers.

Voir aussi:

A History of the Jews, a list of expulsions for 2000 years

This historical background of centuries of anti-Semitism eventually exploded in the 20th century « Holocaust ». The hostility and hatred manifested in the holocaust was therefore not new. As we have stated ancient writings contain much anti-Semitism. In pre-Roman times most people did not read or write. At times, Rome tried to eradicate Judaism and « Jewishness ». Followers were assumed to be treasonous and subversive. This in turn led to major revolts on the part of the Jewish community.

The following is a brief summary of Incidents involving Jews in History…

135 B.C

Antiochus Epiphanes desecrates Second Jewish Temple; leading to Hasmonean Revolt against the Greeks.

70 A.D.

Titus took Jerusalem – second revolt. Over one million Jews killed.

136 A.D.

580,000 men destroyed, 985 towns destroyed – third revolt.

300 A.D.

Purim festival celebrating God’s deliverance to Mordecai and the Jews through Esther and the fasting. Lies spread that Jews kill Christians for sacrifice. Emperor Severus also said the Jews purchased 90,000 Christians to kill them.

306 A.D.

Council in Spain banned Christians & Jews meeting or marrying.

325 A.D.

Constantine changed the celebration of Easter on the calendar so that it did not coincide with the Jewish Passover.

379 A.D.

Vicious writing by St. John Chrysostom and St. Ambrose in Milan who said: « The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the Devil. Their religion is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is essential that all Christians hate them. » He was called the Bishop with the Golden Tongue. St. Ambrose, Bishop of the Church offered to burn the synagogue himself.

395 A.D.

St. Gregory of Nyssa in sermons and writings characterized Jews as assassins of the Prophets, companions of the Devil, a race of vipers, a Sanhedrin of Demons, enemies of all that is beautiful, hogs and goats in their lewd grossness.

415 A.D.

Bishop Severus BURNED THE SYNAGOGUE IN THE VILLAGE OF MAGONA. BISHOP OF

ALEXANDRIA, ST. CYRIL EXPELLED JEWS FROM ALEXANDRIA AND GAVE THE MOB JEWISH PROPERTY.

ACCUSATION of Ritual murder by the Jews during Purim. Christians confiscated synagogues in ANTIOCH.

These were not hooligans but Church Fathers!

AUGUSTINE, JEROME, AMBROSE AND LESSER SAINTS AS ST. CHRYSOSTROM AND CYRIL, added to untruths the new ones that Jews were dishonest and prone to sexual perversions.

717 A.D.

Jews had to wear special yellow garb. Originated in Islam.

1012 A.D.

Emperor Henry II of Germany expels Jews from Mainz, the beginning of persecutions against Jews in Germany.

1096 A.D.

First Crusade. Crusaders massacre the Jews of the Rhineland.

1144 A.D.

First recorded blood libel. In Norwich it was alleged that the Jews had « bought a Christian child before Easter, tortured him with all the tortures wherewith our Lord was tortured and on Friday hanged him on a rood in hatred of our Lord. » (England)

This notorious allegation that Jews murder non-Jews, especially Christians, in order to obtain blood for the Passover or other rituals is a complex of deliberate lies, trumped up accusations, and popular beliefs about the murder-lust of the Jews and their blood-thirstiness, based on the conception that Jews hate Christianity and mankind in general. It is combined with the delusion that Jews are in some way not human and must have recourse to special remedies and subterfuges in order to appear at least outwardly, like other men. The blood libel led to trials and massacres of Jews. Its origin is rooted in ancient almost primordial, concepts concerning the potency and energies of blood. It is one of the most terrible expressions of human cruelty and credulity. These blood rituals are expressly forbidden in Judaism. (See Leviticus 17;11 etc.)

1190 A.D.

Massacre of Jews in England.

1215 A.D.

The Jewish badge introduced.

1240 A.D.

Talmud burned in France.

1290 A.D.

Jews expelled from England.

1298 A.D.

Massacre of thousands in Germany, in 146 localities.

1306 A.D.

Expulsion from France.

1348 A.D.

JEWS blamed for the BLACK DEATH. Charge laid to the Jews that they POISONED the wells to kill CHRISTIANS.

1389 A.D.

MASSACRES in Bohemia, Spain.

1421 A.D.

270 JEWS BURNED AT THE STAKE. In the 14th and 15th centuries the Inquisition was more intense because the Church and State joined forces. Just being Jewish guaranteed persecution

1480 A.D.

Inquisition in Spain – Jews and Christians burned at the stake.

1483 A.D.

EXPULSIONS from Warsaw, Sicily, Lithuania, Portugal.

1492 A.D.

ALL JEWS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN.

1506 A.D.

Murders in Lisbon – 4000, « conversos », men, women, and children thrown from windows to street mobs below, due to preaching by Dominicans against the Jews.

1510 A.D.

EXPELLED from Brandenburg, Germany.

1516 A.D.

Venice initiates the ghetto, the first in Christian Europe.

1544 A.D.

The Reformation. At the end of Martin Luther’s life the German reformer vilified the Jews in violent pamphlets which could not fail to exert their influence. But because Calvinists were steeped in Old Testament theology, the Dutch people respected the Jews as « the Chosen » people; and were not anti-Semitic in their faith. The reformation was a time of turmoil as the Roman Church and feudalism lost their supremacy. There was a rising up of Nationhood and Luther was a German nationalist. The Talmud was seized and burned everywhere by Papal authority. Jews in Catholic countries and Polish Jews suffered greatly. Luther’s anti-Semitic writings were later used in anti-Semitic literature.

1553 A.D.

Rome seized and burned the Talmud by order of the POPE.

1559 A.D.

12,000 copies of Talmud burned in Milan.

1569 A.D.

POPE PIUS V ordered all Jews out of the Papal states.

1593 A.D.

EXPULSIONS from Italy and Bavaria.

1598 A.D.

Ritual murder charge that sent three Jews to their deaths. Execution of the supposed guilty was done by QUARTERING. (In his book the « Birth of the Prison » Michel Foucault describes at length the quartering of a condemned man in 1757. It was done eventually by six horses instead of the four original ones and other means had to come in to play due to the failure even of six horses as the prisoners limbs were tied to ropes harnessed to the horses. Each horse pulled in a different direction. One horse fell to the ground unsuccessfully. Knives had to be used for severing…)

1614 A.D.

JEWS attacked and driven out of Frankfurt, Germany.

1624 A.D.

GHETTO established in Ferrara, Italy.

1648 A.D.

Leader of the Cossacks, in the Ukraine massacres 100,000 Jews and destroyed 300 communities.

1655 A.D.

Massacres of Jews in war against Sweden & Russia by Poland.

1715 A.D.

POPE PIUS VI issues edict against Jews.

1768 A.D.

20,000 Jews in Poland killed.

1805 A.D.

MASSACRE of Jews in Algeria.

1840 A.D.

BLOOD LIBEL in DAMASCUS.

1853 A.D.

BLOOD LIBEL in RUSSIA.

1858 A.D.

THE MORTARA CASE: Catholics abduct a 7 yr. old Jewish child. A Catholic servant baptized a Jewish child when the child was seriously ill and the church of Rome seized the child. Outcry had no effect on the POPE.

1879 A.D.

Word anti-Semitism comes into existence.

1881 A.D.

POGROMS BEGAN. The word is of Russian origin. It designates attack, accompanied by destruction, looting of property, murder, rape. There were three major outbreaks in Russia. The word designates more particularly the attacks carried out by the Christian population. Each pogrom surpassed the other in savagery.

KIEV, ODESSA; Here murder of whole families was a common occurrence. Partial data are available for 530 communities in which 887 major pogroms and 349 minor pogroms occurred. There were 60,000 dead and several times that many were wounded.

1882 A.D.

FIRST ANTI-JEWISH CONGRESS HELD. In Dresden, Germany.

1894 A.D.

ALFRED DREYFUS TRIAL in France. Details follow further on in this summary.

1903 A.D.

APPEARANCE of a new issue of the PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION. In Russia.

This spectre of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy aiming at reducing the Gentiles to slavery or extermination loomed up in the medieval Christian imagination and grew out of legends about well poisonings and plague spreading. It was concocted in Paris by an unknown author working for the Russian secret police. It was an alleged conference of the leaders of World Jewry. It was translated into all the world languages. In 1963 a Spanish edition was published. During World War II, the Protocols of the elders of Zion became an implicit justification for the GENOCIDE of the Jews and Nazi propaganda relied on them until the last days of the Third Reich. Smaller pamphlets of it have been distributed in B.C. 1983 published in California… Required reading in most Arab countries, in schools, to this day.

1905 A.D.

Russian pogroms continue. Also in Morocco, Ukraine, 300 dead.

1919 A.D.

3000 Jews killed in Hungarian pogroms.

1920 A.D.

Appearance of ADOLPH HITLER. Also Henry Ford the 1st believes the Protocols; and publishes anti-Jewish articles in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.

1925 A.D.

MEIN KAMPH appears. Hitler’s Plan published in Germany.

1933 A.D.

HITLER appointed chancellor in Germany.

1935 A.D.

Hitler writes his Nuremberg Laws which lead to his Final Solution.

1938 A.D.

Burning in AUSTRIA & GERMANY of Synagogues. Jews sent to concentration camps. Beginnings of the Holocaust.

1939 A.D.

Germany overruns Poland.

1940 A.D.

Gassing, shootings in Polish Ghettos (Jewish).

1941 A.D.

EXPULSION of Jews from the German Reich to Poland. Riots against Jews in Iraq.

1942 A.D.

Mass transports of Jews to Belgium & Holland.

1944 A.D.

EXTERMINATION OF HUNGARIAN JEWS.

1945 A.D.

HOLOCAUST Final Count: 6,000,000 Jews slaughtered.

1946 A.D.

Pogroms in Poland – 42 Jews murdered.

1948 A.D.

BIRTH OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL. Also Jewish intellectuals shot in Russia.

1952 A.D.

Jews murdered byCommunists, and others disappear. Prague trials. Murder of Yiddish intellectuals in Russia and many sent to work camps..

1956 A.D.

Jews expelled out of EGYPT.

1967 A.D.

SIX DAY WAR. Also new publication of Elders of Zion in Arabic.

1968 A.D.

Emigration of last remaining Jews in Poland.

1969 A.D.

JEWS EXECUTED IN IRAQ.

1970 A.D.

Beginning of imprisonment in Russia of PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE. (« Refuseniks »)

1980 A.D.

Russian imprisonments carry on throughout the 70’s to the 80’s.

1982 A.D.

War in Lebanon begins after many years of terrorist attacks against the Jews in the Upper Galilee area from the vantage point of Beaufort Castle. Many Lebanese killed over long period of time, but was ignored by the News Media. War in Lebanon gets slanted coverage.

1983 A.D.

Word from Christians in Israel that the PLO planned their next battleground to be Canada via Quebec. Documented proof that Russia planned in 1982 to attack Israel.

SUMMARY:

The word « anti-Semitism » is inadequate. It is a misnomer. The word was coined in 1879 from the Greek words « anti », meaning « against » and « Semite », meaning a descendant of Shem. The word was first used by Wilhelm Marr a German agitator, who created it to explain the current anti-Jewish campaigns in Europe. Since the Arab peoples are also Semitic people it is not the best expression. Anti-Jewish, and Jew- hatred, are more descriptive. It is more than just prejudice. The word came into general use in the past hundred years and encompasses all forms of hostility manifested toward Jews throughout history.

There can be economic and social or racial anti-Semitism. It didn’t reach epidemic proportions until 175 B.C. Previous uprisings against Jews were not really anti-Semitic. It began almost exclusively in countries which later became part of the Roman Empire. Prejudice flared it seems because Jewish people in honouring their Jewish laws, appeared to be in defiance of Gentile governments. The false assumption began to emerge that Jews didn’t have any respect for whatever was held in esteem by the rest of humanity.

In the Greek Hellenistic period no other nation denied the gods of it’s neighbours; on the contrary they recognized those gods, identifying them with their own deities. These heathen « gods » created a social bond between people in their domains. None of the people refrained from dining at table with their neighbours and from partaking of the sacrifices offered to their gods except the Jews. None of the peoples refused to send gifts to its neighbours temples, except the Jews. None of the peoples was unequivocally hostile to intermarriage except the Jews.

In the eastern Mediterranean area friction arose over the difference in occupations between Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish population was engaged primarily in small scale farming; the non-Jewish population occupied itself primarily in commerce. The sea trade was almost entirely in the hands of the trans-Jordanian cities, which connected Syria, Asia Minor and the regions of the Euphrates with the Arabian countries. The inhabitants of Eretz Israel had connections abroad. Non-Jews also knew that Jews looked upon their land as their divine inheritance.

The first serious manifestation of anti-Semitism was in the days of the Syrian, Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C. Hellenistic rulers saw the unfriendliness of the Jews as obstacles to the cultural scene. He undertook to destroy those laws of the Talmud that he regarded as unacceptable to humanity. To this end he desecrated their place of worship by sacrificing a pig on their altar in Jerusalem, and ordered that the residual juices be sprinkled over the Holy Books containing these Jewish laws.

Greek authors in the first century portrayed the Jewish people as descendants of a mob of lepers. They further stated that because of this uncleanness Jews shunned the flesh of pigs, since pigs were more prone to contract disease. The Gentiles knew that their own pagan religions and practices rendered them unclean in the eyes of the Jews.

The fact remains that even after four thousand years the idea of a covenant between the Jews and Jehovah is still alive; and is mentioned daily in prayers in synagogues throughout the world. The idea of a covenant with God has remained constant. Because Jehovah is immortal He never dies and because He never dies He never has to be reincarnated. Thus the Jews dispensed with the reincarnation rites of the pagans. The Jews’ God was invisible. The concept of « one God », Jehovah, being completely withdrawn from sexuality led to a curb of licentious impulses through inner discipline. By contrast ,the Greek gods themselves set the pattern for the unbridled lust and perversion which finally weakened the moral fibre of that people; whereas the Jews, even when they later came in contact with the Greeks, refused to indulge in the Grecian sexual excesses, which included even temple prostitution. The Jewish religion did away with all fertility rites.

As a consequence of the Jewish dietary laws, intermarriage was forbidden and no real social intercourse with gentiles was possible. Also, Jews refused to enter into Emperor worship. It was considered to be an expression of loyalty to the state. About their own religious practices a libel began to circulate that Jews actually sacrificed humans on their altars, allegedly using the blood for Passover rites. Further it was said that the sacrificed person must be a Christian or one of their children. This became known as the « Blood Libel » against the Jews. It mattered not that it was a total fabrication.

Another libel circulating was that unclean leprous people were expelled from Egypt, and that the Jews were these people. Therefore, being foreigners, it was stated that the Jews had no right to claim ancient Israel as their divinely given land.

The destruction of the temple by Titus in 70 AD was seen as hatred by God of the Jews, and as punishment. Jews in Rome felt the barbs of Roman writers. Nero’s teacher was anti-Semitic. Cornelius Tacitus wrote about every libellous fabrication against Jews that he could find in Greek anti-Semitic literature. Juvenal wrote a poem revealing that to him the Jews were hateful not only to man but to the gods as well.

In the fourth century AD, when Constantine became the Roman Emperor and supposedly converted to Christianity, he harnessed Political power to Religion and passed anti-Jewish laws, whereby Jews were excluded from every sphere of political influence, and denied civic rights.

The Gospel accounts began to be the source from which wrong teachings grew, until the word « Deicide » meant the Jews killed God, and were labelled « Christ-killers ». Matthew 27:25 which spoke of some Jewish leaders was used instead to apply to all Jews: « His blood be on us and on our children…Ye are of your father the devil. »

Converts to Christianity and converts to Judaism sparked a seriously divisive rivalry. Religious competition began between the Greek fathers of the Church, and Jews. Church laws were passed whereby Jewish relations with Christian women was now punishable by death. Anti-Semitism at this time was mainly limited to the clergy, who were the educated minority.

Islam arose in the seventh century AD, and also attacked the Jews because the Jews did not recognize Muhammad as a legitimate Prophet. The Koran contained their writings; and many statements in it were hostile to Jews. In the Middle Ages church councils legislated to prevent contact with the Jews because Christians were saying after visiting synagogues that the Jews were better priests.

CONCLUSION:

The above catalogue is only the tip of the iceberg! One would think that anti-Jewish atrocities would have ended with the nightmare of the Holocaust. One-third of the world’s Jews were murdered by an ungodly German conspiracy that had accused the Jews of « conspiracy ». It is not often emphasized that two-thirds of the world’s Jews survived; and that due to the faithfulness of their G-d. God has again, as in times past, protected them from total extermination, as He promised. (the Book of Esther, and Jeremiah 31:35-37)

The Holocaust was the final catalyst which led to the re-creation of the State of Israel in 1948. But we have to go back at the very least to the DREYFUS CASE to understand the long range process.

Alfred Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Alsatian family in France. He entered the French Army in 1892 and became a Captain, and the only Jew. He was framed by a fellow officer for allegedly giving secrets to the enemy, arrested and tried for treason. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Eventually Emile Zola took up the fight proclaiming the man’s innocence and published an open letter to the President of France titled « I ACCUSE. » Dreyfus was eventually declared unjustly convicted by the Parliament of France. The injustice was totally motivated by Jew-hatred.

During the course of the trumped-up trial a Jewish journalist became involved; and he was the man that was to lead the Jews back to their Land. His name was THEODORE HERZL (1860 – 1904 A.D.) and he called European Jewry together in Basle, Switzerland in 1897 at the now famous « First World Zionist Congress ». There in 1897 he publicly predicted to friend and foe alike that the Jews would be back in « the Land » of Palestine « within 50 years ». In 1947, exactly fifty years later the United Nations passed the « Resolution For the Partition of Palestine », which lead to the declaration of Statehood on May 14,1948.

With the shouts of « death » to the Jews still ringing in his ears from the Dreyfus Trial, Herzl became convinced that the only solution was the mass exodus of the Jews from their present places of residence to a territory of their own… So out of the suffering of the Dreyfus family came the State of Israel. Herzl became the father of Political Zionism and founder of the World Zionist organization.

Herzl was born in Budapest. He left a German students society in 1883 in protest against his first encounter with anti-Semitism. He came across this « Jewish problem » again and again in his life. Although he graduated in 1884 with a doctorate of law he left the legal profession and became a famous writer. He wrote many literary works, some of them plays.

In 1891 he became the Paris correspondent of a Vienna newspaper. He pursued politics and organized the first Zionist Congress is Basle in 1897. (In 1960, Israel issued a centenary stamp with a well known painting of Herzl on the bridge at Basle.) The World Zionist organization was formed. He was chairman and remained so for the next five congresses. He knew Great Britain would be the deciding factor in the realization of Zionist aims. In 1917 the Balfour Declaration became the launching-pad for the founding of the modern Jewish state.

Herzl did not have an easy task. Even his own people were difficult on this issue. His heart failed in 1904. He did not live to see the creation of Israel in 1948. But in 1949 he was laid to rest, reinterred in a place that was named in his honour Mount Herzl, in Jerusalem. A Herzl monument stands nearby. The anniversary of his death on the 20th of Tammuz was declared a National Memorial Day in Israel. In the April 1983 issue of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, following a report on Jerusalem there is a picture that could be titled: « The sorrow of the Jewish People ». There are three young Israeli ladies, soldiers, who happen to be very beautiful standing or kneeling at the Herzl Tomb site where there are three new graves…the first soldiers to die in the 1982 conflict in Lebanon.

1983 was the 50th anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power; since he was made chancellor in 1933. There was an extensive report on this subject in the April 1983 issue of the Jerusalem Post. Their man in Bonn stated: « There has been no substantial break with the past. Therefore West German Democracy must continue to be subject to question by Germans more than by anyone else. » The Post also offered these words which are worth contemplating. Perhaps you never considered this. I had not…

« The destruction that Hitler brought on his own people ranks only after the mass murder he committed on the Jews and the destruction and death rained upon the Soviet Union. He left Germany not only physically ruined, but stripped of its’ self respect, ashamed of its’ place in human history, uncertain of its’ identity, seeking refuge in the compulsive reconstruction of material damage. »

They also mentioned…

« The war Hitler unleashed and the organized mass murder that was a central part of his design cost the lives of 40 million human beings in Europe alone. Among them 6,000,000 Jews – two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. More than 6,000,000 of his own people also died and others were left hungry. »

God promised Abraham: « I will bless those who bless you (and your descendants); and I will curse those who curse you » (Genesis 12:1-3) We can see that the Germans have paid an awful price for allowing this man to lead them down a path contrary to Scripture, by declaring them to be a super race. The man who wanted to obtain the whole world, gained nothing but eternal damnation. He and those who followed him lost everything.

What about Canada?

Most of us would be quick to say that our hands are clean. A truly shocking indictment of our role in the Holocaust can be found in the book « None is Too Many ». This title was taken from a statement made by an immigration official when a delegation of Jews went to Ottawa in 1939 to ask: « How many Jews will Canada take in? » The Immigration Minister answered « None is too many ».

The authors, Irving Abella and Harold Troper, published this book in 1982 and was on the Canadian Best Sellers List. They received an award early in 1983 for it. It is thoroughly researched and documented proof that our top bureaucrat in the Immigration Department, Fred Blair, a professing Christian, wanted no Jews in Canada and did everything he could in the way of roadblocks to prevent it. In studying it I find I want to scream with the agony of our shame.

MacKenzie King didn’t want them. Perhaps he was too busy talking to his dead mother and his dead dog as he gazed into his crystal ball (all told in his published diaries). The authors record that Canada’s Prime Minister thought Hitler had a good face and that he was sweet. King was deathly afraid of what Quebec would do if he gave in and allowed in refugees. The French -Canadian press was very hostile to Jews (Le Devoir). There was also a very vocal fascist Party in Quebec; headed by Adrianne Arcand.

Blair had the opportunity to rescue thousands, but wouldn’t budge on his restrictive policy. He just didn’t want any Jewish immigrants.

Lester Pearson said that we didn’t have a boat. Ottawa would not listen either to the pleas of George Vanier; even though he was Canadian Ambassador to France and was there on the scene.

Conservative Robert Manion didn’t want any either. In the midst of all of the obstruction the Toronto Globe & Mail asked at one point « Does Canada stand for anything? » Manion wanted no Jews as long as Canadians were unemployed. Ernest LaPointe of Quebec and the Le Devoir newspaper and Vincent Massey of External Affairs wanted Jews kept out of Canada. Massey was a fringe member of the Pro-German anti-Semitic Cliveden set centred around Lord and Lady Astor in London; where Vincent was Canadian High Commissioner.

We had one social worker on the scene and her name was Charlotte Whitton, outspoken Mayor of Ottawa. She fiercely fought not to have Jewish children here as she favoured British children. She led a movement to evacuate endangered British mothers and children. The Canadian Jewish Congress saw her as an enemy of Jewish immigration. Oscar Cohen said she « almost broke up the inaugural meeting of the congress on Refugees by her insistent opposition and very apparent anti-Semitism. »

The saddest story I have ever read in my life is the whole chapter from the Abella book titled « The children that never came. » It takes care of any pride we may have in being Canadians. It is documented evidence 25 pages in length of continuous pleading on behalf of officials in places like France and Poland to take children whose lives were in immediate danger. Blair’s hard hearted efforts lead to the declaration in the end of that chapter that reads: « There were no more schemes to help…save the refugee children. None were needed. » By the time of the allied invasion of France in June 1944 most of these children had been murdered. NOT ONE of them had made it to Canada! They had been talking at times about as many as 5000.

I am happy to report that good has come out of the publishing of this book. The authors report that Lloyd Axworthy, current Minister of Immigration, apologized for the behaviour of predecessors and promised that it would never happen again. But also having read some papers by these authors prior to publication, Ron Atkey, former Conservative Minister of Immigration, took the responsibility and opened the doors to the BOAT PEOPLE because he did not want to be known as another Frederick Blair.

In « Bridges for Peace », the 1983 issue from Tulsa, Oklahoma we read about the state of anti-Semitism as in this day, media coverage is slanted.

« While some would have you believe the world is becoming a better place and anti-Semitism is on the wane, I believe that careful observation will prove otherwise. In the last two years, we have seen a growing double standard used by the media in reporting events concerning Israel. And as we saw this past summer in Greece, Italy, and France, this very distorted, even false media reporting about Israel’s involvement in Lebanon resulted in attacks against local Jewish communities solely because they were Jewish; regardless of their affiliation with Israel. For example: In France a video tape of a Palestinian boy holding his bleeding, dying sister was repeatedly shown as the result of an aggressive Jewish attack on civilians in Lebanon. Local Frenchmen, incensed by this news, staged an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish march which culminated in the bombing of synagogues and Jewish owned businesses killing many. It was later proven that this video tape was six years old and showing the destruction of the Tel-Zatar refugee camp by the SYRIANS in 1976. Jews were NOT even involved but the ugly head of Anti-Semitism had already shown itself. »

AND SO IT NEVER SEEMS TO END.

But it will. One day the Bible says we shall take the hem of the Jews’ skirt and go with them to Zion because we know God is with them. Zechariah tells us that the Lord will come and place His feet on the Mount of Olives. He will fight for His people Israel against all the nations of the world. All the land of Israel will dwell in safety and peace when the Messiah comes. He will rule and reign from Jerusalem, the Son of David, sitting on David’s throne. (Read 2 Samuel 7:11-16; and Psalm 2:6-8;and 89:20-37)

Regardless of Israel’s sins of the past the Lord will forgive, cleanse, and restore (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Christians throughout the world are awakening to a call to stand by the side of the Jewish people. Beginning in 1979 Christians in Jerusalem rallied to her side when the governments of the World began to pull their embassies out of Jerusalem in fear because of the Arab oil power. The « International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem » was established. With people like Jan Willem Van Der Hoeven and the Comfort Zion ministry of Merv and Merla Watson, Jews are beginning to be provoked to jealousy. They are watching Christian love in action; and hope is being reborn when they see 5000 Christians celebrating during the Jewish « Feast of Tabernacles », dancing with joy on Mount Zion and supporting them in their hour of need.

If Canada’s Joe Clark had kept his promise to move our embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, he would have done better. Six months after breaking his promise he ceased to be Prime Minister; and twelve months later he was removed as Leader of the Progressive-Conservative Party.

Coincidence? God hears our promises; even « election promises ». The Scripture says God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her. Every nation that has persecuted the Jews has, in the long run, inherited the negative side of God’s promise to Abram: « and I will curse those who curse you (and your descendants). »

SO IN CONCLUSION:

Anti-Semitism is a venomous condition of the heart of man and not just prejudice, hatred or discrimination. Jealousy and envy of the Jew more than anything else seems to be the main root of this condition. It is a spiritual problem. But Jeremiah said it best and it is truth from God’s Word… « The heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked; who can know it? ».

Anti-Semitism engages man in a conduct that is: inconceivable, unbelievable, shocking, grotesque, incomprehensible, unthinkable, inhumane and intolerable.

This information has been gleaned from Alan Lazerte’s course on anti-Semitism given at Fraserview Assembly, January, February and March 1983 as Director of the Canadian Friends of the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bridges for Peace-current news direct from Christians in Israel through Tulsa.

The Jerusalem Post – current news direct from Jews in Israel.

The ISRAEL POCKET LIBRARY BOOK ON ANTI-SEMITISM.

Canadian Book « None is Too Many », Irving Abella and Harold Troper.

Friends of the Christian Embassy Canada, Israel Report.

Jews’ God and History; by Max I. Dimont. A Signet Book.

The information from this course was a shock to most of us; it was an eye opener in many ways, especially regarding the Christians persecution of the Jew; which contributed to the Nazi attempt to totally exterminate them. This essay was written as a requirement of taking seriously Alan’s attempt to put the course together. He did his part as teacher excellently. God has chosen well. I was eager to learn. At Alan’ suggestion this essay is being printed to circulate to others who may not have a chance to attend the lectures. It is also printed to cement my own vow before God to bridge the gap and make amends to the Jew for the way Christians, the Canadian Government and others have failed them.

I dedicate this to the children that never came; and to my brother who died trying to stop a mad man that was on the loose in Germany.

Writers: Laureen Moe

Source: Canadian Friends, International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem

http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/summanti.html

Voir également:

109 Locations whence Jews have been Expelled since AD250

YEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PLACE

250 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Carthage

415 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Alexandria

554 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Diocèse of Clermont (France)

561 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Diocèse of Uzès (France)

612 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Visigoth Spain

642 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Visigoth Empire

855 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Italy

876 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Sens

1012 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Mainz

1182 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – France

1182 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Germany

1276 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Upper Bavaria

1290 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – England

1306 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – France

1322 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – France (again)

1348 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Switzerland

1349 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hielbronn (Germany)

1349 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Saxony

1349 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hungary

1360 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hungary

1370 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Belgium

1380 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Slovakia

1388 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Strasbourg

1394 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Germany

1394 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – France

1420 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Lyons

1421 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Austria

1424 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Fribourg

1424 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Zurich

1424 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Cologne

1432 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Savoy

1438 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Mainz

1439 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Augsburg

1442 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Netherlands

1444 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Netherlands

1446 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Bavaria

1453 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – France

1453 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Breslau

1454 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Wurzburg

1462 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Mainz

1483 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Mainz

1484 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Warsaw

1485 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Vincenza (Italy)

1492 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Spain

1492 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Italy

1495 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Lithuania

1496 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Naples

1496 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Portugal

1498 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Nuremberg

1498 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Navarre

1510 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Brandenberg

1510 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Prussia

1514 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Strasbourg

1515 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Genoa

1519 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Regensburg

1533 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Naples

1541 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Naples

1542 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Prague & Bohemia

1550 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Genoa

1551 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Bavaria

1555 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Pesaro

1557 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Prague

1559 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Austria

1561 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Prague

1567 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Wurzburg

1569 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Papal States

1571 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Brandenburg

1582 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Netherlands

1582 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hungary

1593 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Brandenburg, Austria

1597 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Cremona, Pavia & Lodi

1614 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Frankfort

1615 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Worms

1619 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Kiev

1648 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Ukraine

1648 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Poland

1649 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hamburg

1654 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Little Russia (Beylorus)

1656 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Lithuania

1669 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Oran (North Africa)

1669 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Vienna

1670 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Vienna

1712 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Sandomir

1727 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Russia

1738 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Wurtemburg

1740 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Little Russia (Beylorus)

1744 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Prague, Bohemia

1744 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Slovakia

1744 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Livonia

1745 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Moravia

1753 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Kovad (Lithuania)

1761 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Bordeaux

1772 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Deported to the Pale of Settlement (Poland/Russia)

1775 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Warsaw

1789 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Alsace

1804 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Villages in Russia

1808 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Villages & Countrysides (Russia)

1815 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Lbeck & Bremen

1815 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Franconia, Swabia & Bavaria

1820 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Bremen

1843 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Russian Border Austria & Prussia

1862 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Areas in the U.S. under General Grant’s Jurisdiction[1]

1866 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Galatz, Romania

1880s – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Russia

1891 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Moscow

1919 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Bavaria (foreign born Jews)

1938-45 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Nazi Controlled Areas

1948 — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Arab Countries

Reference sources for the above.

[1] On December 17, 1862, General Ulysses Grant wrote to the Assistant Adjutant General of the US Army:

« I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the specie regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by the Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officer at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the department. But they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere. They will land at any woodyard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves, they will act as agents for someone else, who will be at a military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy at an agreed rate, paying gold. »

Also, on December 17, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Orders No. 11. This order banished all Jews from Tennessee’s western military.

General Orders No. 11 declared: « 1. The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, are hereby expelled from the Department.

« 2. Within 24 hours from the receipt of this order by Post Commanders, they will see that all of this class of people are furnished with passes required to leave, and anyone returning after such notification, will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permits from these headquarters.

« 3. No permits will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.

« By order of Major Gen. Grant.

« Jno. A. Rawlings,

Assistant Adjutant General »

Voir encore:

The Bible, Violence and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence. By James G. Williams.

Foreword by Rene Girard. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991. x + 288 pages. U.S. $27.00.

In his Foreword to this book, Rene Girard repeats the thesis that has put his work at the center of controversy in religious and biblical studies (as witness the new affiliate society of the AAR, the Colloquium On Violence and Religion, or COVQR): that religion and culture derive from mimetic conflict and scapegoating violence. Since religion and culture also conceal this originary violence, our own scapegoats would be « completely invisible as scapegoats » were it not for a « revelation » that Girard finds in the Bible. In contrast to « the ‘natural religions’ of humankind, the ones rooted in arbitrary victimage, » it is in the Bible « and there only that a genuine theme or motif of the scapegoat can make its appearance. » As a consequence, « we » the inheritors of the biblical legacy share a « loudly advertised repugnance for victimage, which has no equivalent in any other society. Even if our deeds so not match our principles. . .our awareness of scapegoating is unique. . . » (pp. vii-viii). Hailing Girard’s work as « the basis for a new Christian humanism » (p. 6), Williams sets out to document the biblical  » ‘unveiling’ of the victimage mechanism in which the narrative and the God of the narrative side with the innocent victim » (p. 25), thereby revealing « God’s will for nonviolent human community » (p. 30). Noting that in Genesis Cain’s murder of Abel does not serve the mythic function for Israel that Romulus’ murder of Remus does for Rome, Williams concludes that « Israel. . .is created through a process of becoming exceptional vis-a-vis the violent structures in the midst of which it came to be » (p. 30). The pattern of « enemy brothers » in the Genesis narratives, ideal for an analysis of mimetic conflict, shows Israel’s ancestors repeatedly transcending the logic of sacrificial exchange (chapter 2). Similarly, the chaos and mimetic conflicts that saturate the Exodus account show the Book Reviews real experience of a people emerging from the victimage dynamics of Egyptian sacral kingship (although Williams contrasts the Exodus account not with ancient Egyptian mythology, but with much later Helle- nistic Egyptian myths of the Exodus as an expulsion of a diseased popula- tion). The increasing significance of Moses in subsequent Pentateuchal traditions reflects the gradual externalization of Israel’s own mimetic con- flict (chapter 3), a conflict that is channeled and controlled by the system of prohibitions that makes up the covenant (chapter 4). That this cove- nant includes a sacrificial system, requires the ritual surrender of the firstborn (echoing God’s destruction of the Egyptian firstborn), and retains narratives of the tremendous violence of the Levites (Exodus 32), shows that « Israel. . .has not extricated itself completely from the mythi- cal camouflage of the victimization mechanism » (p. 120). The revelation that Williams finds « struggling to make itself known in the covenant. . .reaches a new stage of clarity with the great prophets » (p. 127). Williams sees the prophets as doubles of the kings, alike « called » by God, i.e., excluded from the community, « to assume a special responsi- bilityfor those who are likewise expelled, excluded, or marginal » (p. 131). If this calling was « given only ideological lip service » by kings « once power was centralized, » so that the king’s power « resided in his ability to control the mechanism » of sacrificial exchange, the figure of the prophet repre- sented by the canon represents a « radical ‘throwback,’  » standing out from the community structures of violence « in order to stand for both the community and its victims » (p. 143); in this development Williams sees « the chief dynamic of revelation and Scripture » (p. 147). What emerges is a comprehensive proposal for a biblical theology of the nonviolent God. The obvious methodological question, how this theology can be derived from texts saturated with violence, is answered when Williams turns (in chapter 6) to the story of Job, who refuses to cooperate in his own scapegoating by his neighbors. Aware of the complexities of competing voices and messages in the canonical form of the book, Williams declares that « the first obligation of the interpreter who stands in service to the biblical tradition of the disclosure of the innocent victim and the God of victims is not to the text as such but to the victim and to the God of love and justice » (p. 172). Despite Williams’ obvious acumen as a literary critic, he repeatedly distinguishes his reading of the Bible from post-modern methodologies, and even laments the « antirevelation and antitheology values » dominant in « the current intellectual situa- tion » (p. 186). We as human beings are always « involved in the mimetic predicament, » from which we must be extricated by a revelation « from outside ourselves. » « The revelation of God is the disclosure of (1) the standpoint of the victim. . .and (2) the divine-human community of nonviolence » (p. 187). This is a coherent theological position, but a fragile one: for Williams echoes Girard’s polemic against postmodern method, which undermines 187 188 and subverts biblical authority and « elevates the critic to the status of high priest controlling the knowledge of text and tradition » (p. 210). This is disingenuous. A glance at history shows that the Christian gospel has usually not been identified with the revelation of nonviolence, and Wil- liams makes no claim to speak from a community historically committed to nonviolence (as theologians from the « peace churches » frequently do). The result is that he must himself write as a virtuoso critic (despite demurrals like that on p. 213), asking us to share his vision of a nonvio- lent God partially revealed, yet partially concealed by the biblical text, a position analogous to that of Marcion in the second century. – This dilemma is nowhere more evident than in Williams’ discussion of the Gospels (chapters 7 and 8), which he declares to be « the culmina- tion of the Israelite-Jewish tradition of revelation, » for even here Williams must admit that « sacrificial language still has a strong hold. » He thus departs from Girard, more dramatically than he allows (p. 188), for Girard has repeatedly insisted that « the sacrificial reading of Christianity » is a perverse misconstrual of the Gospels (especially perverse, one presumes, when those who perceive and criticize sacrificial aspects of the Gospels are themselves Christian theologians). Such criticism, Girard has declared, is « a waste of time »: « Among the foolish undertakings of mankind, there is none more ridiculous than this » (The Scapegoat, trans. Yvonne Frecerro [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 19861, p. 109). Williams echoes Girard’s protest, portraying Gospel critics within the academy as overwhelmed by mimetic rivalry-« everyone tries to outdo everyone else in being against victimization and oppression of every sort, against ethnocentrism, and finally, basically, against Christianity » (p. 186)-but one feels his heart is not really in that fight: he is too aware of the critical problems the Gospels present to Girard’s program; and, after all, he himself takes « the standpoint of the victim » as his hermeneutical principle (p. 239). At times, Williams’ recognition of critical problems in the Gospels tends to undermine the Giraridan reading (a problem Girard avoids in his writings through the ritual expulsion of the critic). Williams labors over the difficulty of sacrificial language in the Gospels, chiefly Jesus’ declaration that the Son of Man « gives his life as a ransom [lytron] for many » (Mark 10:45). He admits that lytron is « an unmistakably sacrificial word that would be readily understood as such, » but offers in place of this « readily understood » meaning a Girardian gloss: « The human condition is such that only the price of the Son of Man’s suffering and death will have the effect of loosening the bonds of the sacred social structure, enabling human beings to see what their predicament is and the kind of faith and action that will bring liberation » (pp. 224, 202). That what the text means is so different from what it says reflects the tragic bondage of human language: « sacrificial language is used, necessarily, in order to break out of a sacrificial view of the world » (p. 224). Journal of the American Academy of Religion Book Reviews Again, Williams gives tremendous weight to Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15-19 and parallels), arguing that since « the Temple was the center of the sacred in Judaism, » Jesus’ action represented « an attack on the entire sacrijcial system » (p. 193). He recognizes, however, that Pharisees, Essenes, and various other apocalyptic communal movements were not centered on the Temple (pp. 193, 228). This suggests that Mark’s attempt to link the response of the « crowd » to Jesus with the over- throw of the Temple is artificial. Williams is aware that Mark writes in a specific historical context after the destruction of the Temple (p. 226), but (in defiance of a century of Gospel scholarship) refuses on principle to separate Mark’s theological agenda from the historical context of Jesus’ action: this, the « supreme act of critical differentiating, » would serve only to « deny the authority of the Gospels and to elevate the critic to the status of high priest » (p. 210). At length, however, Williams declares that the biblical critic who wants to find in the Gospels the revelation of the nonviolent God is thrown back upon « faithu-« faith that what is revealed there through human language and culture comes from beyond this setting, where dif- ferences rage in combat with confusion » (p. 231). But this standpoint implicitly challenges the sovereign « authority of the Gospels, » a posture with which other biblical scholars and theologians are increasingly comfortable. In a final chapter Williams offers a sampling of his personal views on current issues from the perspective of Girard’s theory, from abortion (« the perfect example of the innocent victim. . .is the child, particularly the infant and the fetus in the womb, » p. 253), to the addictive nature of American capitalism, to the Persian Gulf War. Guided by a belief that « the destiny of the United States is part of a Spirit-guided historical pro- cess that is decisively centered in the disclosure of the Innocent Victim and is moving toward God’s good end of judgment and restoration of all things » (p. 241), he sees the United States as « the most mythical of nations and the supreme scapegoat nation, » by which he means that « the ills of the world are transferred to our doing, to our reality, whether or not we have any connection with them or not » (p. 243). This is particularly disingenuous in the immediate context, where Williams speaks of the Ira- nian revolution: he notes « the Iranian tendency, even after Khomeini, to impute every misfortune to the ‘Great Satan’ America, » but says nothing, for example, of Norman Schwarzkopf’s contributions in organizing the murderous Savak. Williams rehearses the conventional U.S. legitimations of the Gulf War, considering the rightness of the U.S. « requirement for oil » as self-evident as Hussein’s « quest for power and acclaim in the Arab world » (p. 244). Given the immensity of the Gulf War horror, these pages read as a confirmation of Girard’s words in the Preface: « the only scape- goats easy to detect as such are those of our enemies; the scapegoats of 189 190 our friends are harder to seed, and, if they happen to be ours as well, they are completely invisible as scapegoats » (p. viii). The great value of the book is Williams’ critical erudition, which offers substantiation and, in places, qualifications to Girard’s reading of the Bible. Alongside works like Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers: Dis- cernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992) and Jim Douglass’ The Nonviolent Coming of God (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), this book represents an emerging biblical theol- ogy of nonviolence. Girard’s theory continues to be an integral, if contro- versial, element in the development of that theology in the 1990s. The book includes a general index. Journal of the American Academy of Religion Neil Elliott College of St. Catherine St. Paul, MN 55105The Bible, Violence and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence. B y James G. Williams. Foreword by Rene Girard.

San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991. x + 288 pages. U.S.

$27.00.

 Voir aussi:

LE BOUC EMISSAIRE

René Girard (chapitre I)

Le poète et musicien Guillaume de Machaut écrivait au milieu du XIVe siècle. Son Jugement du Roy de Navarre mériterait d’être mieux connu. La partie principale de l’œuvre, certes, n’est qu’un long poème de style courtois, conventionnel de style et de sujet. Mais le début a quelque chose de saisissant. C’est une suite confuse d’événements catastrophiques auxquels Guillaume prétend avoir assisté avant de s’enfermer, finalement, de terreur dans sa maison pour y attendre la mort ou la fin de l’indicible épreuve. Certains événements sont tout à fait invraisemblables, d’autres ne le sont qu’à demi. Et pourtant de ce récit une impression se dégage : il a dû se passer quelque chose de réel. Il y a des signes dans le ciel. Les pierres pleuvent et assomment les vivants. Des villes entières sont détruites par la foudre. Dans celle où résidait Guillaume – il ne dit pas laquelle – les hommes meurent en grand nombre. Certaines de ces morts sont dues à la méchanceté des juifs et de leurs complices parmi les chrétiens. Comment ces gens-là s’y prenaient-ils pour causer de vastes pertes dans la population locale? Ils empoisonnaient les rivières, les sources d’approvisionnement en eau potable. La justice céleste a mis bon ordre à ces méfaits en révélant leurs auteurs à la population qui les a tous massacrés. Et pourtant les gens n’ont pas cessé de mourir, de plus en plus nombreux, jusqu’à un certain jour de printemps où Guillaume entendit de la musique dans la rue, des hommes et des femmes qui riaient. Tout était fini et la poésie courtoise pouvait recommencer. Depuis ses origines aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, la critique moderne consiste à ne pas faire aux textes une confiance aveugle. Beaucoup de bons esprits, à notre époque, croient faire progresser encore la perspicacité critique en exigeant une méfiance toujours accrue. A force d’être interprétés et réinterprétés par les générations successives d’historiens, des textes qui paraissaient naguère porteurs d’information réelle sont aujourd’hui soupçonnés. Les épistémologues et les philosophes, d’autre part, traversent une crise radicale qui contribue à l’ébranlement de ce qu’on appelait jadis la science historique. Tous les intellectuels habitués à se nourrir de textes se réfugient dans des considérations désabusées sur l’impossibilité de toute interprétation certaine. Au premier abord, le texte de Guillaume de Machaut peut passer pour vulnérable au climat actuel de scepticisme en matière de certitude historique. Après quelques instants de réflexion, pourtant, même aujourd’hui, les lecteurs repèrent des événements réels à travers les invraisemblances du récit. Ils ne croient ni aux signes dans le ciel ni aux accusations contre les juifs mais ils ne traitent pas tous les thèmes incroyables de la même façon; ils ne les mettent pas tous sur le même plan. Guillaume n’a rien inventé. C’est un homme crédule, certes, et il reflète une opinion publique hystérique. Les innombrables morts dont il fait état n’en sont pas moins réelles, causées de toute évidence par la fameuse peste noire qui ravagea la France en 1349 et 1350. Le massacre des juifs est également réel, justifié aux yeux des foules meurtrières par les rumeurs d’empoisonnement qui circulent un peu partout. C’est la terreur universelle de la maladie qui donne un poids suffisant à ces rumeurs pour déclencher lesdits massacres. Voici le passage du Jugement du Roy de Navarre qui traite des juifs : Après ce, vint une merdaille Fausse, traître et renoïe : Ce fu Judée la honnie, La mauvaise, la desloyal, Qui bien het et aimme tout mal, Qui tant donna d’or et d’argent Et promist a crestienne gent, Que puis, rivieres et fonteinnes Qui estoient cleres et seinnes En plusieurs lieus empoisonnerent, Dont pluseurs leurs vies finerent ; Car trestuit cil qui en usoient Assez soudeinnement moroient. Dont, certes, par dis fois cent mille En morurent, qu’a champ, qu’a ville. Einsois que fust aperceuë Ceste mortel deconvenue. Mais cils qui haut siet et louing voit, Qui tout gouverne et tout pourvoit, Ceste traïson plus celer Ne volt, enis la fist reveler Et si generalement savoir Qu’ils perdirent corps et avoir. Car tuit Juif furent destruit, Li uns pendus, li autres cuit, L’autre noié, l’autre ot copée La teste de hache ou d’espée. Et maint crestien ensement En morurent honteusement1.

Les communautés médiévales redoutaient tellement la peste que son nom même les effrayait; elles évitaient aussi longtemps que possible de le prononcer et même de prendre les mesures qui s’imposaient, au risque d’aggraver les conséquences des épidémies. Leur impuissance était telle qu’avouer la vérité, ce n’était pas faire face à la situation mais plutôt s’abandonner à ses effets désagrégateurs, renoncer à tout semblant de vie normale. La population tout entière s’associait volontiers à ce type d’aveuglement. Cette volonté désespérée de nier l’évidence favorisait la chasse aux « boucs émissaires 2 ». Dans les Animaux malades de la peste, La Fontaine suggère admirablement cette répugnance quasi religieuse à énoncer le terme terrifiant, à déchaîner en quelque sorte sa puissance maléfique dans la communauté : La peste (puisqu’il faut l’appeler par son nom)…

Le fabuliste nous fait assister au processus de la mauvaise foi collective qui consiste à identifier dans l’épidémie un châtiment divin. Le dieu de colère est irrité par une culpabilité qui n’est pas également partagée par tous. Pour écarter le fléau, il faut découvrir le coupable et le traiter en conséquence ou plutôt, comme écrit La Fontaine, le « dévouer » à la divinité. Les premiers interrogés, dans la fable, sont des bêtes de proie qui décrivent benoîtement leur comportement de bête de proie, lequel est tout de suite excusé. L’âne vient en dernier et c’est lui, pas du tout sanguinaire et, de ce fait, le plus faible et le moins protégé, qui se voit, en fin de compte, désigné. Dans certaines villes, pensent les historiens, les juifs se firent massacrer avant l’arrivée de la peste, au seul bruit de sa présence dans le voisinage. Le récit de Guillaume pourrait correspondre à un phénomène de ce genre car le massacre se produisit bien avant le paroxysme de l’épidémie. Mais les nombreuses morts attribuées par l’auteur au poison judaïque suggèrent une autre explication. Si ces morts sont réelles – et il n’y a pas de raison de les tenir pour imaginaires – elles pourraient bien être les premières victimes d’un seul et même fléau. Mais Guillaume ne s’en doute pas, même rétrospectivement. A ses yeux les boucs émissaires traditionnels conservent leur puissance explicatrice pour les premiers stades de l’épidémie. Pour les stades ultérieurs, seulement, l’auteur reconnaît la présence d’un phénomène proprement pathologique. L’étendue du désastre finit par décourager la seule explication par le complot des empoisonneurs, mais Guillaume ne réinterprète pas la suite entière des événements en fonction de leur raison d’être véritable. On peut d’ailleurs se demander jusqu’à quel point le poète reconnaît la présence de la peste car il évite jusqu’au bout d’écrire noir sur blanc le mot fatal. Au moment décisif, il introduit avec solennité le terme grec et encore rare, semble-t-il, d’epydimie. Ce mot ne fonctionne pas, visiblement, dans son texte comme il ferait dans le nôtre; ce n’est pas un véritable équivalent du terme redouté, c’est plutôt une espèce de substitut, un nouveau procédé pour ne pas appeler la peste par son nom, un nouveau bouc émissaire en somme mais purement linguistique cette fois. Il n’a jamais été possible, nous dit Guillaume, de déterminer la nature et la cause de la maladie dont tant de gens moururent en si peu de temps : Ne fusicien n’estoit, ne mire Qui bien sceüst la cause dire Dont ce venoit, ne que c’estoit (Ne nuls remede n’y metoit), Fors tant que c’estoit maladie Qu’on appelloit epydimie. Sur ce point encore, Guillaume préfère s’en remettre à l’opinion publique plutôt que de penser par lui-même. Du mot savant d’epydimie se dégage, semble-t-il, un parfum de « scientificité » qui contribue à refouler l’angoisse, un peu comme ces fumigations odoriférantes qu’on pratiquait longtemps au coin des rues pour tempérer les effluves pestilentiels. Une maladie bien nommée paraît à demi guérie et pour se donner une fausse impression de maîtrise on rebaptise fréquemment les phénomènes immaîtrisables. Ces exorcismes verbaux n’ont pas cessé de nous séduire dans tous les domaines où notre science demeure illusoire ou inefficace. En se refusant à la nommer c’est la peste elle-même, en somme, qu’on « dévoue » à la divinité. Il y a là comme un sacrifice langagier assez innocent, certes, comparé aux sacrifices humains qui l’accompagnent ou le précèdent, mais analogue dans sa structure essentielle. Même rétrospectivement, tous les boucs émissaires collectifs réels et imaginaires, les juifs et les flagellants, les pluies de pierre et l’epydimie, continuent à jouer leur rôle si efficacement dans le récit de Guillaume que celui-ci ne voit jamais l’unité du fléau désigné par nous comme la « peste noire ». L’auteur continue à percevoir une multiplicité de désastres plus ou moins indépendants ou reliés les uns aux autres seulement par leur signification religieuse, un peu comme les dix plaies d’Egypte. Tout ce que je viens de dire, ou presque, est évident. Nous comprenons tous le récit de Guillaume de la même façon et mes lecteurs n’ont pas besoin de moi. Il n’est pourtant pas inutile d’insister sur cette lecture dont l’audace et la puissance nous échappent, précisément parce qu’elle est admise par tous, parce qu’elle n’est pas controversée. L’unanimité s’est faite autour d’elle il y a littéralement des siècles et jamais elle ne s’est défaite. C’est d’autant plus remarquable qu’il s’agit d’une réinterprétation radicale. Nous rejetons sans hésiter le sens que l’auteur donne à son texte. Nous affirmons qu’il ne sait pas ce qu’il dit. A plusieurs siècles de distance, nous autres, modernes, le savons mieux que lui et nous sommes capables de rectifier son dire. Nous nous croyons à même de repérer une vérité que l’auteur n’a pas vue et, par une audace plus grande encore, nous n’hésitons pas à affirmer que cette vérité, c’est lui qui nous l’apporte, en dépit de son aveuglement. Est-ce à dire que cette interprétation ne mérite pas l’adhésion massive dont elle fait l’objet; nous montrons-nous à son égard d’une indulgence excessive? Pour discréditer un témoignage judiciaire, il suffit de prouver que, même sur un seul point, le témoin manque d’impartialité. En règle générale nous traitons les documents historiques comme des témoignages judiciaires. Or, nous transgressons cette règle en faveur d’un Guillaume de Machaut qui ne mérite peut-être pas ce traitement privilégié. Nous affirmons la réalité des persécutions mentionnées dans Le Jugement du Roy de Navarre. Nous prétendons tirer du vrai, en somme, d’un texte qui se trompe grossièrement sur des points essentiels. Si nous avons des raisons de nous méfier de ce texte, nous devrions peut-être le tenir pour entièrement suspect et renoncer à fonder sur lui la moindre certitude, sans excepter le fait brut de la persécution. D’où vient donc l’assurance étonnante de notre affirmation : des juifs ont été réellement massacrés. Une première réponse se présente à l’esprit. Nous ne lisons pas ce texte isolément. Il existe d’autres textes de la même époque; ils traitent des mêmes sujets; certains d’entre eux valent mieux que celui de Guillaume. Leurs auteurs s’y montrent moins crédules. A eux tous, ils forment un réseau serré de connaissances historiques au sein duquel nous replaçons le texte de Guillaume. C’est grâce à ce contexte, surtout, que nous réussissons à partager le vrai du faux dans le passage que j’ai cité. Il est vrai que les persécutions antisémites de la peste noire constituent un ensemble de faits relativement bien connu. Il y a là tout un savoir déjà constitué et il suscite en nous une certaine attente. Le texte de Guillaume répond à cette attente. Cette perspective n’est pas fausse sur le plan de notre expérience individuelle et du contact immédiat avec le texte, mais du point de vue théorique elle n’est pas satisfaisante. Le réseau de connaissances historiques existe, certes, mais les documents qui le composent ne sont jamais beaucoup plus sûrs que le texte de Guillaume, soit pour des raisons analogues, soit pour des raisons différentes. Et nous ne pouvons pas situer Guillaume parfaitement dans ce contexte puisque nous ne savons pas, je l’ai déjà dit, où se déroulent les événements qu’il nous rapporte. C’est peut-être à Paris, c’est peut-être à Reims, c’est peut-être dans une troisième ville. De toute façon le contexte ne joue pas un rôle décisif; même s’il n’en était pas informé, le lecteur moderne aboutirait à la lecture que j’ai donnée. Il conclurait à la probabilité de victimes injustement massacrées. Il penserait donc que le texte dit faux, puisque ces victimes sont innocentes, mais il penserait simultanément que le texte dit vrai, puisque les victimes sont réelles. Il finirait toujours par distinguer le vrai du faux exactement comme nous le distinguons nous-mêmes. Qu’est-ce qui nous donne ce pouvoir? Ne convient-il pas de se guider systématiquement sur le principe du panier de pommes tout entier bon à jeter pour peu qu’il en contienne une seule de gâtée ? Ne doit-on pas soupçonner ici une défaillance du soupçon, un reste de naïveté dont l’hypercritique contemporaine aurait déjà fait place nette si on lui laissait le champ libre ? Ne faut-il pas avouer que toute connaissance historique est incertaine et qu’on ne peut rien tirer d’un texte tel que le nôtre, pas même la réalité d’une persécution ? A toutes ces questions il faut répondre par un non catégorique. Le scepticisme sans nuances ne tient pas compte de la nature propre du texte. Entre les données vraisemblables de ce texte et les données invraisemblables il existe un rapport très particulier. Au départ, certes, le lecteur ne peut pas dire : ceci est faux, ceci est vrai. Il ne voit que des thèmes plus ou moins incroyables et croyables. Les morts qui se multiplient sont croyables ; il pourrait s’agir d’une épidémie. Mais les empoisonnements ne le sont guère, surtout à l’échelle massive décrite par Guillaume. Le XIVe siècle ne possède pas de substances capables de produire des effets aussi nocifs. La haine de l’auteur pour les prétendus coupables est explicite ; elle rend sa thèse extrêmement suspecte. On ne peut pas reconnaître ces deux types de données sans constater, au moins implicitement, qu’ils réagissent l’un sur l’autre. S’il y a vraiment une épidémie, elle pourrait bien enflammer les préjugés qui sommeillent. L’appétit persécuteur se polarise volontiers sur les minorités religieuses, surtout en temps de crise. Réciproquement, une persécution réelle pourrait bien se justifier par le type d’accusation dont Guillaume se fait crédulement l’écho. Un poète tel que lui ne devrait pas être particulièrement sanguinaire. S’il ajoute foi aux histoires qu’il raconte c’est sans doute qu’on y ajoute foi autour de lui. Le texte suggère donc une opinion publique surexcitée, prête à accueillir les rumeurs les plus absurdes. Il suggère, en somme, un état de choses propice aux massacres dont l’auteur nous affirme qu’ils se sont réellement produits. Dans le contexte des représentations invraisemblables, la vraisemblance des autres se confirme et se transforme en probabilité. La réciproque est vraie. Dans le contexte des représentations vraisemblables, l’invraisemblance des autres ne peut guère relever d’une « fonction fabulatrice » qui s’exercerait gratuitement, pour le plaisir d’inventer de la fiction. Nous reconnaissons l’imaginaire, certes, mais pas n’importe quel imaginaire, c’est l’imaginaire spécifique des hommes en appétit de violence. Entre toutes les représentations du texte, par conséquent, il existe une convenance réciproque, une correspondance dont on ne peut rendre compte que par une seule hypothèse. Le texte que nous lisons doit s’enraciner dans une persécution réelle, rapportée dans la perspective des persécuteurs. Cette perspective est forcément trompeuse en ceci que les persécuteurs sont convaincus du bien-fondé de leur violence ; ils se prennent pour des justiciers, il leur faut donc des victimes coupables, mais cette perspective est partiellement véridique car la certitude d’avoir raison encourage ces mêmes persécuteurs à ne rien dissimuler de leurs massacres. Devant un texte du type Guillaume de Machaut, il est légitime de suspendre la règle générale selon laquelle l’ensemble d’un texte ne vaut jamais mieux, sous le rapport de l’information réelle, que la pire de ses données. Si le texte décrit des circonstances favorables à la persécution, s’il nous présente des victimes appartenant au type que les persécuteurs ont l’habitude de choisir, et si, pour plus de certitude encore, il présente ces victimes comme coupables du type de crimes que les persécuteurs attribuent, en règle générale, à leurs victimes, il y a de grandes chances pour que la persécution soit réelle. Si le texte lui-même affirme cette réalité, il y a plus de raisons de l’accepter que de la rejeter. Dès qu’on pressent la perspective des persécuteurs, l’absurdité des accusations, loin de compromettre la valeur d’information d’un texte, renforce sa crédibilité mais sous le rapport seulement des violences dont il se fait lui-même l’écho. Si Guillaume avait ajouté des histoires d’infanticide rituel à son affaire d’empoisonnement, son compte rendu serait plus invraisemblable encore mais il n’en résulterait aucune diminution de certitude quant à la réalité des massacres qu’il nous rapporte. Plus les accusations sont invraisemblables dans ce genre de textes, plus elles renforcent la vraisemblance des massacres : elles nous confirment la présence d’un contexte psychosocial au sein duquel les massacres devaient presque certainement se produire. Inversement, le thème des massacres, juxtaposé à celui de l’épidémie, fournit le contexte historique au sein duquel même un intellectuel en principe raffiné pourrait prendre au sérieux son histoire d’empoisonnement. Les représentations persécutrices nous mentent, indubitablement, mais d’une façon trop caractéristique des persécuteurs en général et des persécuteurs médiévaux en particulier pour que le texte ne dise pas vrai sur tous les points où il confirme les conjectures suggérées par la nature même de son mensonge. Quand c’est la réalité de leurs persécutions que les persécuteurs probables affirment, ils méritent qu’on leur fasse confiance. C’est la combinaison de deux types de données qui engendre la certitude. Si l’on ne rencontrait cette combinaison qu’à de rares exemples cette certitude ne serait pas complète. Mais la fréquence est trop grande pour que le doute soit possible. Seule la persécution réelle, envisagée dans l’optique des persécuteurs, peut expliquer la conjonction régulière de ces données. Notre interprétation de tous les textes est statistiquement certaine. Ce caractère statistique ne signifie pas que la certitude repose sur la pure et simple accumulation de documents tous également incertains. Cette certitude est de plus haute qualité. Tout document du type Guillaume de Machaut a une valeur considérable parce qu’on retrouve en lui le vraisemblable et l’invraisemblable agencés de telle façon que chacun explique et légitime la présence de l’autre. Si notre certitude a un caractère statistique, c’est parce que n’importe quel document, envisagé isolément, pourrait être l’œuvre d’un faussaire. Les chances sont faibles mais elles ne sont pas nulles au niveau du document individuel. Au niveau du grand nombre, en revanche, elles sont nulles. La solution réaliste que le monde occidental et moderne a adoptée pour démystifier les « textes de persécution » est la seule possible et elle est certaine parce qu’elle rend parfaitement compte de toutes les données qui figurent dans ce type de textes. Ce ne sont pas l’humanitarisme ou l’idéologie qui nous la dictent, ce sont des raisons intellectuelles décisives. Cette interprétation n’a pas usurpé le consensus unanime dont elle fait l’objet. L’histoire n’a pas de résultats plus solides à nous offrir. Pour l’historien « des mentalités », un témoignage en principe digne de foi, c’est-à-dire le témoignage d’un homme qui ne partage pas les illusions d’un Guillaume de Machaut, n’aura jamais autant de valeur que le témoignage indigne des persécuteurs, ou de leurs complices, plus fortement parce que inconsciemment révélateur. Le document décisif est celui de persécuteurs assez naïfs pour ne pas effacer les traces de leurs crimes, à la différence de certains persécuteurs modernes, trop avisés pour laisser derrière eux des documents qui pourraient être utilisés contre eux. J’appelle naïfs les persécuteurs encore assez persuadés de leur bon droit et pas assez méfiants pour maquiller ou censurer les données caractéristiques de leur persécution. Celles-ci apparaissent dans leurs textes tantôt sous une forme véridique et directement révélatrice, tantôt sous une forme trompeuse mais indirectement révélatrice. Toutes les données sont fortement stéréotypées et c’est la combinaison des deux types de stéréotypes, les véridiques et les trompeurs, qui nous renseigne sur la nature de ces textes. ? Nous savons tous repérer, aujourd’hui, les stéréotypes de la persécution. Il y a là un savoir qui s’est banalisé mais qui n’existait pas ou très peu au XIVe siècle. Les persécuteurs naïfs ne savent pas ce qu’ils font. Ils ont trop bonne conscience pour tromper sciemment leurs lecteurs et ils présentent les choses telles que réellement ils les voient. Ils ne se doutent pas qu’en rédigeant leurs comptes rendus ils donnent des armes contre eux-mêmes à la postérité. C’est vrai au XVIe siècle pour la tristement fameuse « chasse aux sorcières ». C’est encore vrai de nos jours pour les régions « arriérées » de notre planète. Nous nageons donc en pleine banalité et le lecteur trouve ennuyeuses, peut-être, les évidences premières que je lui assène. Qu’il m’en excuse, mais on verra bientôt que ce n’est pas inutile; il suffit, parfois, d’un déplacement minuscule pour rendre insolite, inconcevable même, ce qui va sans dire dans le cas de Guillaume de Machaut. En parlant comme je le fais, le lecteur peut déjà le constater, je contredis certains principes que de nombreux critiques tiennent pour sacro-saints. Jamais, me dit-on toujours, il ne faut faire violence au texte. Face à Guillaume de Machaut, le choix est clair : ou bien on fait violence au texte ou bien on laisse se perpétuer la violence du texte contre des victimes innocentes. Certains principes qui paraissent universellement valables de nos jours parce qu’ils fournissent, semble-t-il, d’excellents garde-fous contre les excès de certains interprètes peuvent entraîner des conséquences néfastes auxquelles n’ont pas songé ceux qui croient avoir tout prévu en les tenant pour inviolables. On va partout répétant que le premier devoir du critique est de respecter la signification des textes. Peut-on soutenir ce principe jusqu’au bout devant la « littérature » d’un Guillaume de Machaut? Une autre lubie contemporaine fait piètre figure à la lumière de Guillaume de Machaut, ou plutôt de la lecture que nous en donnons tous, sans hésiter, et c’est la façon désinvolte dont nos critiques littéraires congédient désormais ce qu’ils appellent le « référent ». Dans le jargon linguistique de notre époque, le référent c’est la chose même dont un texte entend parler, à savoir ici le massacre des juifs perçus comme responsables de l’empoisonnement des chrétiens. Depuis une vingtaine d’années on nous répète que le référent est à peu près inaccessible. Peu importe d’ailleurs que nous soyons ou ne soyons pas capables d’y accéder; le souci naïf du référent ne peut qu’entraver, paraît-il, l’étude moderne de la textualité. Seuls comptent désormais les rapports toujours équivoques et glissants du langage avec lui-même. Tout n’est pas toujours à rejeter dans cette perspective mais à l’appliquer de façon scolaire on risque de voir en Ernest Hoeppfner, l’éditeur de Guillaume dans la vénérable Société des anciens textes, le seul critique vraiment idéal de cet écrivain. Son introduction parle de poésie courtoise en effet, mais il n’y est jamais question du massacre des juifs pendant la peste noire. Le passage de Guillaume, cité plus haut, constitue un bon exemple de ce que j’ai nommé dans Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde les « textes de persécution 3 ». J’entends par là les comptes rendus de violences réelles, souvent collectives, rédigés dans la perspective des persécuteurs, et affectés, par conséquent, de distorsions caractéristiques. Il faut repérer ces distorsions pour les rectifier et pour déterminer la réalité de toutes les violences que le texte de persécution présente comme justifiées. Il n’est pas nécessaire d’examiner longuement le compte rendu d’un procès de sorcellerie pour constater qu’on y retrouve la même combinaison de données réelles et de données imaginaires mais nullement gratuites que nous avons rencontrée dans le texte de Guillaume de Machaut. Tout est présenté comme vrai et nous n’en croyons rien mais nous n’en croyons pas pour autant que tout est faux. Nous n’avons aucune peine, pour l’essentiel, à faire le partage du vrai et du faux. Là aussi les chefs d’accusation paraissent ridicules même si la sorcière les tient pour réels, et même s’il y a lieu de penser que ses aveux n’ont pas été obtenus par la torture. L’accusée peut fort bien se prendre pour une sorcière véritable. Peut-être s’est-elle réellement efforcée de nuire à ses voisins par des procédés magiques. Nous n’en jugeons pas pour autant qu’elle mérite la mort. Il n’y a pas pour nous de procédés magiques efficaces. Nous admettons sans peine que la victime puisse partager avec ses bourreaux la même foi dérisoire en l’efficacité de la sorcellerie mais cette foi ne nous atteint pas nous-mêmes ; notre scepticisme n’en est pas ébranlé. Pendant ces procès aucune voix ne s’élève pour rétablir, ou plutôt pour établir la vérité. Personne n’est encore capable de le faire. C’est dire que nous avons contre nous, contre l’interprétation que nous donnons de leurs propres textes, non seulement les juges et les témoins mais les accusées elles-mêmes. Cette unanimité ne nous impressionne pas. Les auteurs de ces documents étaient là et nous n’y étions pas. Nous ne disposons d’aucune information qui ne vienne d’eux. Et pourtant, à plusieurs siècles de distance, un historien solitaire, ou même le premier individu venu se juge habilité à casser la sentence prononcée contre les sorcières4. C’est la même réinterprétation radicale que dans l’exemple de Guillaume de Machaut, la même audace dans le bouleversement des textes, c’est la même opération intellectuelle et c’est la même certitude, fondée sur le même type de raisons. La présence de données imaginaires ne nous amène pas à considérer l’ensemble du texte comme imaginaire. Bien au contraire. Les accusations incroyables ne diminuent pas mais renforcent la crédibilité des autres données. Ici encore nous avons un rapport qui semble paradoxal mais en réalité ne l’est pas entre l’improbabilité et la probabilité des données qui entrent dans la composition des textes. C’est en fonction de ce rapport, généralement informulé mais néanmoins présent à notre esprit que nous évaluons la quantité et la qualité de l’information susceptible d’être extraite de notre texte. Si le document est de nature légale, les résultats sont d’habitude aussi positifs ou même plus positifs encore que dans le cas de Guillaume de Machaut. Il est dommage que la plupart des comptes rendus aient été brûlés en même temps que les sorcières elles-mêmes. Les accusations sont absurdes et la sentence injuste mais les textes sont rédigés avec le souci d’exactitude et de clarté qui caractérise, en règle générale, les documents légaux. Notre confiance est donc bien placée. Elle ne permet pas de soupçonner que nous sympathisons secrètement avec les chasseurs de sorcières. L’historien qui regarderait toutes les données d’un procès comme également fantaisistes sous prétexte que certaines d’entre elles sont entachées de distorsions persécutrices ne connaîtrait rien à son affaire et ses collègues ne le prendraient pas au sérieux. La critique la plus efficace ne consiste pas à assimiler toutes les données du texte à la plus invraisemblable sous prétexte qu’on péchera toujours par défaut et jamais par excès de méfiance. Une fois de plus le principe de la méfiance sans limites doit s’effacer devant la règle d’or des textes de persécution. La mentalité persécutrice suscite un certain type d’illusion et les traces de cette illusion confirment plutôt qu’elles n’infirment la présence, derrière le texte qui en fait lui-même état, d’un certain type d’événement, la persécution elle-même, la mise à mort de la sorcière. Il n’est donc pas difficile, je le répète, de démêler le vrai du faux qui ont l’un et l’autre un caractère assez fortement stéréotypé. Pour bien comprendre le pourquoi et le comment de l’assurance extraordinaire dont nous faisons preuve devant les textes de persécution, il faut énumérer et décrire les stéréotypes. Là non plus, la tâche n’est pas difficile. Il ne s’agit jamais que d’expliciter un savoir que nous possédons déjà mais dont nous ne soupçonnons pas la portée car nous ne le dégageons jamais de façon systématique. Le savoir en question reste pris dans les exemples concrets auxquels nous l’appliquons et ceux-ci appartiennent toujours au domaine de l’histoire, surtout occidentale. Jamais encore nous n’avons essayé d’appliquer ce savoir en dehors de ce domaine, par exemple aux univers dits « ethnologiques ». C’est pour rendre cette tentative possible que je vais maintenant ébaucher, de façon sommaire d’ailleurs, une typologie des stéréotypes de la persécution. 1 Œuvres de Guillaume de Machaut, publiées par Ernest Hoeppfner, I, Le Jugement du Roy de Navarre , Société des anciens textes français, 1908, pp. 144-145.

RÉSUMÉ DU LIVRE – MOT DE L’AUTEUR – MOT DE L’ÉDITEUR

Oedipe est chassé de Thèbes comme responsable du fléau qui s’abat sur la ville. La victime est d’accord avec ses bourreaux. Le malheur est apparu parce qu’il a tué son père et épousé sa mère. Le bouc émissaire suppose toujours l’illusion persécutrice. Les bourreaux croient à la culpabilité des victimes ; ils sont convaincus, au moment de l’apparition de la peste noire au XIVe siècle, que les juifs ont empoisonné les rivières. La chasse aux sorcières implique que juges et accusées croient en l’efficace de la sorcellerie. Les Evangiles gravitent autour de la passion comme toutes les mythologies du monde mais la victime rejette toutes les illusions persécutrices, refuse le cycle de la violence et du sacré. Le bouc émissaire devient l’agneau de Dieu. Ainsi est détruite à jamais la crédibilité de la représentation mythologique. Nous restons des persécuteurs mais des persécuteurs honteux. « Toute violence désormais révèle ce que révèle la passion du Christ, la genèse imbécile des idoles sanglantes, de tous les faux dieux des religions, des politiques, des idéologies. »

Voir enfin:

Sacrifice, Mimesis, and the Genesis of Violence: A Response to Bruce Chilton

JAMES G. WILLIAMS (SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY)

Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 (1993) 31-47

Institute for Biblical Research

I would like to thank Bruce Chilton for the informed and collegial way that he has responded to The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred: Lib- eration from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence . He quite rightly places it in the context of René Girard’s mi metic theory and then focuses on the issue of sacrifice in the ensuing critique of my book. There is much at stake here for all of us wh o seek to preserve and clarify the distinctive testimony of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. We are in an age when « pos tmodern » critics, whether literary, philosoph cal, or theological, tend (if not intend) to undermine the Jewish and Christian heritage of Western cultu re. We should be well aware of this tendency, whose inspiration comes primarily from Nietzsche and whose thrust has been transm itted into the contemporary period primarily through Heidegger and Derrida. However, a blind reaction to it will simply make of us « doubles » of postmodern inter- preters, that is, rivals so preoccupi ed with the enemy other that our thinking is determined by them. In this context there is no problem more urgent than the ancient phenom enon of sacrifice and all that attends it. Certain aspects of Chilton’s review of Girard’s theory are quite perceptive. He says, « In his treatmen t of the Gospels, Girard’s analy- sis becomes openly ethical and programmatic (one might even say, evangelical) » (p. 20). That is certainl y true. Girard’s research has led him to an « evangelical » orientation not simply in the sense of the good news of the Gospel witness to the Christ, but in arguing that both scientific and religious truth co nverge and have their origin in the biblical testimony to the innocen t victim and the God who is the advocate of victims. A typica l statement is this one from The Scape- goat : « The invention of science is not the reason that there are no 32 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 longer witches, but the fact that there are no longer witch-hunts is the reason that science has been invented. » 1 This opening up of the world to investigation is part of a long history, which does not run in a straight line or smoothly but which nonetheless moves inevita- bly toward disclosure of the collec tive violence and its ritual forms that undergird human culture. The unveiling of collective violence and victimization camouflaged in religion and culture comes pri- marily through certain distinctive bib lical witnesses. Above all, in its clearest and most sustained form, it is disclosed through Jesus as the Christ in the New Testament Gospels. With respect to colle ctive violence and victimization, Chilton as- tutely notes that for Girard « tex ts of persecution and myths are comparable: a real victim lies at the origin of both » (p. 19). Both an- cient and modern cultures share this concealment of violence. This is a crucial issue with many facets. On the one hand, bib lical interpret- ers on a wide spectrum of denominati onal affiliations tend either to disregard large portions of the Bibl e because of the patent exclusiv- ism, aggression, or violence that is narrated (e.g., the conquest of Canaan in the early part of Joshua) or to justify such behavior and attitudes on the basis of the Bible. But from the standpoint of the hermeneutics of the mime tic theory, the Bible— especially the Jew- ish Scriptures or Old Testament but also to some degree the New Testament—is a « mixed » text in wh ich the witnesses of the tradition are struggling to articulate the reve lation of the God who liberates victims as over against the myths of sacred violence dominating in the cultural milieu out of which Israel was called to become God’s exception in the world. Girard’s mimetic theory directs the inter- preter to focus on what is distinctive of Israel vis-à-vis the other na- tions of the world, where one enco unters founding events that are based on regenerative violence. Rome , for example, was founded by means of Romulus’s slaying of Remus. This is simply reported in a neutral fashion by Livy in his histor y as something that occurred, and of course from a mythical view point one would expect it to oc- cur. Civilization begins according to Ge nesis 4 as the result of Cain’s murder of Abel—but th e innocence of Abel is affirmed and Cain must hear the divine voice that asks , « Where is Abel your brother? » The mark placed upon Cain is both a sign to protect him against the very violence he himself has co mmitted and a reminder of God’s question. Behind the question lies the victim. On the other hand, a significant stream of modern and postmod- ern thought has ignored or denied that violence is at the root of our 1. The Scapegoat (trans. Yvonne Freccero; Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) 204. WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 33 cultural origins. A philosopher like Martin Heidegger, for example, spoke of violence, particularly in An Introduction to Metaphysics , as the work of logos as polemos , namely the creative violence, the sorting out and building in which the poets, thinkers, and leaders must en- gage as they fulfill the destiny of Be ing. But this, he maintains, is not the ordinary violence of human war or battle. This from a philoso- pher who presented a philosophical defense of National Socialism! One of his philosophical heirs, Jac ques Derrida, has actually recog- nized the structure of violence and sacrifice in writing and texts but has so far been unwilling to move beyond the signifiers of texts to the signifier who, from Girard’s sta ndpoint, is the original sign, both signifier and signified: the innocen t or arbitrarily chosen victim. 2 I am also grateful for the ques tion about covenant and sacrifice that Chilton raises. The question is wh ether I offer in fact « a major re- vision of Girard’s theory » in viewi ng the covenant and its sacrificial instruments quite positively (p. 24) . If indeed I do this it would not negate the entirety of Girard’s mi metic theory, but it would certainly undercut Girard’s hypothesis concer ning the role of sacrifice as the primary ritual manifestation of the sacred, that is, projected violence. This is a crucial question, one that is sufficiently complex that I con- sider it better to deal with it late r under the rubric of differentiation and sacrifice. Now I will turn to the major issu es raised in Bruce Chilton’s re- sponse in which I think he has misu nderstood Girard or me, or both. There are three subjects on which I will focus: mimesis, differentia- tion and sacrifice in Girard’s work and in my book, and Chilton’s model for understanding sacrifice. MIMESIS OR MIMETIC DESIRE Mimesis, or mimetic desire, is the foundation of Girard’s theory. As Chilton indicates, Girard, in the tradition of Hegel and Kojève, views human beings as desiring being. But Girard departs from the Hegelian tradition in understandin g desire as an empirical and finally anthropological reality, not as a metaphysical reality. He does not identify desire with human cons ciousness, as Hegel does, and he emphasizes the object of desire , which is what rivals contest and which mediates the « being » or « rea lity » of the model of mediator to the subject. Human beings have very limited in stincts, the genetic directives that serve as guiding and braking f unctions to other animals. Human 2. See Andrew J. McKenna, Violence and Difference: Girard, Derrida, and Decon- struction (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992). 34 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 needs and drives (neither of which could be called « desires ») become actual and take certain pathways through mimesis or imitation of others. The result is desire that is mimetic. The dynamic of the hu- man system is desire, the structure is mimetic. One could call this « imitational » desire. However, becaus e imitation is a word that has become watered down and convey s no connotation of acquisitive- ness, Girard prefers the classical word. The acquisitive character of human desire lays the groundwork for human conflict. The subject not only seeks to be like the other; he or she wants to have what the other has and even to be what the other is. The object of desire is what the model or mediator desires, but what the desiring subject really wants is to be desired by the model, whereas the actual object of the model’s desire is to be de- sired. The result of this relationship of subject to model can turn to conflict or violence. The message gi ven off by the model may be « im- itate me »—except in this one respect, « don’t imitate me. » A classical instance of this is Freud’s so-called Oedipus complex. However, from the standpoint of the mimetic theory it is the desire to imitate the model/mediator (more or less th e same as Freud’s « identifica- tion »), not sexual attachment to the pa rent of the opposite sex, that may (but does not always or necessarily) issue in rivalry. Of course, in human relations hips conflict do esn’t always emerge, and in most cultural contexts conflict and violence do not reign most of the time. Why not? Because cultural forms, which can- not be separated from wh at we now call the religious or the sacred, establish differences . These differences function to keep people from destructive rivalries yet enable them to enter into cooperative rela- tions. I will discuss this further wh en I take up differentiation and sacrifice. Chilton says, “The seed of destruc tion within desire is that it is ‘mimetic’” (p. 17). He a sserts similarly, toward the end of his essay, that mimesis « is, by practical definition, covetous rivalry » (p. 27). This is a crucial issue because if mimesis (or mimetic desire) is inher- ently a rivalry based on desire of what the other has, then any teach- ing or proclamation of « good mi mesis » would be logically and theologically impossible. From the standpoint of Christian theology this would be a denial of creati on (everything created good, Genesis 1) and so would amount to a denial of « original sin, » which is pred- icated upon a good creation and the possibility of restoration, of new creation. Chilton therefore welcomes my explication of the covenant model of existence, which I “might have called covenantal mimesis, ‘the powerful generative vision from which the Bible as a whole stems’” (p. 27). Chilton’s insight in to what I attempted to communi- cate is striking: I would accept « cove nantal mimesis » as an excellent WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 35 term for what I have described as the Bible’s generative vision. I did not intend to state or imply that it includes or could incorporate sac- rifice as part of the covenantal mimesis in its ideal form . I will take up that issue in discussing differentiation and sacrifice. At this point I am concerned rather to comment on Chilton’s point that I have de- parted from Girard in pointing toward this covenantal mimesis, and that I « correct » him in my claim that « in and of itself [mimesis] is a neutral capability of the brain and of every aspect of systems that can be considered ‘human.' » 3 In fact, Girard has not made himself completely clear on mime- sis and the human condition. This lack of clarity may reflect the fact that his thinking was very much in process from the 1960s into the 1980s. Moreover, as an interdiscip linary thinker who has confronted the tradition of thought, stemming from Nietzsche, which funda- mentally understands life or reality as differential or conflictual, originating in violence and returning to violence, 4 he has perhaps occasionally played too much in his opponents’ field and by their rules. But that is often a risk that a thinker has to take—and I think Girard is a great thinker. So it is that if one begins reading Girard’s Violence and the Sacred or Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World , mimetic desire comes across as inevitably leading hu mans into rivalry and violence. However, if one reads on to the chapter on Freud in Violence or to Book III of Things Hidden , one finds that Girard does not construe human relations, whether parent-child or any other, as necessarily rivalrous, neurotic, or pathological. Some forms of behavior are good to imitate; it is just that children, disciples, and admirers do not know which these are to the extent that the model fascinates or dominates them. 5 An individual finds it difficult, if not often impos- sible, to stop the imitation process a nd say, « To do this or to hold this attitude is good, to do that or to hold that attitude is bad. » The only reality that helps us in this s ituation, from Girard’s standpoint, is good mimesis. « Good mimesis » ha s two related but distinct mean- ings, as I indicate in my book. 6 The first presupposes an underlying scapegoat mechanism that stems fro m collective violence and whose object, in an indirect and mostly ca mouflaged way, is to control vio- lence. It could be called the « effec tive mimesis » of cu lture to the ex- tent that it works in assigning a nd maintaining differentiations—the 3. The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991) 239. 4. See John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford and Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990, 1991) chap. 10. 5. See Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (trans. S. Bann and M. Met- teer; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) 290. 6. The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred , 261 n. 17. 36 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 differences necessary for language, roles, institutions, and every form of cooperative activ ity. However, if Girard held only to that sense of mimesis, his position would be little different from that of Thomas Hobbes or Joseph de Maistre, whose thinking was profound but thoroughly sacrificial. What really opens up our human poten- tial, what makes of us potential contributors to a divine-human community, is a good mimesis that cannot originate in human de- sires and projection. This good mimesis is revelation . Girard has, to be sure, never employed the term « good mimesis, » but this is the mi- mesis he has in mind in referring to those who aid Jesus in his mis- sion of « starting the good contagio n belonging to good reciprocity. » 7 Apart from revelation, or the sustai ned witness to revelation, human beings are given situations and mome nts in which they are able to realize good mimesis, but these oc casions have been fragmentary outside of the sustained scriptural witness to the disclosure of the God of victims. 8 In The Scapegoat this good mimesis, this divinely given model, is the burden of the chapters on « The Key Words of the Gospel Pas- sion » and « History and the Paraclet e. » The reason for us to forgive one another is that we all fall short of th e model/mediator who for- gives, for we all, in some way, have worshiped or sustained blood- stained idols; but by the same token, we have all been forgiven if we are willing to accept this forgiveness and forgive one another. Good mimesis, divine in origin, is dynami c, not simply a pattern to copy. It takes form in comm unity and forgiveness. Mimetic desire is potentially de structive; it is also potentially creative. The point is not to remove oneself from desire but to create a better desire. Since we are blind to our own mimesis, to our self- representations and representations of others—as Paul states in his own language in Romans 7—we cann ot create our own better desire and live out of it on a sustained basis apart from revelation and grace. Only through incarnation, th rough the Logos, the creator God who enters into our condition and ex poses the mechanisms of desire and scapegoating, can we be liberat ed for a new desire, a new being. So if Girard does not adequa tely clarify his understanding of mimesis in some parts of his work, I think what I have just sketched 7. The French text: « amorcer la bonne contagion de la bonne reciprocité » ( Things Hidden , 297; English trans. 203). 8. I confirmed this point in a telephone conversation with Girard on November 2, 1992. At the level of the classical literary traditions he obviously appreciates the in- sights of the great Greek tragedians. He al so acknowledges the insights of the Buddhist tradition concerning desire and determination by the world of suffering. However, for Buddhism the religious and ethical center of the disclosure of truth is not the innocent victim. WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 37 is true to his concept and intention. He has more and more come to appreciate how culture works and so he has become more positive about its sacrificial mech anism. That is, how woul d any of us in any social order survive without differe ntiating and surrogate functions that enable the totality of the system to surviv e and to transmit itself (perhaps often greatly modified)? « Differentiating and surrogate functions » are the practices whereby we establish differences and sacrificial substitutes that keep us from getting so close to one another that we compete in vio- lent ways but yet keep us close e nough to each other personally and socially that we are able to work and exist together. On the other hand, the capacity of cu lture to survive and oper ate falls short of the gospel and the di vine-human community of the kingdom of God. My understanding of Girard is that he has become more and more pessimistic about culture in the context of history as experienced and interpreted in the last two centuries. In this paper I have used the ad verb « inevitably » twice so far. I said that, according to Girard, the gospel’s work of « opening up of the world to investigation is part of a long history, which does not run in a straight line or smoothly but which nonetheless moves inev- itably toward disclosure of the co llective violence and its ritual forms that undergird huma n culture. » I also said that in a good por- tion of Girard’s work, for example, the earlier parts of Violence and Things Hidden , « mimetic desire comes acro ss as inevitably leading humans into rivalry and violence. » Both are true. To coin a variation on Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous dictum , « Sin is not necessary but inevitable, » I would say: Rivalry and violence are not necessary but inevitable. The problem is not desire; the problem lies in the kind of mimesis. The good mimesis of the God of victims, to which the Law and the Prophets bear witn ess and which the Gospels attest as embodied in Jesus, has disclose d and will disclose the character of our mimetic predicament and poin t us toward a new age, a world to come. DIFFERENTIATION AND SACRIFICE According to the mimetic theory the slaying of th e victim is the first act of differentiation. In the mimetic crisis everyone imitates every- one else in violent reciprocity and so all differences collapse. This is the epitome of chaos, and violence is probably the actual model of chaos for religious and cu ltural traditions. In orde r for the « other » to be really other, the other must be different from me/us, yet close enough to me/us or enough like me/u s that a relationship of some sort can be established. But this is a delicate balance in which one is 38 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 often tempted to seek the being of the other by desiring what the other desires. When this balance is destroyed in violent reciprocity the latter is remedied by the discov ery, not consciously or deliber- ately made but « happened upon, » that the conflict and violence stops when everyone gangs up on a victim. The victim is the emerg- ing difference . As I noted in my book, Gira rd’s model is not based on dipolar structure, as in structuralism, but on exception : his is a model of the « exception in the process of emerging. » 9 This victim is the one who polarizes (or on whom is polarize d) the desire of all the others that had got mimetically out of hand. So the victim is the first differ- ence. And the relief from mi metic conflict or violence is so great that just as the victim was blamed for the group’s ills during the mimetic rage, so now the victim is apotheos ized, divinized. As a result, the victim as god or sacraliz ed hero or ancestor is now the « Difference » by which the others become a co mmunity and define themselves. I will not go into the particular implications that one could de- velop out of this. Suffice it to say th at the three pillars of culture emerge from the divinized victim: pr ohibition, ritual, and myth. The community, as distinct from the vi ctim/god, did not do and does not do (or ought not do) such and such an act that brought about the crisis in the first place (murder and incest are the two most common crimes, and of course both are di ssolvers of differences). The com- munity repeats the act th at founded it by representing the crisis that threatened it and the slaying that (re)established it. The repetition of the slaying is enacted in sacrifice. And myth tells the story of the founding and the differentiations es tablished. With myth comes the greatest possibility of displace ment and deferral of meaning through shifts and transformations in the story and symbols. What Girard’s theory about the pillars of religion and culture entails, in other words, is that the primitive sa cred is violence: the collective violence of the community that is transmitted, transformed, and routinized in such a way that its ob ject is to protect the community from violence. 10 Now Chilton argues that Girard is wrong about the origin and function of sacrifice. I will take up his argument that the communal meal is the appropriate model for sacr ifice in the third part of my re- sponse. Here I wish to respond to his appreciation of my so-called 9. Williams, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred , 20; see Girard, Things Hidden , 100-101. 10. This is the function of the mark on Cain in Genesis 4: to protect the founder of civilization (« he built a city, » 4:17) from the very violence that he himself had com- mitted in murdering his brother. However, unlike the typical founding myth, the mark is also a reminder of what he had d one—a reminder, indeed, of the divine ques- tion, « Where is Abel your brother? » WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 39 departure from Girard. He suggests that this putative departure is partly deliberate and partly inadvert ent. The conscious aspect of the departure he ascribes to me is my insistence « that any language im- plying the inherent superiority of Christianity or the ‘Christian’ Gospels should be avoided. » 11 He quite rightly identifies my argu- ment as « exceptionalist » as over against a « supersessionist » argu- ment. From the exceptionalist position one sees Israel as an enduring remnant bearing the divine word in history, and one continuation of this remnant is the ear ly Jesus movement. The supersessionist posi- tion is that Israel as an empirical people and tradition is the « oppres- sive husk » that perpetuates ancien t myth and the sacred, and its true vocation is realized only through Jesus and the church. Chilton holds that the inadverten t way in which I depart from Girard lies in my positiv e view of the covenant and its sacrificial ex- pressions, particularly in the discus sion of covenant and sacrifice in chapter 4 of The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred . He avers this to be « a major revision of Girard’s theory, in that the sacred is no longer merely projected violence » (p. 24). I am indebted to Chilton for his critique and partial appreciation of my understanding of the sacred and sacrifice, for his comments have forced me to review and thin k through once agai n what it is I want to say vis-à-vis Girard’s thought. I would say first of all that there is a difference in nuance between my understanding of the Testaments and Girard’s, and perhaps a clear difference between my perspective and Hamerton- Kelly’s. What I have done is put Jesus, the early Jesus movement, and the New Testament Gospels square ly in the Jewish tradition. I think, as indicated in my book, that there is adequate historical and literary evidence for ho lding this position. The tradition of the unique witness to the God of victim s comes to fulfillm ent in Jesus and the Gospel witness to the di sclosure of divine–human commu- nity. This is not un-Jew ish, not anti-Jewish—it is Jewish in the sense that the basis of Christianity is Jewishly formed. What we call « Christianity » did not be gin as Christianity but as a movement rooted in its Jewish matrix. Nor does this perspective deny the in- sights of rabbinic Judaism, particularly in its antisacrificial aspects. The problems emerge in the theological and political developments of ongoing church history in which the foundations of Christianity were more or less severed from Judaism and the Jewish Scriptures were coopted as the revelation of Ch ristian truth. But there is one truth that is revealed, and a long historical struggle has been re- quired to bring it more fully to light. From my standpoint, and I 11. The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred , 175, quoted on p. 23. 40 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 think a confessing Christian would have to affirm something like this, the Gospel witness to Jesus as the Christ is the clearest and most sustained representation of th e message of the God of libera- tion and the exposure of violence that has been given to us. All the other foci of revelation are ones I ha ve to see through the lens pro- vided by the Gospels. My point is not to deny what I do not see or cannot see; it is rather to affirm what I have been given to see. So I wish to avoid supersessi onism. I don’t think, however, that the problem too is, as Chilton states, that to « the concept of the victim itself might be too relative by definition to serve as the foundation of a systematic reading of the Bible » (p. 23). There is no way, of course, of absolutely establishing through criticism and theo ry any standpoint. One cannot, obviously, read everythi ng as the same, or in terms of discrete passages (segments, historical periods, etc.), for with either of those alternatives there is the da nger of falling back into myth or anti-myth, into the sacr ed as the sacred soci al order or the anti- sacred that seeks to destroy the sacr ed social order (e.g., Nietzsche). That is, those who adhere to a myth ical interpretation, which always justifies the sacred as violence, an d those who vehemently oppose it are in both instances determined by myth, for its upholders are in- formed and upheld by it and its oppo nents are obsessed with it. The two sides are caught up in the ex treme mimetic rivalry of doubles. No, one needs a center, a « canon within the can on, » in order to read the Bible. What better center (door, key, or whatever the meta- phor) than the innocent victim? Should not the center of Christian reading be the innocent victim who discloses « the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah » th rough a violent death in which he was numbered among the transgresso rs? Should not the Christian reading be undergirded by the in nocent victim’s resurrection from the fatal expulsion and execution to which he was consigned? And I do not mean to imply that the innoc ent blood is upon the heads of the Jews to the exclusion of othe rs (although both Je ws and Romans were clearly involved in Jesus’ death). We are all implicated, just as the disciples who deserted him, on e of whom betrayed him and one of whom denied him. That is, only the victim, the one who becomes the sacrificial offering, can reveal the human pr edicament and its healing. But most victims do not have a voice. If they are human beings, they are not allowed to speak or they are ac cused of crimes that enable the community to discount their words. Animal victims cannot commu- nicate in our world—beyond signaling to us the anguish of pain and suffering. Girard has acknowledged th at there is no absolutely privi- leged place in language from whic h the truth may be known. « That is why the Word that states itself to be absolutely true never speaks WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 41 except from the position of a victim in the process of being expelled. Its presence among us is not humanly explicable. » 12 The logic of this perspective on revelation through the victim, which I think I share with Girard, is similar to one aspect of what I said earlier about two kinds of good mi mesis. It is possible to identify both good mimesis in the sense of « effective mimesis, » the mimesis that is properly differentiated so that culture can wo rk, and good mi- mesis in the sense of the model of divine–human community in the Christ. Just as there is an effective, if not ideal mimesis, so also there is « good » sacrifice in the sense of e ffective sacrifice. That is, even though sacrifice in the sense of o ffering to God a human or animal victim is the ritual repetition of or iginal violence, it does provide for a channeling of violence or the threat of violence into a communal act that reduces this threat to manageab le proportions. It would, ideally, be better if we could cooperate and establish both functional and personal relationships without this ou tlet, in which we are trying to maneuver around violence, to « deceive » it. 13 In other words, sac- rifice, along with its substitutions in a contemporary Western world without the institution of sacrifice as such, is a much more desir- able practice than the violence that can result from mimetic crisis. Caiaphas in the Gospel of John enunc iates the principle that is the ba- sis of all Realpolitik : « it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whol e nation destroyed » (John 11:50). However, if there is a kind of analogue between effective mime- sis and effective sacrifice, both good in the sense that they may enable human groups to survive and coop erate both within the group and between groups, the analogy breaks down in comparing the good or ideal mimesis of the kingdom of Go d and sacrifice. The ideal, the es- chatological vision from a Christian viewpoint, is the overcoming of sacrifice; the need to establish or reestablish differences through the sacred, the trompe-violence of a ritual performance of violence in order to control violence, will no longer prev ail. In historical existence as we know it, sacrifice in some form or substitutionary mode may be necessary—and indeed, one could argue that our national crises, as I describe in the last chapter of my book, stem from the breakdown of modes of sacrifice. The point is not to make sacrifice « the scapegoat of the genocidal outbreaks of violence which have become routine since the Enlightenment » (p. 29). Sacrifi ce and substitutions for sacrifice formerly protected us—up to a po int. Because sacrifice, from the 12. Girard, Things Hidden, 435 (my translation). 13. See Girard’s comment on Abel’s anim al sacrifice as a « trompe-violence » in La violence et le sacré (Paris: Grasset, 1972) 14. The English translation (p. 4) renders « violence-outlet. » 42 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 Latin sacrificare (French sacrifier ), is etymologically « to make sacred, » the foundation and differentiations of culture have often purchased protection of human life at the price of human life, or at least at the price of a deep structure that va lidated both regeneration and the maintenance of equilibrium through violence. Christianity itself, as the primary bearer of scriptural revelation and desacralization in Western culture, has contributed to the demise of these older sacrifi- cial modes; but new ones have not ta ken their place, and the practice of the mimesis of the kingdom of God is very difficult for large num- bers of people over a long period of time in the world as we know it. So it is that sacrifice, as essentia l to the structures of this world, has a provisional status, a status which is necessary « between the times » but which is pre-kingdom of God, pre-gospel. However, in the Christian vision of the restored creation there is no temple in the City of God, an absence which is announced in the Apocalypse. And of course in the Gospels the Chri st, the meeting point of God and humans, replaces the temple. It is in the light of the forego ing understanding, the provisional human need for « deceiving violence  » and establishing differenti- ations, that I made positive connec tions between the covenant and sacrifice. It is better to institute the Levites as priests standing in the place of the firstborn and offering sacr ifices on behalf of Israel than to experience the violence involved when the Levites slay 3,000 per- sons, killing brothers, sons , neighbors. This violence is the basis of their ordination (Exod 32:25-29). Admittedly I ma y not have made my meaning clear enough. I was tryi ng to deal critically and sympa- thetically with very important and complex texts in Exodus and Numbers, so Chilton is not misquoting me but missing the context in which I intended to place my discussion of sacrific e in chapter 4, on covenant and sacrifice, as well as in chapter 3, on Moses and the Exodus. There are two main elements of that context: Israel’s histori- cal struggle to understand and to r ealize the revelation it had been given, and the limitations that were not to be exce eded until the prophets and the Jesus of the Gospel s. Let me offer the following quotations to support these points and end this part of the paper: These boundaries [of the Ten Commandments] are marked out in terms of allegiance to the God of the Covenant, allegiance to the cove- nant order, and control of mimetic desire and rivalry. In the binding of people to God, the altar [i.e., sacr ifice] and the words of God in Moses’ book are formally equivalent [i n Exodus 24], but obedience to the divine word here begins the process of displacing sacrifice. WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 43 The biblical narratives themse lves document human failures and resist all attempts to camouflage and my thologize these failures. . . . The fail- ures are in part due to the weight of archaic cultural traditions in which mimetic desire, rivalry, and conflict are managed through vic- timization, scapegoating, and sacrifice. The revelation struggling to ma ke itself known in the covenant, com- mandment, and cultic texts reaches a new stage of clarity with the great prophets. 14 THE MEAL AS MODEL FOR SACRIFICE As he argues also in his recent book, 15 Chilton proposes communal consumption as the best means of understanding sacrifice, « a feast with the gods, in which life as it should be—chosen and prepared correctly—is taken to produce life as it should be » (p. 26). I propose in turn that the mime tic theory provides a better hypothesis of sac- rifice and enables us to uncover the very representational traps into which I see Chilton falling. The mimetic theory has great explanator y power. Chilton sug- gests at one point that it explains too much. That is a common objec- tion in our time. In objecting to an y kind of universalizing hypothesis Chilton may have been affected by historicism, whose rival twin children are positivism and postmodern ism. In the modern intellec- tual tradition leading to deconstructi on, every text, every principle, every claim is set against its « other. » Indeed, it is not too much to say that every explanation is sacrificed to its other, to the opposition that undercuts it. Now a theory and its attendant hypotheses may turn out to be wrong, but we should be free to pursue them. That is one of the fruits of the biblical revelation: the disenchantment of the world, opening it up to a search to underst and how it works. Universal or maximalizing theories should be welc omed and, of course, subjected to rigorous criticism. But not to th e criticism that they should not exist in the first place. Now concerning the communal meal with the gods as a model for sacrifice, I agree that the meal is closely asso ciated with sacrifice, as we have known since the pioneer ing research of W. Robertson Smith. However, the meal is better explained by sacrifice than sac- rifice by the meal. The meal, specif ically the communal consumption of the sacrificial victim, presupposes very definite rules, differences, 14. Williams, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred , 117, 126, 127. 15. Chilton, The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Pr ogram Within a Cultural History of Sacrifice (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). 44 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 practices that must be done just right. Where do they come from? What is their origin? The meal mode l simply presupposes some prior system that must be posited or sp eculated. In the emergence of hu- man culture the meal becomes the model of community par excellence , and this is appropriate as a metaphor of God’ s reign and rule. How- ever, it seems clear that when we lo ok at instances of sacrifice asso- ciated with eating, « community » or the oneness of those partaking together is won through a differe ntiation process—the establish- ment of rules and roles—that stems from disorder or violence. In the process of preparation, slaughtering, and eating, attention is focused on the victim, as though the fate of the victim is something mon- strous and wonderful. It is m onstrous and wonderful from the standpoint of the sacrificing co mmunity. Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne have provided inte resting descriptions of Greek culinary practices, but they tend to obscure the element of disorder because of their structural premis es. I think Walter Burkert’s com- mentary on Greek sacrificial practices in Homo Necans is more to the point. 16 All the elements, from the in itial washing of hands and sprinkling of the animal victim th rough the death-dealing blow and the great outcry of the women presen t to the eating of the entrails, bespeak the routini zed repetition of an event of collective violence in which the victim is killed and eate n. Could the meal have laid the groundwork of the sacrifice? Unlikely. More likely it was vice versa, as indicated in the ritual order de scribed by Burkert. As Raymund Schwager points out, « The moment of slaughter forms the emotional highpoint of the ritual , which is accompanied by the loud outcry of all those standing in attendance. Th e meal only occurs at the end, when the previous shuddering and fright changes to relief. This relief allows us still to trace the originary tilting of violence into peace. » 17 This process of transition from fe ar to relief and concord is still in display, though somewhat filtered, in Exodus 19 and 24. There are some problems concerning the composite character of the narrative in Exodus 24; however, if we put th ese two chapters together it ap- pears that the people are in a state of trepidation at the foot of the mountain, whose boundaries may not be passed or even touched lest the LORD « break out » ag ainst the people (19:24 ). Moses conducts the covenant ritual, which includes dash ing half the blood of the sac- rificed oxen on the altar and half on the people. Then Moses, Aaron, 16. Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancien t Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (trans. Peter Bing; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). 17. Schwager, « Rückblick auf das Symposion, » Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion (eds. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver; Innsbruck-Wien: Tyrolia, 1992) 368- 69 (my translation). WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 45 Nadab, and Abihu, along with seve nty of the elders, go up and see God and eat and drink. Chilton’s model of the meal or communal consumption as the origin of sacrifice leaves his herm eneutics, in my view, still bound to the mythical understanding of the sa cred social order. When he says, for instance, that « in sacrifice, consumption is probably a better metaphor to describe what is happ ening than death; the passing of the victim rarely arouses interest  » (p. 26), I think he is defending that sacrificial perspect ive and not attending to the unique biblical demythologizing of the sacred, a demy thologizing that invites us to see ourselves and read our texts in light of the victim. In the primi- tive context the death of the victim, the sacrificial offering (note the French victime and the German Opfer ) occasions an emotional reac- tion of anguished lament, as Burker t notes. The act of killing and the act of eating are two sides of the sa me coin, so to speak, and both are accompanied by intense emotion. 18 Moreover, Chilton’s approach to sa crifice does not take into ac- count the practice of offering human victims. We know it was prac- all over the world. 19 The practice of child sacrifice was known to the Israelites and condemned in the tradition. However, that it was an earlier practice of many Isr aelites there can be no doubt. The divine command in Exod 22:29 (Heb. 22 :28) affirms that the firstborn belong, in principle at least, to th e God of Israel, and it is doubtful that the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) negates the principle. More- over, in times of crisis there were some who reverted to this prac- tice, as attested in 2 Kgs 16:3 a nd several passages in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Now of course, if the mimetic th eory is basically correct, then the ritual of sacrifice functions to repeat both the crisis, the slaying of a victim, and the subsequent re lief to the commun ity; it does this moreover in a fashion that makes ev erything seem to be in order to the participants in the sacrificial event. Real death and violence are not associated with sacrifice from th e mythic standpoint. It is a rit- ual, a practice that is simply « done, » and has been done from time 18. See Euripides’ depiction of the Dionysian cult in The Bacchae . In my judgment there is a strong trace of this kind of emo tional reaction in Lev 9:22-24, where the people shout and fall on their faces when the fire consumes the holocaust and the fat. 19. The mimetic theory proposes that defin ite traces of this continue into the con- temporary world and that in fact when old sacrificial forms break down there is a typical reversion to collective violence. On e notable current example is the « ethnic cleansing » that is taking place in the form er Yugoslavia. For a carefully researched study of one part of the world where the more primitive form of offering a human vic- tim (the king) was practiced into the 1980s, see Simon Simonse, Kings of Disaster: Cen- tralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan (Leiden: Brill, 1992). 46 Bulletin for Biblical Research 3 immemorial. Indeed, ther e is evidence that in many rituals the vic- tim, whether human or animal, comm unicates in some fashion that it is willing to be sacrificed on the community’s behalf. Unanimity is crucially important in sacrifice and scapegoating. 20 To say that the death of the victim arouses no intere st is to speak fro m within that mythical unanimity. This matter of the attitude toward the victim is also related to Chilton’s criticism of an aspect of my treatment of Saul in 1 Samuel. I observed that a close read ing of the text does not indicate that Saul was a great offender against the social order. 21 Saul, like other tragic heroes, was both the savior of his pe ople and in some respects their scapegoat. He is condemned in 1 Samuel 13 for not waiting until Samuel arrives at Gilgal to offer burnt sacrifices. But I understand this passage essentially as I do 1 Sa muel 15: Saul is the leader, the mediator contested by another mediator, Samuel; there is a crisis, with the Philistines pressi ng upon the Israelites and the troops, not a highly organized and disciplined lot, making demands upon him from their side. In addition, accord ing to 1 Sam 13:8, he had waited the appointed seven days for Samuel . To assert that Saul was an offender against the social order is to chime in with the mythical voice speaking in much of 1 Samuel. This voice represents a sacrifi- cial perspective and Saul is the sacr ifice. In the book I stopped just short of describing Saul as a scape goat after the model of Oedipus. I think the history of Saul and David cannot finally make of Saul an utter scapegoat, and there are even more evident sign s in the story of David that the text reflects an attempt to critique the traditional understanding of sacral kingship. 22 In sum, the mimetic theory does not hold th at sacrifice is de- monic, but neither does it accept the representation of sacrifice according to the understa nding of its practitioners who exist in the environment of myth. Sacrifice is the representation and manage- ment of violence. The meal model only perpetuates this representa- tion and management by not ques tioning it from the standpoint of the distinctive biblical testimonies whose perspective is more favor- able to the victim than to the persecuting community. * * * 20. The modern totalitarian trial is an ex tension of this practice based on the need for unanimity, i.e., complete accord in th e community. The accused is led out, con- fesses his or her crimes, and is then executed or imprisoned. 21. A point made some years ago by David Gunn, The Fate of King Saul (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980). 22. See Hans J. L. Jensen, « Desire, Rivalr y, and Collective Violence in the ‘Succes- sion Narrative’, » JSOT 55 (1992) 39-59. WILLIAMS: A Response to Bruce Chilton 47 In conclusion, I would like to re iterate my gratitude to Bruce Chilton for the time and energy he ha s devoted to coming to terms with Girard’s work and mine. I ag ree with him that we should not assign fault to ancient antecedents as a way of avoiding the challenge to understand our own mimetic situ ations. We cannot, however, un- derstand ourselves and one another without seeking to understand our forebears. Above all, we must come to grips with the distinctive- ness of the biblical witness to the God of victims.

Excerpt from James G. Williams, The Bible, Violence & the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sacred Violence, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991, pp. 81-84.

9. Girard, The Scapegoat, chap. 2. I cannot resist quoting a sports columnist who wrote about Pete Rose, the baseball « star » who was accused of gambling on baseball games and betting on his own team, « If there’s one thing the American public likes better than an idol, it’s a fallen idol. » Unfortunately, I no longer have the source for this quote.

Genèse: Contre tous les dieux de l’Égypte (How Genesis demythologizes and historicizes Egyptian creation myths)

J’exercerai des jugements contre tous les dieux de l’Égypte. Je suis l’Éternel. Exode 12: 12

Comment la Genèse démysthifie et historicise les mythes de création égyptiens …

Genèse 1 et 2 à la lumière des mythes de création égyptiens

Les gens qui vivaient dans l’ancien Proche-Orient partageaient tous des idées semblables concernant la façon dont le monde avait vu le jour. Bien que les anciens avaient de nombreuses vues en commun, des différences existaient aussi entre eux. À Babylone, la création était issue d’une bataille sanglante entre les dieux. Marduk tue Tiamat et la partage en deux pour former le ciel. Toutefois, dans la création égyptienne, aucune lutte violente n’existe parmi les dieux. La création hébraïque introduit une autre différence. Il n’existe qu’un seul Dieu qui est distinct de sa création.

Relation historique entre les Hébreux et les Egyptiens

Étant donné que les concepts hébreux de la création avaient plus en commun avec ceux des Egyptiens que des Babyloniens, cela donne à penser que l’auteur ou rédacteur en chef des récits de création de la Genèse avaient une plus grande connaissance de la cosmologie de l’Egypte que de Babylone ou un minimum qu’ils avaient une vision du monde plus proche de celle des Egyptien que de celle des Babyloniens. Si le Pentateuque a été écrit par Moïse qui a fait ses études dans les tribunaux de l’Égypte, l’utilisation des idées égyptiennes dans le récit de la création Genèse ne devrait pas être surprenante.

Hatchepsout et Moïse

Omar Zuhdi, suggère Hatshepsut comme la fille de Pharaon qui a sauvé Moïse de l’eau. Des problèmes existent avec sa théorie, il l’admet, mais elle reste une possibilité valable.

Tel que mentionné précédemment, le temple d’Hatchepsout à Deir el-Bahari dans Thèbes contient un mur-relief illustrant Khnoum structuration d’elle et son ka partir de la glaise sur la plaque tournante de son potter. Épouse de Khnoum, Heket, se met à genoux par la tour de potier et offre à l’effigie d’argile le souffle de vie, symbolisée par l’ankh. L’affirmation par ce mur-relief, nommément que Khnoum personnellement fait Hatshepsut, valide son droit de gouverner.

Si Hatchepsout a adopté Moïse comme son fils, il aurait su sur le culte de Khnoum puisque son droit à la règle la belle-mère dépendait de la création de Khnoum d’elle. Familiarité de Moïse avec Khnoum peut expliquer l’imagerie égyptienne dans le deuxième récit de la création Genèse (Gen. 2:4-25). Ici, Yahvé-Dieu fait l’homme hors de la terre et respire le souffle de vie dans ses narines, provoquant l’homme devenir un être vivant.

Démystification : L’historicisation du mythe

Comme l’a montré McCurley, Yahvé fait souvent dans l’histoire les actions réclamées par d’autres dieux dans les mythologies des voisins d’Israël. Ce processus, appelé « démystification », se produit dans les comptes de création Genèse. Le premier récit de la création dans la Genèse démythifie la cosmogonie d’Hermopolis. Les quatre conditions présentent au début de la création en parallèle de la Genèse celles représentées par l’Ogdoade d’Hermopolis. Cependant, plutôt que les éléments de la création ayant une volition qui leur est propre, le texte les dépeint comme des objets inanimés qui se déplacent selon le sens de la parole d’Yahvé.

Récits de création de la Genèse écrits comme histoire

La structure narrative de la wayyiqtol des comptes création Genèse montre que l’auteur / redactor(s) destiné à leur public à comprendre les comptes comme prenant place dans l’histoire. Si on choisit d’accepter l’historicité des comptes création ne fait aucune différence avec ce problème. L’auditoire original comprend les comptes de création Genèse comme décrivant un événement historique basé sur la structure narrative de le wayyiqtol.

Éléments polémiques dans les récits de création de la Genèse

Certaines parties des textes création Genèse s’écarter non seulement des concepts égyptiens, mais ils constituent aussi une polémique contre les dieux égyptiens. La portée du présent document ne permet pas une liste exhaustive des éléments polémiques dans les comptes de création Genèse. Cependant, quelques-uns seront mentionnés.

Création de Dieu de la lumière le premier jour avant la création des luminaires quatrième jour forme une polémique contre le Dieu soleil, Atoum-Re. Cela montre que la source de lumière ne provient pas avec le soleil ou la lune (Re, le Dieu-soleil ou Thot, le Dieu de la lune), mais avec le Dieu hébreu qui se distingue de la lumière et la création.

Un autre élément polémique se trouve dans le fait que l’auteur ne nomme pas le soleil et la lune. Il fait simplement référence à eux comme la plus grande lumière et la lumière moindre. Il voulait simplement démythification des luminaires, il aurait pu utiliser l’hébreu vm #v# ‘soleil’ et j^r@y’ ‘Lune’. De ne pas nommer le soleil et la lune, il les distances davantage de déités qui leur est attribuées en Egypte.

Les éléments polémiques dans les comptes de création Genèse impliquent que l’auteur a vu une nécessité pour son auditoire de comprendre qu’Yahvé et pas les dieux égyptiens, est le seul vrai Dieu et créateur du monde. Par exemple, un élément important du récit de l’exode concerne la bataille entre Yahvé et les dieux égyptiens (Pharaon lui-même étant le Dieu-soleil incarné). Dans le contexte de la mort du premier-né en Égypte Yahvé déclare dans Exode 12:12, « contre tous les dieux de l’Egypte j’exercerai des jugements. »

Lors de la naissance d’Israël en tant que nation, les Hébreux ont vu les dieux égyptiens, pas le babylonien, comme s’opposant à Yahvé. Par conséquent, une polémique de création qui établit Yahweh comme créateur à la place de dieux égyptiens semble plus plausible que celle qui oppose les dieux Babyloniens.

La présence de deux récits de la création dans la Genèse peut résulter de la nécessité des Hébreux pour réfuter les deux traditions égyptiennes de création, à savoir, la tradition de la façon dont le cosmos est née et la tradition comment les humains et les animaux est en cours. Un récit de la création ne suffirait pas pour argumenter contre le point de vue en Égypte depuis les Egyptiens vu la création de l’univers et la création de l’homme de deux manières distinctes, à savoir, la création par la parole divine et création en formant. Pour suffisamment argumenter contre les deux, deux comptes de création ont été nécessaires.

Genèse 1:1-2:3 dépeint élohim comme créant le cosmos par sa parole. Bien que la création de l’homme et la femme devient le couronnement de Dieu dans sa semaine de la création, les détails de comment il a fait les reçoit peu mention autre que leur création comme l’image de Dieu. Pour un compte rendu plus détaillé de l’homme et de la création de la femme, le lecteur doit consulter le deuxième récit de la création Genèse.

Genèse 2:4-25 montre Yahvé-Dieu créant l’homme et les animaux de la terre. Yahvé-Dieu fait homme sur la terre et lui insuffle le « souffle de vie ».

À travers les comptes de la création de deux, Yahvé-Elohim est indiqué comme étant supérieures aux dieux de l’Égypte. Il crée par la parole divine, mais demeure transcendant. Contrairement à Ptah, il n’a pas d’incarner la création pour la commande, ni il ne nécessite pas de l’assistance d’un autre Dieu ou démiurge. Tout simplement, qu’il parle ou agit, et la création est terminée. Il a aussi crée par l’homme hors de la terre. Contrairement à Khnoum, il ne nécessite pas l’aide d’une épouse. Il crée l’homme et lui insuffle la vie. Ainsi, à travers les comptes de la création de deux, Yahvé-Dieu démontre sa capacité à accomplir tous les actes créatifs des dieux égyptiens.

La preuve a démontré l’utilisation de l’imagerie création égyptienne dans les comptes de création Genèse. Cependant, plutôt que de discréditer les comptes de création Genèse comme un emprunt direct de croyances égyptiennes, la preuve démontre que l’auteur / redactor(s) possédait une connaissances des croyances égyptiennes et prononça contre ces concepts qui allaient à l’encontre de vérité.

Conclusion

En conclusion, l’auteur / redactor(s) des comptes création Genèse partage certains concepts de la composition du monde avec les autres cultures du Proche-Orient antiques. Cependant, c’est surtout avec la vision du monde de l’Egypte que l’auteur / redactor(s) sont familiers. Preuve de cela réside dans les nombreuses allusions aux motifs de création égyptien tout au long de la comptabilité de création Genèse. Mais, plutôt que d’être une affaire d’emprunt direct, ils démythification des concepts égyptiens et forment une polémique contre les dieux égyptiens. Ainsi, ils élèvent Yahvé-Dieu comme le seul vrai Dieu, qui est transcendant et qui est toute puissante. Il parle de son désir, et il s’agit de passer. Il ne nécessite pas l’assistance d’autres dieux pour accomplir les actes de création. Lui seul possède la puissance et les moyens nécessaires pour procéder à la création du monde. Ce livre a compilé une liste des plus importants parallèles entre la cosmologie égyptienne et les comptes de création Genèse et a montré cette cosmologie égyptienne et les comptes de création Genèse partagent plus d’affinité entre eux que les comptes de création Genèse partagent avec la cosmologie babylonienne.

Voir aussi:

Genesis 1-2 In Light Of Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths

Study By: Tony L. Shetter

(…)

Genesis Creation Accounts in Their Historical Context

The people who lived in the ancient Near East all shared similar ideas concerning how the world came into existence. Although the ancients shared many views in common with one another, differences existed among them as well. In Babylon, creation results from a bloody battle of the gods. Marduk slays Tiamat, and splits her in two forming the heaven. However, in Egyptian creation, no violent struggle exists among the gods. Hebrew creation introduces another difference. Only one God exists who is distinct from his creation.

Historical Relationship between Hebrews and Egyptians

Since the Hebrew and Egyptian concepts of creation share more in common with one another than the Hebrew and Babylonian, this suggests that the author or redactor of the Genesis creation accounts possessed greater knowledge of Egyptian than Babylonian cosmology, or a the very least held a worldview that was closer to the Egyptian than the Babylonian worldview. If the Pentateuch was written by Moses who was educated in the courts of Egypt, the use of Egyptian ideas in the Genesis creation account should not be surprising.

Hatshepsut and Moses

Omar Zuhdi, suggests Hatshepsut as the daughter of Pharaoh who drew Moses from the water. While problems exist with his theory, as he admits, it remains as a valid possibility.

As mentioned previously, Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahari in Thebes contains a wall-relief which depicts Khnum fashioning her and her ka out of clay on his potter’s turntable. Khnum’s consort, Heket, kneels by the potter’s wheel and offers the clay effigy the breath of life, symbolized by the ankh. The assertion put forth by this wall-relief, namely, that Khnum personally made Hatshepsut, validates her right to rule.

If Hatshepsut adopted Moses as her son, he would have known about the cult of Khnum since his stepmother’s right to rule depended upon Khnum’s creation of her. Moses’ familiarity with Khnum may explain the Egyptian imagery found in the second Genesis creation account (Gen 2:4-25). Here, Yahweh-Elohim forms man out of the ground and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils causing the man to become a living being.

Demythologizing: The Historicization of Myth

As McCurley has shown, Yahweh often does in history the actions claimed by other gods in the mythologies of Israel’s neighbors. This process, known as ‘demythologizing,’ occurs in the Genesis creation accounts. The first creation story in Genesis demythologizes the cosmogony of Hermopolis. The four conditions present at the beginning of creation in Genesis parallel those represented by the Ogdoad of Hermopolis. However, rather than the elements of the creation having a volition of their own, the text portrays them as inanimate objects which move according to the direction of Yahweh’s word.

Genesis Creation Accounts Written as History

The wayyiqtol narrative structure of the Genesis creation accounts shows that the author/redactor(s) intended their audience to understand the accounts as taking place in history. Whether or not one chooses to accept the historicity of the creation accounts makes no difference with this issue. The original audience understood the Genesis creation accounts as describing a historical event based on the wayyiqtol narrative structure.

Polemical Elements in the Genesis Creation Accounts

Certain parts of the Genesis creation texts not only diverge from Egyptian concepts but they also form a polemic against the Egyptian gods. The scope of this paper does not permit an exhaustive listing of the polemical elements in the Genesis creation accounts. However, a few will be mentioned.

God’s creation of light on day one before the creation of the luminaries on day four forms a polemic against Atum-Re, the sun god. This shows that the source of light does not originate with the sun or the moon (i.e. Re, the sun-god or Thoth, the moon-god), but with the Hebrew God who is distinct from the light and the creation.

Another polemical element is found in the fact that the author does not name the sun and the moon. He simply refers to them as the ‘greater light’ and the ‘lesser light.’ If he intended to merely demythologize the luminaries, he could have used the Hebrew vm#v# ‘sun’ and j^r@y` ‘moon.’ By not naming the sun and the moon, he further distances them from the deities attributed to them in Egypt.

The polemical elements in the Genesis creation accounts imply that the author saw a need for his audience to understand that Yahweh, and not the Egyptian gods, is the one true God and Creator of the world. For example, a major component of the Exodus narrative concerns the battle between Yahweh, and the Egyptian gods (Pharaoh himself being the sun-god incarnate). In the context of the slaying of the first-born in Egypt Yahweh declares in Exodus 12:12, “against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.” During the birth of Israel as a nation, the Hebrews saw the Egyptian gods, not the Babylonian, as opposing Yahweh. Therefore, a creation polemic that establishes Yahweh as creator in place of the Egyptian gods seems more plausible than one that opposes the Babylonian gods.

The presence of two creation stories in Genesis may result from the need of the Hebrews to refute the two Egyptian creation traditions, namely, the tradition of how the cosmos came into being, and the tradition of how humans and animals came into being. One creation story would not suffice to argue against the views in Egypt since the Egyptians saw the creation of the universe and the creation of humans in two distinct ways, namely, creation by divine word, and creation by forming. In order to sufficiently argue against both, two creation accounts were needed.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 portrays Elohim as creating the cosmos by his spoken word. Although the creation of man and woman becomes God’s crowning achievement in his creation week, the specifics of how he made them receives little mention other than their creation as the image of God. For a more detailed account of man and woman’s creation, the reader must consult the second Genesis creation account.

Genesis 2:4-25 shows Yahweh-Elohim creating man and animals from the earth. Yahweh-Elohim forms man out of the earth and breathes into him the “breath of life.”

Through the two creation accounts, Yahweh-Elohim is shown to be superior to the gods of Egypt. He creates by divine word, yet remains transcendent. Unlike Ptah, he does not have to embody the creation to command it, neither does he require assistance from another god or demiurge. He simply speaks and/or acts, and the creation is completed. He also creates by forming man out of the earth. Unlike Khnum, he does not require the aid of a consort. He creates the man and breathes life into him. Thus, through the two creation accounts, Yahweh-Elohim demonstrates his ability to perform all the creative acts of the Egyptian gods.

The evidence has shown the use of Egyptian creation imagery within the Genesis creation accounts. However, rather than discrediting the Genesis creation accounts as a direct borrowing of Egyptian beliefs, the evidence shows that the author/redactor(s) possessed a knowledge Egyptian beliefs and argued against those concepts that were contrary to truth.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the author/redactor(s) of the Genesis creation accounts share certain concepts of the makeup of the world with other ancient Near Eastern cultures. However, it is especially with Egypt’s worldview that the author/redactor(s) are familiar. Evidence for this lies in the many allusions to Egyptian creation motifs throughout the Genesis creation accounts. But, rather than being a case of direct borrowing, they demythologize the Egyptian concepts and form a polemic against the Egyptian gods. Thus, they elevate Yahweh-Elohim as the one true God, who is transcendent and who is all powerful. He speaks his desire and it comes to pass. He does not require the assistance of other gods to perform the acts of creation. He alone possesses the power and means necessary to effect the creation of the world. This paper has compiled a list of the more significant parallels between Egyptian cosmology and the Genesis creation accounts, and has shown that Egyptian cosmology and the Genesis creation accounts share more affinity with one another than the Genesis creation accounts share with Babylonian cosmology.

Voir aussi:

Appendix One: The Old Testament as History

Study By: Bob Utley

From the Series: The Study Bible Commentary Series, Old Testament

Christianity and Judaism are historical faiths. They base their faith on historical events (accompanied by their interpretations). The problem comes in trying to define or describe what is « history » or « historical study. » Much of the problem in modern theological interpretation rests on modern literary or historical assumptions projected back onto Ancient Near Eastern biblical literature. Not only is there not a proper appreciation of the temporal and cultural differences, but also of the literary differences. As modern western people we simply do not understand the genres and literary techniques of Ancient Near Eastern writings, so we interpreted them in light of western literal genres.

The nineteenth century’s approach to biblical studies atomized and depreciated the books of the Old Testament as historical, unified documents. This historical scepticism has affected hermeneutics and historical investigation of the Old Testament. The current trend toward « canonical hermeneutics » (Brevard Childs) has helped focus on the current form of the Old Testament text. This, in my opinion, is a helpful bridge over the abyss of German higher criticism of the nineteenth century. We must deal with the canonical text that has been given us by an unknown historical process whose inspiration is assumed.

Many scholars are returning to the assumption of the historicity of the OT. This is surely not meant to deny the obvious editing and updating of the OT by later Jewish scribes, but it is a basic return to the OT as a valid history and the documentation of true events (with their theological interpretations). A quote from R. K Harrison in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 1, in the article, « Historical and Literary Criticism of the Old Testament » is helpful.

« Comparative historiographic studies have shown that, along with the Hittites, the ancient Hebrews were the most accurate, objective, and responsible recorders of Near Eastern history. . Form-critical studies of books such as Genesis and Deuteronomy, based on specific types of tablets recovered from sites that include Mari, Nuzu, and Boghazköy, have shown that the canonical material has certain nonliterary counterparts in the cultures of some Near Eastern peoples. As a result, it is possible to view with a new degree of confidence and respect those early traditions of the Hebrews that purport to be historiographic in nature » (p. 232).

I am especially appreciative of R. K. Harrison’s work because he makes it a priority to interpret the Old Testament in light of contemporary events, cultures and genres.

In my own classes on early Jewish literature (Genesis – Deuteronomy and Joshua), I try to establish a credible link with other Ancient Near Eastern literature and artifacts.

A. Genesis literary parallels from the Ancient Near East

1. Earliest known literary parallel of the cultural setting of Genesis 1-11 is the Ebla cuneiform tablets from northern Syria dating about 2500 b.c., written in Akkadian.

2. Creation

a. The closest Mesopotamian account dealing with creation, Enuma Elish, dating from about 1900-1700 b.c., was found in Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh and several other places. There are seven cuneiform tablets written in Akkadian which describe creation by Marduk.

1) the gods, Apsu (fresh water – male) and Tiamat (salt water – female) had unruly, noisy children. These two gods tried to silence the younger gods.

2) one of the god’s children, Marduk, helped defeat Tiamat. He formed the earth from her body.

3) Marduk formed humanity from another defeated god, Kingu, who was the male consort of Tiamat after the death of Apsu. Humanity came from Kingu’s blood.

4) Marduk was made chief of the Babylonian pantheon.

b. « The creation seal » is a cuneiform tablet which is a picture of a naked man and woman beside a fruit tree with a snake wrapped around the tree’s trunk and positioned over the woman’s shoulder as if talking to her.

3. Creation and Flood – The Atrahasis Epic records the rebellion of the lesser gods because of overwork and the creation of seven human couples to perform the duties of these lesser gods. Because of (1) over population and (2) noise, human beings were reduced in number by a plague, two famines and finally a flood, planned by Enlil. These major events are seen in the same order in Genesis 1-8. This cuneiform composition dates from about the same times as Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh Epic, about 1900-1700 b.c. All are in Akkadian.

4. Noah’s flood

a. A Summerian tablet from Nippur, called Eridu Genesis, dating from abut 1600 b.c., tells about Zivsudra and a coming flood.

1) Enka, the water god, warned of a coming flood

2) Zivsudra, a king-priest, saved in a huge boat

3) The flood lasted seven days

4) Zivsudra opened a window on the boat and released several birds to see if dry land had appeared

5) He also offered a sacrifice of an ox and sheep when he left the boat

b. A composite Babylonian flood account from four Summerian tales, known as the Gilgamesh Epic, originally dating from about 2500-2400 b.c., although the written composite form was cuneiform Akkadian, is much later. It tells about a flood survivor, Utnapishtim, who tells Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk how he survived the great flood and was granted eternal life.

1) Ea, the water god, warns of a coming flood and tells Utnapishtim (Babylonian form of Zivsudra) to build a boat

2) Utnapishtim and his family, along with selected healing plants, survived the flood

3) The flood lasted seven days

4) The boat came to rest in northeast Persia, on Mt. Nisir

5) He sent out three different birds to see if dry land had yet appeared

5. The Mesopotamian literature which describes an ancient flood draws from the same source. The names often vary, but the plot is the same. An example is that Zivsudra, Atrahasis, and Utnapishtim are all the same human king.

6. The historical parallels to the early events of Genesis can be explained in light of man’s pre-dispersion (Genesis 10-11) knowledge and experience of God. These true historical core memories have been elaborated and mythologicalized into the current flood accounts common throughout the world. The same can also be said of: creation (Genesis 1-2) and human and angelic unions (Genesis 6).

7. Patriarch’s Day (Middle Bronze)

a. Mari tablets – cuneiform legal (Ammonite culture) and personal texts written in Akkadian from about 1700 b.c.

b. Nuzi tablets – cuneiform archives of certain families (Horite or Hurrian culture) written in Akkadian from about 100 miles SE of Nineveh about 1500-1300 b.c. They record family and business procedures. For further specific examples, see Walton, pp. 52-58.

c. Alalak tablets – cuneiform texts from Northern Syria from about 2000 b.c.

d. Some of the names found in Genesis are named as place names in the Mari Tablets: Serug, Peleg, Terah, Nahor. Other biblical names were also common: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Laban, and Joseph.

8. « Comparative historiographic studies have shown that, along with the Hittites, the ancient Hebrews were the most accurate, objective and responsible recorders of Near Eastern history, » R. K Harrison in Biblical Criticism, p. 5.

9. Archaeology has proven to be so helpful in establishing the historicity of the Bible. However, a word of caution is necessary. Archaeology is not an absolutely trustworthy guide because of

a. poor techniques in early excavations

b. various, very subjective interpretations of the artifacts that have been discovered

c. no agreed-upon chronology of the Ancient Near East (although one is being developed from tree rings)

B. Egyptian creation accounts can be found in John W. Walton’s, Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990. pp. 23-34, 32-34.

1. In Egyptian literature creation began with an unstructured, chaotic, primeval water. Creation was seen as developing structure out of watery chaos.

2. In Egyptian literature from Memphis, creation occurred by the spoken word of Ptah.

C. Joshua literary parallels from the Ancient Near East

1. Archaeology has shown that most of the large walled cities of Canaan were destroyed and rapidly rebuilt about 1250 b.c.

a. Hazor

b. Lachish

c. Bethel

d. Debir (formerly called Kerioth Sepher, 15:15)

Archaeology has not been able to confirm or reject the biblical account of the fall of Jericho (cf. Joshua 6). This is because the site is in such poor condition:

a. weather/location c. uncertainty as to the dates of the layers

b. later rebuildings on old sites using older materials

Archaeology has found an altar on Mt. Ebal that might be connected to Joshua 8:30-31 (Deuteronomy. 27:2-9). It is very similar to a description found in the Mishnah (Talmud).

2. The Ras Shamra texts found at Ugarit show Canaanite life and religion of 1400’s b.c.

a. polytheistic nature worship (fertility cult)

b. El was chief deity

c. El’s consort was Asherah (later she is consort to Ba’al) who was worshiped in the form of a carved stake or live tree, which symbolized « the tree of life »

d. their son was Ba’al (Haddad), the storm god

e. Ba’al became the « high god » of the Canaanite pantheon. Anat was his consort

f. ceremonies similar to Isis and Osiris of Egypt

g. Ba’al worship was focused on local « high places » or stone platforms (ritual prostitution)

h. Ba’al was symbolized by a raised stone pillar (phallic symbol)

3. The accurate listing of the names of ancient cities fits a contemporary author, not later editor(s)

a. Jerusalem called Jebus, 15:8; 18:16,28 (15:28 said the Jebusites still remained in part of Jerusalem)

b. Hebron called Kiriath-arba, 14:15; 15:13,54; 20:7; 21:11

c. Kiriath-jearim is called Baalah, 15:9,10

d. Sidon is referred to as the major Phoenician city, not Tyre, 11:8; 13:6; 19:28, which later became the chief city

Obama II: Obama lance la Bible et la Constitution en playback (One nation under socialism: US and France’s new administrations reveal their true collectivist colors)

C’est à la sueur de ton visage que tu mangeras du pain, jusqu’à ce que tu retournes dans la terre, d’où tu as été pris; car tu es poussière, et tu retourneras dans la poussière. Genèse 3: 19

 Ne jugez point, afin que vous ne soyez point jugés. Car on vous jugera du jugement dont vous jugez, et l’on vous mesurera avec la mesure dont vous mesurez. Jésus (Matthieu 7: 1-2)

Malheur au monde à cause des scandales! Car il est nécessaire qu’il arrive des scandales; mais malheur à l’homme par qui le scandale arrive! Jésus (Matthieu 18: 7)

Les jugements de l’Éternel sont vrais, ils sont tous justes. Psaumes 19: 9

Nous espérons du fond du cœur, nous prions avec ferveur, que ce terrible fléau de la guerre s’achève rapidement. Si, cependant, Dieu veut qu’il se poursuive jusqu’à ce que sombrent les richesses accumulées par 250 ans de labeur non partagé de l’esclave ainsi que jusqu’à ce que chaque goutte de sang jaillie sous le fouet soit payée par une autre versée par l’épée, comme il a été dit il y a trois mille ans, il nous faudra reconnaître que “les décisions du Seigneur sont justes et vraiment équitables. Lincoln (Deuxième discours d’investiture, le 4 mars 1865)

N’avez-vous pas lu que le créateur, au commencement, fit l’homme et la femme et qu’il dit: C’est pourquoi l’homme quittera son père et sa mère, et s’attachera à sa femme, et les deux deviendront une seule chair? Ainsi ils ne sont plus deux, mais ils sont une seule chair. Que l’homme donc ne sépare pas ce que Dieu a joint. Pourquoi donc, lui dirent-ils, Moïse a-t-il prescrit de donner à la femme une lettre de divorce et de la répudier? (…) C’est à cause de la dureté de votre coeur que Moïse vous a permis de répudier vos femmes; au commencement, il n’en était pas ainsi. Jésus (Matthieu 19: 4-8)

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. Obama (2008)

I think in the end it does have to be a broad us. It has to be democracy with a small ‘d.’ Obama (1995)

Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of [our founding] words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed. And for more than two hundred years, we have. Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together. (…) We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth. (…) « It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Obama

We pray for your blessing because without it, we will see only what the eye can see. But with the blessing of your blessing we will see that we are created in your image, whether brown, black or white, male or female, first generation or immigrant American, or daughter of the American Revolution, gay or straight, rich or poor. Rev. Luis Leon

Lincoln was the product of a short and shallow formal education, and he had never fully identified with a Christian denomination or doctrinal tradition. And yet in this case, as in so many others, (…) Lincoln’s legacy, far more than any other president, has, over time, become inextricably bound up with the words and themes of the Bible. He has been endowed repeatedly with biblical features—sometimes cast as Moses, on other occasions as Father Abraham, and yet again as a fiery prophet or martyred savior. An aura of prophetic authority has accrued to his own words, heightened by his skillful use of literary devices that are also characteristic of biblical texts. The Poor Hand’s homilies, like the man himself, now belong to the ages. Lincoln contributed to this biblical aura through his adamant advocacy of what he referred to in his address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield in 1838 as an American « political religion. » (…) In death, Lincoln became an icon of this American political faith—the only faith, it would seem, for which he could give his own last measure of devotion. Lincoln’s Collected Works are, in fact, peppered with biblical references, including several dozen direct quotations. These are taken, for the most part, from Hebrew Bible narratives, the Psalms, Wisdom texts, and the Gospels. The Bible was the common coin of literate nineteenth-century Americans, and Lincoln made good use of its currency. Earl Schwartz

In this short passage Lincoln strings together four direct biblical quotations. Nevertheless, each quote enters the address honed and shaped by many years of conceptual and rhetorical development. Gen. 3:19 now carries for Lincoln the accumulated implications of twenty years of reflection, as indicated by his retention of an inferred « their » prior to « bread, » a condensed version of his earlier antithesis of « their bread » over against the « sweat of other men’s faces, » and the addition of the tortuous image of oppressors « wringing » their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, rather than simply eating it, as he had expressed it earlier. Lincoln’s juxtaposition of Gen. 3:19 to Matt. 7:1 (« Let us judge not … ») reiterates his previous condemnation of slavery as the theft of another’s « self, » as well as his claim that he was obliged not to « judge » the motives of those who would lend their support to such a crime. Here, as in the « Response » to the Baptist missionaries, the counsel that one must withhold judgment appears ironic, though his convincing reference to « charity for all » in the peroration indicates a tempering of his earlier sarcasm. However, having counseled forbearance, Lincoln immediately goes on to declare that it was not to be expected that restraining the urge to judge would save the nation from undergoing judgment. Instead, in a passage punctuated by repeated references to justice (« just, » « judge, » « judged, » « judgments ») he joins his « materialist » reading of Gen. 3:19 to a corresponding vision of an immanent Divine judgment which was « true and righteous altogether, » purging the nation, measure for measure, of slavery’s « wealth » and « lash. » The ravages of war had extracted a terrible price from those « by whom the offence cometh, » be they collaborators or bystanders, but the debate was over, and the conclusion, as he had long insisted, was « self evident. » The Almighty had had His own wrenching purposes. Those purposes having been accomplished, the time for rending was now speedily passing away, and a time for mending had begun. Earl Schwartz

The bitter election wars to achieve and maintain a 51–53 percent majority (the noble 99 percent versus the selfish 1 percent, the greens versus the polluters, the young and hip versus the stodgy and uncool, the wisely unarmed versus the redneck assault-weapon owners, women versus the sexists, gays versus the bigots, Latinos versus the nativists, blacks versus the “get over it” spiteful and resentful, the noble public sector versus the “you didn’t build that” profiteers, Colin Powell/Chuck Hagel/reasonable Republicans versus neanderthal House tea-party zealots), in Nixonian fashion have left a lot of bitter divisions that lie just beneath the surface of a thinning veneer. Victor Davis Hanson

Mr. Obama is arguing counter to the Founding Fathers that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of equality of results, not the equality of opportunity, and that he will do what he can to use government to make everybody more equal in terms of their income and life work. (…) this was no opportunity speech. This was a redistributionist, income-leveling speech. And it completely missed the point of the Founding Fathers some 237 years ago. They were talking about the equality of opportunity, not results. Theirs was a declaration of freedom, not government power or authority. In fact, the Declaration of Independence was written expressly to begin a revolution against the autocratic monarchs of England, who used their government authority to tax, regulate, and oppress the colonists without any representation or voting rights, thus denying them the unalienable rights of liberty. So while Obama was on the one hand preaching “fidelity to our founding principles,” on the other he was saying that preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action. Collective action? The Founders were talking about individual liberty and rights. Not the power of a collectivist government. The “collective” is a socialist idea, not a free-market capitalist thought. (…) Obama’s mistaken opinions regarding the Declaration of Independence, and his total lack of understanding of the thinking behind the Declaration, is more troubling than any of the liberal programmatic proposals he set forth. Fundamentally, you have to wonder if the president really understands the American idea, and the American historical experience, beginning with the great wisdom of the Founders. Collectivism also means “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” During his second-term inaugural speech, Obama actually said, “We do not believe in this country that freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.” Were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates lucky? Was Henry Ford lucky? Was Thomas Edison just lucky? How about they used their God-given talents of creativity, imagination, and ingenuity, coupled with hard work, to create commercial ventures that financially empowered millions upon millions of people who were then able to live a better and more comfortable life? That’s what the Founders had in mind. Freedom. It was bad enough that the president had nothing to say about economic growth, or excess federal spending, deficits, and debt. Nor did he show any interest in reforming the large entitlement programs that may bankrupt America. He did discuss the energy market. But rather than let market forces determine the most efficient and clean energy sources to power our economy, he insisted on more doomed green-energy projects subsidized by the taxpayer (like Solyndra). (…) Equality of opportunity is the American ideal. Equality of results and income-leveling is foreign to the American ideal. Larry Kudlow

Whether Beyoncé was lip-syncing to the band or the band were lip-syncing to Beyoncé is like one of those red pill/ blue pill choices from The Matrix. Was President Obama lip-syncing to the Founders, rooting his inaugural address in the earliest expressions of American identity? (“The patriots of 1776 . . . gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”) Or maybe the Founders were lip-syncing to him as he appropriated the vision of the first generation of Americans and yoked it (“preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”) to a statist pitch they would have found utterly repugnant. The whole event had the air of a simulacrum: It looked like a presidential inauguration, but the sound was tinny and not quite in sync. Obama mouthed along to a canned vocal track: “We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.” That’s great! It’s always reassuring to know the head of state is going to take issue with all those people wedded to the “belief” that America needs either to shove every granny off the cliff or stake its newborns out on the tundra for the wolves to finish off. When it comes to facing the music, Obama is peerless at making a song and dance about tunes nobody’s whistling without ever once warbling the real big numbers (16 trillion). But, like Beyoncé, he’s totally cool and has a cute butt. Mark Steyn

Le gouvernement s’est engagé à s’appuyer sur la jeunesse pour changer les mentalités, notamment par le biais d’une éducation au respect de la diversité des orientations sexuelles. Vincent Peillon (Lettre aux recteurs, Ministre de l’Education, 04.01.13)

C’est au socialisme qu’il va revenir d’incarner la révolution religieuse dont l’humanité a besoin. (…) C’est bien une nouvelle naissance, une transusbtantiation qui opère dans l’école et par l’école, cette nouvelle Église, avec son nouveau clergé, sa nouvelle liturgie, ses nouvelles tables de la Loi. Vincent Peillon

La morale laïque c’est comprendre ce qui est juste, distinguer le bien du mal, c’est aussi des devoirs autant que des droits, des vertus, et surtout des valeurs. Je souhaite pour l’école française un enseignement qui inculquerait aux élèves des notions de morale universelle, fondée sur les idées d’humanité et de raison. La république porte une exigence de raison et de justice. La capacité de raisonner, de critiquer, de douter, tout cela doit s’apprendre à l’école. Le redressement de la France doit être un redressement matériel mais aussi intellectuel et moral. (…) Il faut assumer que l’école exerce un pouvoir spirituel dans la société. (…) Si la république ne dit pas quelle est sa vision de ce que sont les vertus et les vices, le bien et le mal, le juste et l’injuste, d’autres le font à sa place. Aujourd’hui dans les cours d’école et les classes, on se traite « sales feujs », « sales bougnoules »… Tout ce qui est de l’ordre du racisme, de l’antisémitisme, de l’injure, de la grossièreté à l’égard des professeurs et des autres élèves, ne peut pas être toléré à l’école. La sanction fait partie de l’éducation. Mais il faut aussi qu’il y ait une cohérence entre la responsabilité des adultes à l’extérieur de l’école et ce que l’on demande aux maîtres et aux professeurs de faire. L’attitude des plus hautes autorités de l’État est, de ce point de vue, tout à fait déterminante. L’ancien président de la République lui-même, en désignant toujours des ennemis, en s’exprimant avec violence ou grossièreté, en expliquant qu’enseigner La Princesse de Clèves était sans intérêt, que l’instituteur ne pourra jamais remplacer le curé, sapait l’autorité des professeurs et s’attaquait aux valeurs qui sont les nôtres. (…) Nous avons besoin d’un réarmement moral. C’est pourquoi nous devons tous soutenir nos professeurs. (…) Pour donner la liberté du choix, il faut être capable d’arracher l’élève à tous les déterminismes, familial, ethnique, social, intellectuel, pour après faire un choix. Je ne crois pas du tout à un ordre moral figé. (…) La bataille que doit mener l’école est aussi une bataille des valeurs. Nous allons la mener. Vincent Peillon

Derrière le personnage apparemment lisse, voire ennuyeux, se cache un terrible idéologue, quelqu’un de très dangereux, un Robespierre en herbe, un sans-culotte du XXIème siècle, un disciple en droite lignée des grands bienfaiteurs de l’Église que sont Jean Jaurès ou Ferdinand Buisson, qui sont ses deux papas. Vincent Peillon, c’est un docteur en philosophie – et il n’y a rien de plus dangereux qu’un philosophe qui fait de la politique, un visionnaire pour qui « la révolution française n’est pas terminée », parce que cette Révolution est « un événement religieux», une « nouvelle genèse » un « nouveau commencement du monde », une « nouvelle espérance » qu’il faut porter à son terme, à savoir : « la transformation socialiste et progressiste de la société toute entière ». En fait, Peillon n’est ni un homme politique, ni un simple philosophe. C’est un prophète, un Pape laïque, un grand-prêtre du socialisme, plus religieux que le Souverain Pontife lui-même. Alors, il est responsable aujourd’hui de l’éducation nationale. Ce n’est évidemment pas par hasard. L’éducation a un rôle capital dans son système idéologique, car l’école est « un instrument de l’action politique, républicaine et socialiste. ». Plus encore, l’école est un instrument de la religion laïque dont il se fait le prophète : C’est au socialisme qu’il va revenir d’incarner la révolution religieuse dont l’humanité a besoin. Et évidemment, l’école sera le temple de cette nouvelle religion : C’est bien une nouvelle naissance, une transusbtantiation qui opère dans l’école et par l’école, cette nouvelle Église, avec son nouveau clergé, sa nouvelle liturgie, ses nouvelles tables de la Loi.  On comprend alors dans le détail les grands thèmes qu’il impose à l’éducation nationale. La scolarisation précoce des enfants De moins de trois ans s’il vous plaît ! (annoncée le 10 septembre par Jean-Marc Ayrault) dans le but, selon lui, de « lutter contre la délinquance » (sic), mais qui correspond en fait en tout point à l’idée peillonienne de coupure totale de l’enfant d’avec autre chose que la République socialiste : (je cite son interview au JDD) « Il faut être capable d’arracher l’élève à tous les déterminismes, familial, ethnique, social, intellectuel… » [3]. Pour ce faire, Peillon se fonde sur une pédagogie bien à lui : il y a un « « infini flottant » dans l’âme de l’enfant », et l’éducation « se fixe pour tâche de lui donner une forme » [4]. Je vous laisse imaginer quelle forme il faut lui donner, à cet enfant nu et dépouillé face au dogme étatique. La morale laïque Alors une fois encore ne soyons pas dupes : évidemment que ce qui manque le plus à nos enfants, c’est de la morale. Mais ceux qui applaudissent cette idée doivent être vigilants. Car le but de la morale laïque, c’est de former des futurs électeurs socialistes avec la théorie du Genre, l’enseignement des « grands homosexuels de l’histoire », la lutte contre les discriminations et l’imposition d’une morale non pas seulement laïque, a-religieuse, voire anti-religieuse. La morale laïque correspond en tous points à la ligne Buisson de la laïcité que Peillon s’est tracée – en référence à Ferdinand Buisson, l’acteur de premier plan de l’expulsion des congrégations religieuses, auquel Peillon a consacré un ouvrage en 2005. Cette ligne buisson de la laïcité, c’est « de forger une religion qui soit non seulement plus religieuse que le catholicisme dominant, mais qui ait davantage de force, de séduction, de persuasion et d’adhésion, que lui. » Aussi, si « la République socialiste perdure dans la mort de Dieu », elle perdure également dans la mort de son incarnation terrestre, l’Église… (…) Peillon commence à s’attaquer aux retraites des enseignants du privé (déjà dévalorisée de quasiment 30% par rapport à celles du public), puis à produire une circulaire (en fait une bulle pontificale) qui enjoint les recteurs « à rester vigilant envers l’enseignement catholique » parce que ce dernier s’était prononcé contre le mariage homosexuel. « Rester vigilant envers l’enseignement catholique » veut dire, dans son système, qu’aucune idée ne peut se transmettre en dehors des cadres dogmatiques de la République socialiste. Vous comprenez pourquoi il n’y a aucune contradiction dans leur esprit lorsque Peillon interdit à l’école privée de parler du mariage gay alors que Belkacem en fait l’apologie au collège. Nous sommes clairement dans une dialectique marxiste, que la contradiction n’effraie aucunement. Le moment passé (à savoir les traditions, l’histoire de France, les valeurs chrétiennes) doit être annulé par le moment à venir : le monde poli, libre, joyeusement socialiste, délivré enfin du joug de la méchante Église catholique et de ses principes désuets. Grâce à ce genre d’idéologues au pouvoir, nos enfants en sauront bientôt davantage sur la contraception, le mariage homosexuel, l’homophobie, le trans-genre et le cannabis, que sur l’histoire de France ou les règles de conjugaison. Le catéchisme socialiste doit se réciter dans toutes les écoles, par la bouche de tous les fonctionnaires-prêcheurs, et les enfants doivent apprendre cette vérité tombée du ciel sans broncher… Finalement, la plus grande honnêteté pour Monseigneur Peillon et son clergé serait de se l’appliquer à eux-mêmes, la laïcité, avant que ce pays ne sombre dans une théocratie socialiste… Vivien Hoch

Dans sa lettre du 4 janvier adressée aux recteurs, Vincent Peillon affirme sa volonté de révolutionner la société en se servant de l’école : « le gouvernement s’est engagé à s’appuyer sur la jeunesse pour changer les mentalités, notamment par le biais d’une éducation au respect de la diversité des orientations sexuelles », affirme-t-il en début de lettre. On remarque les termes : « s’appuyer sur la jeunesse » pour « changer les mentalités ». Qui ? Le gouvernement. En réalité, c’est donc lui qui choisit les orientations politiques et morales qui doivent prévaloir dans la société. Ce n’est plus la famille, l’école et la société adulte qui éduquent la jeunesse. Contrairement à la Déclaration universelle des Droits de l’Homme de 1948, c’est donc désormais l’État en France qui se pose en seul détenteur de la vérité. On assiste à une dérive théocratique de l’État républicain actuel. Et cette jeunesse, qui, par définition, ne possède pas encore les repères lui permettant de poser des choix par elle-même, il la mobilise dans le sens qu’il juge bon, selon le schéma de la révolution culturelle. La position de Vincent Peillon est vraiment choquante. Lorsqu’il s’appuie sur la jeunesse comme moteur révolutionnaire, renouant avec l’esprit de 1968, le gouvernement sort à l’évidence de son rôle : il instrumentalise la jeunesse à des fins politiques, pour changer les représentations sexuelles et morales dominantes. Ce faisant, il change les règles du jeu au sein de l’École publique en abandonnant ostensiblement l’exigence de neutralité. L’État sort également de son devoir de neutralité et de respect des droits éducatifs familiaux et de l’intimité des enfants lorsque le ministre demande aux recteurs de renforcer les campagnes d’information sur la ligne azur. Ainsi, contrairement à ce qui est affiché, il ne s’agit plus de lutter contre des stigmatisations homophobes en tant que telles, il s’agit bien plutôt d’inciter activement les jeunes en recherche d’identité (comme le sont par construction tous les adolescents) à explorer pour eux-mêmes la voie de l’homosexualité ou de la transsexualité. De même, lorsque le ministre encourage les recteurs à faire intervenir davantage les associations de lutte contre l’homophobie, il encourage en pratique l’ingérence dans l’enceinte de l’école d’associations partisanes engagées dans la banalisation et la promotion des orientations sexuelles minoritaires, si l’on se réfère à la liste des associations agréées par l’Éducation nationale pour intervenir sur ces thématiques dans les établissements. Il favorise donc des prises de paroles unilatérales auprès des jeunes, sur un sujet qui n’a pas encore été tranché par le législateur. (…) Durant la période soviétique, comme durant d’autres périodes totalitaires, il était habituel de se servir des enfants pour démasquer et sanctionner les opinions dissidentes des parents. C’était l’époque de la délation par ses propres enfants. Revenir à de telles pratiques inhumaines et profondément immorales serait une grave régression de l’État de droit. Non content enfin de mettre au pas les écoles publiques, le gouvernement entend aussi museler les écoles privées en bafouant clairement leur caractère propre. Il est évident que les écoles dont le projet éducatif et l’identité sont fondés sur la foi seront opposées à la légalisation du mariage homosexuel. Leur demander d’être neutres sur ce sujet n’a aucun sens, si ce n’est celui de leur faire renier purement et simplement leur vocation spécifique. Anne Coffinier

Après la première invocation inaugurale certifiée sans Dieu, le premier playback de la Bible et de la Constitution !

Alors qu’au lendemain du deuxième discours d’investiture, entre un pasteur remplaçant pro-gay et un poète latino et militant homosexuel, du Passeur en chef de nominations en force, nos belles âmes et nos beaux esprits s’extasient devant les talents oratoires de leur nouveau Kennedy noir  …

Comment ne pas voir, à l’instar du playback finalement révélé de la chanteuse noire Beyoncé, l’autrement plus inquiétant playback de la Bible et de la Constitution …

Où,  derrière les flonflons oratoires (les alliterations faciles des « Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall » assimilant la lutte des femmes et des noirs à celle des homosexuels) et contre toute la tradition américaine, l’on nous ressert en fait la pire des dérives étatiques et collectivistes ?

Et comment ne pas voir, au nom de la désormais sacro-sainte défense de l’égalitarisme incarnée désormais par le « respect de la diversité des orientations sexuelles »,  la même  dérive théocratique et la régression proprement soviétique …

Où,  contre la Déclaration universelle des Droits de l’Homme et en s’appuyant au sein de l’Ecole même sur les nouvelles générations, un Etat prétendument républicain s’arroge le droit de rien de moins que « changer les mentalités » ?

Le débat sur le mariage homosexuel à l’école : une bien curieuse conception de la neutralité

Vincent Peillon a adressé une lettre aux recteurs le 4 janvier dernier dans laquelle il affirme sa volonté de révolutionner la société en se servant de l’école. « S’appuyer sur la jeunesse » pour « changer les mentalités ». Qui ? Le gouvernement.

Dans sa lettre du 4 janvier adressée aux recteurs, Vincent Peillon affirme sa volonté de révolutionner la société en se servant de l’école : « le gouvernement s’est engagé à s’appuyer sur la jeunesse pour changer les mentalités, notamment par le biais d’une éducation au respect de la diversité des orientations sexuelles », affirme-t-il en début de lettre. On remarque les termes : « s’appuyer sur la jeunesse » pour « changer les mentalités ». Qui ? Le gouvernement.

Anne Coffinier

Les Echos

11/01/2013

En réalité, c’est donc lui qui choisit les orientations politiques et morales qui doivent prévaloir dans la société. Ce n’est plus la famille, l’école et la société adulte qui éduquent la jeunesse. Contrairement à la Déclaration universelle des Droits de l’Homme de 1948, c’est donc désormais l’État en France qui se pose en seul détenteur de la vérité. On assiste à une dérive théocratique de l’État républicain actuel. Et cette jeunesse, qui, par définition, ne possède pas encore les repères lui permettant de poser des choix par elle-même, il la mobilise dans le sens qu’il juge bon, selon le schéma de la révolution culturelle.

La position de Vincent Peillon est vraiment choquante. Lorsqu’il s’appuie sur la jeunesse comme moteur révolutionnaire, renouant avec l’esprit de 1968, le gouvernement sort à l’évidence de son rôle : il instrumentalise la jeunesse à des fins politiques, pour changer les représentations sexuelles et morales dominantes. Ce faisant, il change les règles du jeu au sein de l’École publique en abandonnant ostensiblement l’exigence de neutralité.

L’État sort également de son devoir de neutralité et de respect des droits éducatifs familiaux et de l’intimité des enfants lorsque le ministre demande aux recteurs de renforcer les campagnes d’information sur la ligne azur. Ainsi, contrairement à ce qui est affiché, il ne s’agit plus de lutter contre des stigmatisations homophobes en tant que telles, il s’agit bien plutôt d’inciter activement les jeunes en recherche d’identité (comme le sont par construction tous les adolescents) à explorer pour eux-mêmes la voie de l’homosexualité ou de la transsexualité.

De même, lorsque le ministre encourage les recteurs à faire intervenir davantage les associations de lutte contre l’homophobie, il encourage en pratique l’ingérence dans l’enceinte de l’école d’associations partisanes engagées dans la banalisation et la promotion des orientations sexuelles minoritaires, si l’on se réfère à la liste des associations agréées par l’Éducation nationale pour intervenir sur ces thématiques dans les établissements. Il favorise donc des prises de paroles unilatérales auprès des jeunes, sur un sujet qui n’a pas encore été tranché par le législateur.

Tout cela relève-t-il vraiment du rôle de l’État ? Est-ce davantage le rôle de l’école ? Est-ce judicieux si l’on veut que les familles aient une relation confiante et paisible envers l’institution scolaire ? Si l’État se donne pour mission de promouvoir l’homosexualité, il prend la grave responsabilité de discriminer frontalement les familles attachées au modèle familial qui est celui que vit la grande majorité des Français, et de heurter les convictions de tous ceux, juifs, chrétiens, musulmans et bien d’autres, qui jugent que ce modèle est la seule référence conforme à la réalité naturelle et par là au bien de l’enfant.

Une telle politique de l’État alimentera infailliblement le communautarisme déjà à l’œuvre dans la société. Si l’État n’est pas neutre, s’il se sert de son pouvoir pour promouvoir au sein des services publics des options philosophiques, morales, sexuelles, religieuses particulières et nettement minoritaires, il conduira mécaniquement un nombre croissant de familles à déserter les services publics. Lorsque l’État refuse la neutralité, il prend la responsabilité d’alimenter une balkanisation politique, religieuse et morale de la société lourde de conséquences.

L’école, publique comme privée, doit se recentrer sur sa mission propre et se garder de vouloir traiter à chaud les sujets polémiques. En histoire comme dans les autres domaines de la connaissance, l’école ne doit pas se précipiter dans l’ultraactualité, au risque de manquer de rigueur, de recul critique, de discernement. Il ne convient pas davantage que l’école conduise les jeunes – inconsciemment ou pas – à se prononcer publiquement sur leurs choix et opinions personnelles sur des sujets touchant aux convictions intimes (religion, politique, sexualité, etc.).

Ces prises de position n’ont pas de fonction éducative ; elles peuvent en revanche conduire les jeunes à révéler les opinions familiales, s’exposer eux-mêmes au jugement de leurs camarades ou de leurs professeurs, au mépris de leur droit à l’intimité et de leur liberté d’opinion, de conscience et de religion. À quoi bon voter dans l’isoloir si l’école trouve le moyen par le biais de vos enfants de connaître vos opinions politiques ?

Durant la période soviétique, comme durant d’autres périodes totalitaires, il était habituel de se servir des enfants pour démasquer et sanctionner les opinions dissidentes des parents. C’était l’époque de la délation par ses propres enfants. Revenir à de telles pratiques inhumaines et profondément immorales serait une grave régression de l’État de droit.

Non content enfin de mettre au pas les écoles publiques, le gouvernement entend aussi museler les écoles privées en bafouant clairement leur caractère propre. Il est évident que les écoles dont le projet éducatif et l’identité sont fondés sur la foi seront opposées à la légalisation du mariage homosexuel. Leur demander d’être neutres sur ce sujet n’a aucun sens, si ce n’est celui de leur faire renier purement et simplement leur vocation spécifique.

« Le caractère propre de ses établissements ne saurait leur permettre de déroger au strict respect de tous les individus et de leurs convictions », affirme le ministre. La formulation dialectique est habile, car qui peut s’opposer au respect des individus et de leurs convictions ? Mais elle est doublement défectueuse. Philosophiquement, car elle passe par pertes et profits la différence fondamentale qui existe entre la critique d’une position politique ou morale et celle d’une personne. On respecte les personnes, on débat librement des idées. S’il fallait respecter toutes les opinions sans discuter, cela voudrait dire qu’il serait interdit d’étudier le fond des problèmes.

Mais bien entendu, la réalité est autre : il s’agit de réprimer les vues différentes de l’idéologie officielle. S’il est interdit de penser et de débattre sur un sujet comme le supposé mariage de deux personnes d’un même sexe, cela veut dire que pour ne pas se faire traiter d’homophobe on est contraint de fait d’accepter le mariage homosexuel. Que reste-t-il alors de la liberté de penser ?

Politiquement en outre la formulation est défectueuse. Les établissements catholiques respectent les convictions de leurs élèves, mais sont catholiques, c’est leur raison d’être, protégée par toutes les déclarations et instruments juridiques relatifs aux Droits de l’Homme.

En revanche l’Éducation nationale, du moins telle que la voient nos dirigeants, impose sous couvert d’égalité et de lutte contre les discriminations la promotion active de l’homosexualité, présentée comme un des rares comportements humains échappant par nature à tout débat. Où est la neutralité du service public d’Éducation ? Où est le respect des convictions de citoyens ?

Voir aussi:

Le socialisme est une religion pour Vincent Peillon

Derrière le personnage apparemment lisse, voire ennuyeux, se cache un terrible idéologue, un Pape laïque, un grand-prêtre du socialisme.

Vivien Hoch

Contrepoints

14/01/2013

On critique souvent les politiques sur le fait qu’ils n’ont pas de vraies convictions. Avec Peillon, c’est tout l’inverse. Il faut rester très vigilant et très sérieux devant ce genre d’idéologue. Le grand adversaire de Peillon, c’est le réel.

Nul ne doit être dupe, ni se tromper sur le personnage. La dernière étude du CERU, le laboratoire d’idée sur la jeunesse et l’éducation, que j’ai rédigée, propose une exégèse de la philosophie de Vincent Peillon (disponible sur Amazon et Priceminister). Autant dire que je me suis collé à la lecture de son œuvre complète, et que le résultat se situe bien au-delà de toutes mes inquiétudes.

Derrière le personnage apparemment lisse, voire ennuyeux, se cache un terrible idéologue, quelqu’un de très dangereux, un Robespierre en herbe, un sans-culotte du XXIème siècle, un disciple en droite lignée des grands bienfaiteurs de l’Église que sont Jean Jaurès ou Ferdinand Buisson, qui sont ses deux papas.

Vincent Peillon, c’est un docteur en philosophie – et il n’y a rien de plus dangereux qu’un philosophe qui fait de la politique, un visionnaire pour qui « la révolution française n’est pas terminée », parce que cette Révolution est « un événement religieux», une « nouvelle genèse » un « nouveau commencement du monde », une « nouvelle espérance » qu’il faut porter à son terme, à savoir : « la transformation socialiste et progressiste de la société toute entière ».

En fait, Peillon n’est ni un homme politique, ni un simple philosophe. C’est un prophète, un Pape laïque, un grand-prêtre du socialisme, plus religieux que le Souverain Pontife lui-même.

Alors, il est responsable aujourd’hui de l’éducation nationale. Ce n’est évidemment pas par hasard. L’éducation a un rôle capital dans son système idéologique, car l’école est « un instrument de l’action politique, républicaine et socialiste. ». Plus encore, l’école est un instrument de la religion laïque dont il se fait le prophète :

C’est au socialisme qu’il va revenir d’incarner la révolution religieuse dont l’humanité a besoin. [1]

Et évidemment, l’école sera le temple de cette nouvelle religion :

C’est bien une nouvelle naissance, une transusbtantiation qui opère dans l’école et par l’école, cette nouvelle Église, avec son nouveau clergé, sa nouvelle liturgie, ses nouvelles tables de la Loi. [2]

On comprend alors dans le détail les grands thèmes qu’il impose à l’éducation nationale.

La scolarisation précoce des enfants

De moins de trois ans s’il vous plaît ! (annoncée le 10 septembre par Jean-Marc Ayrault) dans le but, selon lui, de « lutter contre la délinquance » (sic), mais qui correspond en fait en tout point à l’idée peillonienne de coupure totale de l’enfant d’avec autre chose que la République socialiste : (je cite son interview au JDD) « Il faut être capable d’arracher l’élève à tous les déterminismes, familial, ethnique, social, intellectuel… » [3].

Pour ce faire, Peillon se fonde sur une pédagogie bien à lui : il y a un « « infini flottant » dans l’âme de l’enfant », et l’éducation « se fixe pour tâche de lui donner une forme » [4]. Je vous laisse imaginer quelle forme il faut lui donner, à cet enfant nu et dépouillé face au dogme étatique.

La morale laïque

Alors une fois encore ne soyons pas dupes : évidemment que ce qui manque le plus à nos enfants, c’est de la morale. Mais ceux qui applaudissent cette idée doivent être vigilants. Car le but de la morale laïque, c’est de former des futurs électeurs socialistes avec la théorie du Genre, l’enseignement des « grands homosexuels de l’histoire », la lutte contre les discriminations et l’imposition d’une morale non pas seulement laïque, a-religieuse, voire anti-religieuse.

La morale laïque correspond en tous points à la ligne Buisson de la laïcité que Peillon s’est tracée – en référence à Ferdinand Buisson, l’acteur de premier plan de l’expulsion des congrégations religieuses, auquel Peillon a consacré un ouvrage en 2005. Cette ligne buisson de la laïcité, c’est « de forger une religion qui soit non seulement plus religieuse que le catholicisme dominant, mais qui ait davantage de force, de séduction, de persuasion et d’adhésion, que lui. » Aussi, si « la République socialiste perdure dans la mort de Dieu », elle perdure également dans la mort de son incarnation terrestre, l’Église…

On a déjà un exemple de ce que produit la morale laïque. Elle est déjà bien pratiquée par ce gouvernement, et on voit ce que ça donne : de l’inénarrable Cécile Duflot qui veut « réquisitionner les églises » au message outrageant et discriminant de Michèle Delaunay : « Aujourd’hui les catholiques condamneraient la Sainte Famille : un mari qui n’était pas le père, une mère vierge »… On le voit : la cathophobie est quasiment érigée en dogme d’État.

La fronde contre l’enseignement catholique trouve elle aussi son sens

Peillon commence à s’attaquer aux retraites des enseignants du privé (déjà dévalorisée de quasiment 30% par rapport à celles du public), puis à produire une circulaire (en fait une bulle pontificale) qui enjoint les recteurs « à rester vigilant envers l’enseignement catholique » parce que ce dernier s’était prononcé contre le mariage homosexuel. « Rester vigilant envers l’enseignement catholique » veut dire, dans son système, qu’aucune idée ne peut se transmettre en dehors des cadres dogmatiques de la République socialiste.

Vous comprenez pourquoi il n’y a aucune contradiction dans leur esprit lorsque Peillon interdit à l’école privée de parler du mariage gay alors que Belkacem en fait l’apologie au collège. Nous sommes clairement dans une dialectique marxiste, que la contradiction n’effraie aucunement. Le moment passé (à savoir les traditions, l’histoire de France, les valeurs chrétiennes) doit être annulé par le moment à venir : le monde poli, libre, joyeusement socialiste, délivré enfin du joug de la méchante Église catholique et de ses principes désuets.

Grâce à ce genre d’idéologues au pouvoir, nos enfants en sauront bientôt davantage sur la contraception, le mariage homosexuel, l’homophobie, le trans-genre et le cannabis, que sur l’histoire de France ou les règles de conjugaison. Le catéchisme socialiste doit se réciter dans toutes les écoles, par la bouche de tous les fonctionnaires-prêcheurs, et les enfants doivent apprendre cette vérité tombée du ciel sans broncher…

Finalement, la plus grande honnêteté pour Monseigneur Peillon et son clergé serait de se l’appliquer à eux-mêmes, la laïcité, avant que ce pays ne sombre dans une théocratie socialiste…

—

Sur le web. Ce billet a fait l’objet d’une chronique sur Radio Courtoisie le 10 janvier.

Notes :

Vincent Peillon, La révolution française n’est pas terminée, Seuil, Paris, 2008, p. 195. ↩

La révolution française n’est pas terminée, op. cit., p. 18. ↩

Entretien au Journal du Dimanche, 2 septembre 2012. ↩

La révolution française n’est pas terminée, op. cit., p. 194 ↩

Voir également:

Peillon : « Je veux qu’on enseigne la morale laïque »

INTERVIEW – À la veille de la rentrée scolaire, le ministre de l’Education, Vincent Peillon, annonce la mise en place de cours de « morale laïque » dès la rentrée 2013.

Vincent Peillon

Adeline Fleury

Le Journal du Dimanche

01 septembre 2012

Lundi plus de 800.000 professeurs font leur rentrée, mardi ce sera le tour de 12 millions d’élèves. Pour Vincent Peillon, il s’agit de la « première rentrée du changement ». Le ministre de l’Éducation nationale, malgré les 13.000 suppressions de poste, réaffirme que l’éducation est bien la priorité du quinquennat. Une concertation sur les thèmes cruciaux comme les rythmes scolaires se tient jusqu’à la fin septembre, elle doit déboucher sur un rapport qui servira de base à l’élaboration d’une loi d’orientation à l’automne. Pour le ministre, cette « refondation de l’école républicaine » doit s’accompagner d’un retour sur les valeurs. Il souhaite instituer des cours de « morale laïque » dès la rentrée 2013. Explications.

Qu’entendez-vous par « morale laïque »?

La morale laïque c’est comprendre ce qui est juste, distinguer le bien du mal, c’est aussi des devoirs autant que des droits, des vertus, et surtout des valeurs. Je souhaite pour l’école française un enseignement qui inculquerait aux élèves des notions de morale universelle, fondée sur les idées d’humanité et de raison. La république porte une exigence de raison et de justice. La capacité de raisonner, de critiquer, de douter, tout cela doit s’apprendre à l’école. Le redressement de la France doit être un redressement matériel mais aussi intellectuel et moral.

Quelles sont ces valeurs communes?

Lorsque le président de la République dit devant le monument de Jules Ferry faire de l’école la priorité, il dit à la société qu’un certain nombre de valeurs sont plus importantes que d’autres : la connaissance, le dévouement, la solidarité, plutôt que les valeurs de l’argent, de la concurrence, de l’égoïsme… Nous devons également porter et défendre l’égalité des garçons et des filles. Une société et une école qui n’enseignent pas ces valeurs s’effondrent. Il faut assumer que l’école exerce un pouvoir spirituel dans la société.

Il faut enseigner la laïcité?

La laïcité comme fait juridique, philosophique et historique n’est pas suffisamment étudiée. Certains pensent que la laïcité est contre les religions ; certains au contraire que c’est simplement la tolérance ; d’autres que c’est uniquement des règles de coexistence. Or, la laïcité ce n’est pas simplement cela. Il existe aussi une « laïcité intérieure », c’est-à-dire un rapport à soi qui est un art de l’interrogation et de la liberté. La laïcité consiste à faire un effort pour raisonner, considérer que tout ne se vaut pas, qu’un raisonnement ce n’est pas une opinion. Le jugement cela s’apprend.

«La sanction fait partie de l’éducation»

Qui serait chargé d’enseigner cette morale laïque?

Je vais nommer une mission de réflexion qui devra préciser la nature de cet enseignement. Je pose trois objectifs : qu’il y ait une cohérence depuis le primaire jusqu’à la terminale ; que cet enseignement soit évalué ; qu’il trouve un véritable espace. Je souhaite que dans la formation des enseignants, dans les écoles supérieures de l’éducation et du professorat que nous mettrons en place à la rentrée 2013, les questions de morale laïque soient enseignées à tous les professeurs.

Y a-t-il une « morale de gauche » et une « morale de droite « ?

Je ne le crois pas. Je pense, comme Jules Ferry, qu’il y a une morale commune, qu’elle s’impose à la diversité des confessions religieuses, qu’elle ne doit blesser aucune conscience, aucun engagement privé, ni d’ordre religieux, ni d’ordre politique. Prenez les textes du Conseil national de la Résistance : cela va des communistes à de Gaulle. Ce sont des textes qui portent une conception de la solidarité sociale, de l’universalisme et nous avons besoin d’enseigner à nos élèves ce formidable patrimoine. Je veux faire de la morale laïque un enseignement moderne qui s’inscrit dans l’école du IIIe millénaire.

Il existe déjà des cours d’instruction civique, en quoi votre morale serait différente?

Je n’ai pas dit instruction civique mais bien morale laïque. C’est plus large, cela comporte une construction du citoyen avec certes une connaissance des règles de la société, de droit, du fonctionnement de la démocratie, mais aussi toutes les questions que l’on se pose sur le sens de l’existence humaine, sur le rapport à soi, aux autres, à ce qui fait une vie heureuse ou une vie bonne. Si ces questions ne sont pas posées, réfléchies, enseignées à l’école, elles le sont ailleurs par les marchands et par les intégristes de toutes sortes. Si la république ne dit pas quelle est sa vision de ce que sont les vertus et les vices, le bien et le mal, le juste et l’injuste, d’autres le font à sa place. Aujourd’hui dans les cours d’école et les classes, on se traite « sales feujs », « sales bougnoules »… Tout ce qui est de l’ordre du racisme, de l’antisémitisme, de l’injure, de la grossièreté à l’égard des professeurs et des autres élèves, ne peut pas être toléré à l’école. La sanction fait partie de l’éducation. Mais il faut aussi qu’il y ait une cohérence entre la responsabilité des adultes à l’extérieur de l’école et ce que l’on demande aux maîtres et aux professeurs de faire. L’attitude des plus hautes autorités de l’État est, de ce point de vue, tout à fait déterminante. L’ancien président de la République lui-même, en désignant toujours des ennemis, en s’exprimant avec violence ou grossièreté, en expliquant qu’enseigner La Princesse de Clèves était sans intérêt, que l’instituteur ne pourra jamais remplacer le curé, sapait l’autorité des professeurs et s’attaquait aux valeurs qui sont les nôtres.

Vous parlez là d’exemplarité?

Oui. Le professeur doit bien sûr dans ses comportements incarner lui-même les valeurs que nous voulons enseigner. Si on pense que la question de la dignité humaine est fondamentale, il doit être à l’égard de chaque élève dans une relation de respect. Il ne s’agit pas d’autoritarisme, mais d’une autorité qui se fonde sur des qualités morales et intellectuelles. Si la société conteste son autorité, le moque ou même l’injurie, alors il n’y a pas de raison pour que l’élève le respecte. Nous avons besoin d’un réarmement moral. C’est pourquoi nous devons tous soutenir nos professeurs.

Cela implique également que l’élève se lève quand le professeur entre dans la classe?

Ce n’est pas le sujet. Il ne faut pas confondre morale laïque et ordre moral. C’est tout le contraire. Le but de la morale laïque est de permettre à chaque élève de s’émanciper, car le point de départ de la laïcité c’est le respect absolu de la liberté de conscience. Pour donner la liberté du choix, il faut être capable d’arracher l’élève à tous les déterminismes, familial, ethnique, social, intellectuel, pour après faire un choix. Je ne crois pas du tout à un ordre moral figé. Je crois qu’il faut des règles, je crois en la politesse par exemple.

«La bataille que doit mener l’école est aussi une bataille des valeurs»

Dans votre école, les élèves salueront le drapeau tricolore tous les matins?

Non. Mais il faut enseigner aux enfants la différence entre être patriote et nationaliste. Nous devons aimer notre patrie, mais notre patrie porte des valeurs universelles. Ce qui a fait la France, c’est la déclaration des droits de l’homme. Elle dit que nous partageons tous une même humanité. Le professeur doit reconnaître en chaque enfant, sans distinction d’origine, cette humanité et l’instituer.

Doit-on enseigner La Marseillaise à l’école?

Apprendre notre hymne national me semble une chose évidente, les symboles comptent, mais il ne faudra pas croire que l’apprentissage mécanique d’un hymne est suffisant dans cette éducation à la morale laïque.

La morale n’en finit pas de faire son retour. Vous ne craignez pas que votre morale laïque reste au degré zéro sur les bancs de l’école?

C’est l’objectif inverse que je poursuis. Si les créneaux horaires réservés à l’instruction civique et morale sont souvent utilisés par les enseignants pour rattraper le retard sur d’autres points du programme, c’est parce que la matière n’est pas ou peu évaluée ; si la matière enseignée ne porte pas le même nom au primaire, au collège, au secondaire, elle n’est pas cohérente et prise au sérieux ; si les professeurs ne sont pas formés pour l’enseigner, cela ne sert à rien. C’est à tout cela que je veux remédier. La bataille que doit mener l’école est aussi une bataille des valeurs. Nous allons la mener.

Voir encore:

Richard Blanco, latino et gay, poète officiel de l’investiture d’Obama

Sophiane Meddour

L’Express

21/01/2013

« Conçu à Cuba, né en Espagne et élevé aux Etats-Unis » tel se décrit le poète latino-américain Richard Blanco, choisi par Barack Obama pour réciter un poème lors de son investiture ce lundi 21 janvier.

Richard Blanco est le poète choisi par la Maison Blanche pour réciter un poème lors de la cérémonie d’investiture de Barack Obama ce lundi 21 janvier 2013. À l’image du 44e président américain, ce jeune poète de 44 ans dévoile une tout autre face des États-Unis, éloignée des stéréotypes wasp (anglo-saxons protestants blancs).

Richard Blanco, fils d’exilés cubains, né en Espagne, est ouvertement gay. Ses parents ont fui la révolution de Fidel Castro. Il a grandi et fait ses études à Miami, aux États-Unis, et il y est devenu ingénieur. Il a peu à peu délaissé ce premier métier pour l’écriture poétique et l’enseignement. Son recueil de poème intitulé City of a Hundred Fires a notamment reçu le prix de poésie Agnes Lynch.

Aujourd’hui, Il est en passe de sortir de l’anonymat ou, à tout le moins, de l’ombre dans laquelle la poésie l’a installé et de briller l’espace de quelques instants lors de la cérémonie qui se tiendra sur les marches du Capitole.

Une tradition qui remonte à … 1961

Le poète cubain doit lire un poème composé spécialement pour l’occasion. Cette oeuvre originale sera directement inspirée de sa propre existence. Addie Whisenant, porte-parole auprès du comité d’investiture, dit de ses poèmes qu’ils sont des plus personnels et qu’ils définissent avec la plus grande justesse l’identité américaine.

Cette tradition du « poète inaugural » remonte au 20 janvier 1961, lors de l’investiture du Président John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Le poète Robert Frost avait alors récité le poème The Gift Outright. Aujourd’hui, Richard Blanco devient le 5e et plus jeune poète à perpétuer cette tradition. Il succède à Elizabeth Alexander qui avait récité Praise Song for the Day pour la 1ère cérémonie d’investiture de Barack Obama en 2009, tandis que Bill Clinton avait choisi la poétesse afro-américaine Maya Angelou pour sa première investiture en 1993 et le poète Miller Williams pour la seconde en 1997. Il s’agit donc, à l’heure actuelle, d’une tradition purement démocrate.

One today

Dans One Today, le poème lu lors de l’investiture, Blanco décrit une journée aux Etats-Unis, du lever du soleil à son coucher. Il évoque ses origines modestes: « on our way […] to ring-up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem. » (« En chemin pour assumer notre travail de caissière comme ma mère, pendant 20 ans, pour que je puisse écrire ce poème aujourd’hui »). Rend hommage aux enfants disparus lors de la tuerie de Newtown : « the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today, and forever. » (« Le choix impossible des mots qui n’expliqueront pas les tables vides des vingt enfants qui ne répondront plus présents à l’appel de leur nom. »). Evoque le célèbre I have a dream prononcé par Martin Luther King. One today est traversé de paysages, de couleurs et de senteurs, thèmes propres à la poésie du latino-américain. Le mot « one » revient continuellement pour évoquer un pays uni: « one sun rose on us today », « one ground », « one sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work » (Un seul soleil qui s’est levé ce matin », « Un seul sol », « Un seul ciel, vers lequel nous levons le regard, fatigués par le travail ».

Voir de plus:

The Obama Simulacrum

Mark Steyn

The National Review

January 25, 2013

If I’m following this correctly, according to one spokesperson for the Marine Corps Band, at Monday’s inauguration Beyoncé lip-synced to the national anthem but the band accompanied her live. However, according to a second spokesperson, it was the band who were pretending to play to a pre-recorded tape while Beyoncé sang along live. So one or other of them were faking it. Or maybe both were. Or neither. I’d ask Chuck Schumer, the master of ceremonies, who was standing right behind her, but he spent the entire performance staring at her butt. If it was her butt, that is. It might just have been the bulge of the Radio Shack cassette player she was miming to. In an America with an ever more tenuous grip on reality, there’s so little to be sure of.

Whether Beyoncé was lip-syncing to the band or the band were lip-syncing to Beyoncé is like one of those red pill/ blue pill choices from The Matrix. Was President Obama lip-syncing to the Founders, rooting his inaugural address in the earliest expressions of American identity? (“The patriots of 1776 . . . gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”) Or maybe the Founders were lip-syncing to him as he appropriated the vision of the first generation of Americans and yoked it (“preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”) to a statist pitch they would have found utterly repugnant.

The whole event had the air of a simulacrum: It looked like a presidential inauguration, but the sound was tinny and not quite in sync. Obama mouthed along to a canned vocal track: “We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.” That’s great! It’s always reassuring to know the head of state is going to take issue with all those people wedded to the “belief” that America needs either to shove every granny off the cliff or stake its newborns out on the tundra for the wolves to finish off. When it comes to facing the music, Obama is peerless at making a song and dance about tunes nobody’s whistling without ever once warbling the real big numbers (16 trillion). But, like Beyoncé, he’s totally cool and has a cute butt.

A couple of days later, it fell to the 45th president-in-waiting to encapsulate the ethos of the age in one deft sound bite: What difference does it make? Hillary Clinton’s instantly famous riposte at the Benghazi hearings is such a perfect distillation that it surely deserves to be the national motto of the United States. They should put it on Paul Krugman’s trillion-dollar coin, and in the presidential oath:

“Do you solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States?”

“Sure. What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Well, it’s the difference between cool and reality — and, as Hillary’s confident reply appeared to suggest, and the delirious media reception of it confirmed, reality comes a poor second in the Obama era. The presumption of conservatives has always been that one day cold, dull reality would pierce the klieg-light sheen of Obama’s glamour. Indeed, that was the premise of Mitt Romney’s reductive presidential campaign. But, just as Beyoncé will always be way cooler than some no-name operatic soprano or a male voice choir, so Obama will always be cooler than a bunch of squaresville yawneroos boring on about jobs and debt and entitlement reform. Hillary’s cocksure sneer to Senator Johnson of Wisconsin made it explicit. At a basic level, the “difference” is the difference between truth and falsity, but the subtext took it a stage further: No matter what actually happened that night in Benghazi, you poor sad loser Republicans will never succeed in imposing that reality and its consequences on this administration.

And so a congressional hearing — one of the famous “checks and balances” of the American system — is reduced to just another piece of Beltway theater. “The form was still the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled,” as Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But he’s totally uncool, too. So Hillary lip-synced far more than Beyoncé, and was adored for it. “As I have said many times, I take responsibility,” she said. In Washington, the bold declarative oft-stated acceptance of responsibility is the classic substitute for responsibility: rhetorically “taking responsibility,” preferably “many times,” absolves one from the need to take actual responsibility even once.

In the very same self-serving testimony, the secretary of state denied that she’d ever seen the late Ambassador Stevens’s cables about the deteriorating security situation in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office”– and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. She is as out of it as President Jefferson, who complained to his secretary of state James Madison, “We have not heard from our ambassador in Spain for two years. If we have not heard from him this year, let us write him a letter.” Today, things are even worse. Hillary has apparently not heard from any of our 1.43 million ambassadors for four years. When a foreign head of state receives the credentials of the senior emissary of the United States, he might carelessly assume that the chap surely has a line of communication back to the government he represents. For six centuries or so, this has been the minimal requirement for functioning inter-state relations. But Secretary Clinton has just testified that, in the government of the most powerful nation on earth, there is no reliable means by which a serving ambassador can report to the cabinet minister responsible for foreign policy. And nobody cares: What difference does it make?

Nor was the late Christopher Stevens any old ambassador, but rather Secretary Clinton’s close personal friend “Chris.” It was all “Chris” this, “Chris” that when Secretary Clinton and President Obama delivered their maudlin eulogies over the flag-draped coffin of their “friend.” Gosh, you’d think if they were on such intimate terms, “Chris” might have had Hillary’s e-mail address, but apparently not. He was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends cabling the State Department every hour of the day.

Four Americans are dead, but not a single person involved in the attack and the murders has been held to account. Hey, what difference does it make? Lip-syncing the national anthem beats singing it. Peddling a fictitious narrative over the coffin of your “friend” is more real than being an incompetent boss to your most vulnerable employees. And mouthing warmed-over clichés about vowing to “bring to justice” those responsible is way easier than actually bringing anyone to justice.

And so it goes:

Another six trillion in debt? What difference does it make?

An economic-stimulus bill that stimulates nothing remotely connected with the economy? What difference does it make?

The Arab Spring? Aw, whose heart isn’t stirred by those exhilarating scenes of joyful students celebrating in Tahrir Square? And who cares after the cameras depart that Egypt’s in the hands of a Jew-hating 9-11 truther whose goons burn churches and sexually assault uncovered women?

Obama is the ultimate reality show, and real reality can’t compete. Stalin famously scoffed, “How many divisions has the Pope?” Secretary Clinton was more audacious: How many divisions has reality? Not enough.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon.

Voir également:

Obama’s Declaration of Collectivism

The president completely misunderstands the intent of the Founders.

Larry Kudlow

The National Review

January 25, 2013

One of the least remarked upon aspects of President Obama’s inaugural speech was his attempt to co-opt the Founding Fathers’ Declaration of Independence to bolster his liberal-left agenda.

Sure, the president quoted one of the most important sentences in world history: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So far, so good. But he later connected the Declaration with his own liberal agenda: “ . . . that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action.” (My italics, not his.)

He fleshed this out with his trademark class-warfare, income-leveling rationalizations. Such as: “The shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.” He also talked about “Our wives, mothers, and daughters that earn a living equal to their effort.” He followed that up with, “The wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.”

Here’s what I take away from all this: Mr. Obama is arguing counter to the Founding Fathers that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of equality of results, not the equality of opportunity, and that he will do what he can to use government to make everybody more equal in terms of their income and life work.

That is exactly wrong. We should be rewarding success. We should be promoting entrepreneurship. We should be encouraging individual effort and opportunity.

But this was no opportunity speech. This was a redistributionist, income-leveling speech. And it completely missed the point of the Founding Fathers some 237 years ago.

They were talking about the equality of opportunity, not results. Theirs was a declaration of freedom, not government power or authority.

In fact, the Declaration of Independence was written expressly to begin a revolution against the autocratic monarchs of England, who used their government authority to tax, regulate, and oppress the colonists without any representation or voting rights, thus denying them the unalienable rights of liberty.

So while Obama was on the one hand preaching “fidelity to our founding principles,” on the other he was saying that preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action.

Collective action? The Founders were talking about individual liberty and rights. Not the power of a collectivist government.

The “collective” is a socialist idea, not a free-market capitalist thought. And the story of the last quarter of the 20th century was of the absolute breakdown and end of the collectivist model. Collectivism was thrown into the dustbin of history by the weight of its own failure.

To me, Obama’s mistaken opinions regarding the Declaration of Independence, and his total lack of understanding of the thinking behind the Declaration, is more troubling than any of the liberal programmatic proposals he set forth. Fundamentally, you have to wonder if the president really understands the American idea, and the American historical experience, beginning with the great wisdom of the Founders.

Collectivism also means “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” During his second-term inaugural speech, Obama actually said, “We do not believe in this country that freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.” Were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates lucky? Was Henry Ford lucky? Was Thomas Edison just lucky?

How about they used their God-given talents of creativity, imagination, and ingenuity, coupled with hard work, to create commercial ventures that financially empowered millions upon millions of people who were then able to live a better and more comfortable life?

That’s what the Founders had in mind. Freedom.

It was bad enough that the president had nothing to say about economic growth, or excess federal spending, deficits, and debt. Nor did he show any interest in reforming the large entitlement programs that may bankrupt America. He did discuss the energy market. But rather than let market forces determine the most efficient and clean energy sources to power our economy, he insisted on more doomed green-energy projects subsidized by the taxpayer (like Solyndra).

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell likened Obama’s speech to a declaration of the end of the era of small government. “One thing is clear from the president’s speech,” he said. “The era of liberalism is back.” I agree.

But again I say it’s Obama’s misunderstanding of the Founders’ intent that is the most troubling. Equality of opportunity is the American ideal. Equality of results and income-leveling is foreign to the American ideal.

As conservatives and Republicans regroup, and as they seek to achieve a better America, I hope they keep the opportunity principle uppermost in their minds.

– Larry Kudlow, NRO’s economics editor, is host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report and author of the daily web log, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.

The Meaning of the Inaugural Address

Victor Davis Hanson

January 22, 2013

Prune away the usual soaring rhetoric and purple passages, and there were no serious outlines in today’s speech to restore the economy or deal with the fiscal implosion on the horizon — or even hints to be fleshed out in the State of the Union to come.

Instead, the president believes that record near-zero interest rates will allow him to borrow $10–12 trillion dollars over his eight-year tenure, and that the dangers of running up such a resulting gargantuan $20 trillion aggregate debt are well worth the risks.

He apparently believes that, in a postindustrial world, government, or government-owned industries from now on will have to create the majority of jobs, and that such jobs should largely go to those whom he sees as having been traditionally shortchanged.

In addition, in just four years, record numbers are now on food stamps, unemployment, and disability, and exempt from federal income taxes, and those percentages will only grow in the next term. Part of the remaking of America is the forging of a new constituency who feel that government employment and entitlements are a birth right and that those who in Washington ensure it deserve unquestioned political fealty.

By the same token, the astronomical borrowing will endlessly accelerate pressures to raise taxes on the “rich,” whether through income-tax rates, or the elimination of deductions, or both. The “pay their fair share” and “you didn’t build that” rhetoric will only sharpen, as the public is prepped to expect that “fat cats” can pay an aggregate 60—70 percent of their income in local, payroll, state, Obamacare, and federal income taxes. The only mystery is whether these unsustainable debts are designed primarily to redistribute income through forced higher taxes, or to marry the livelihoods of loyal millions to big government, or so that we can create a sort of centralized EU that actually works.

There are three dangers to the new unbound Obamism. One, he assumes the private sector has nowhere to go, and thus that, although it always will bitch about higher taxes, serial class warfare rhetoric, Obamacare, and more regulations, at some point its captains have to get back to work, make those hefty profits and so pay what they owe us in new higher taxes. I am not sure that will happen; instead, the present high unemployment, low growth, and crushing debt may be the new European-like stagflating norm.

Two, even if inflation and interest rates don’t rise, we have not seen yet the bitter wars to come over gun control and the actual implementation of the details of Obamacare, or blanket amnesty, and they may resemble the tea-party fights of 2010.

Three, the bitter election wars to achieve and maintain a 51–53 percent majority (the noble 99 percent versus the selfish 1 percent, the greens versus the polluters, the young and hip versus the stodgy and uncool, the wisely unarmed versus the redneck assault-weapon owners, women versus the sexists, gays versus the bigots, Latinos versus the nativists, blacks versus the “get over it” spiteful and resentful, the noble public sector versus the “you didn’t build that” profiteers, Colin Powell/Chuck Hagel/reasonable Republicans versus neanderthal House tea-party zealots), in Nixonian fashion have left a lot of bitter divisions that lie just beneath the surface of a thinning veneer.

Voir de même:

The Two Most Powerful Allusions in Obama’s Speech Today

James Fallows

The Atlantic

On reading it through after hearing it, this is another carefully crafted speech. More so, I would say, than Obama’s first inaugural address. But these two parts got my attention the instant I heard them:

1) Lash and sword. This inaugural address, like nearly all previous ones, began with an emphasis on the importance of democratic transfer-of-power. For instance, the first words of JFK’s address in 1961 were, « We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom. » But Obama introduced the familiar theme with this twist:

Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of [our founding] words with the realities of our time. [Note: this preceding sentence is the one-sentence summary of the speech as a whole.] For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

And for more than two hundred years, we have.

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

I like the precise logical concision of contrasting « self-evident » with « self-executing » truths. But « blood drawn by the lash » is an impressive and confident touch. It was of course an allusion to a closing passage in what is generally considered history’s only great second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln’s in 1865 (right):

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said « the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. »

Half-slave, half-free was an allusion to another of Lincoln’s most famous addresses, his « House Divided » speech from his campaign for the Senate in 1858. (And Lincoln’s phrase « house divided » was his own allusion to the Book of Mark.)

2) Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall. I thought the allusion in this passage was eloquent on many levels:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

The rhetorical and argumentative purpose of the speech as a whole was to connect what Obama considers the right next steps for America — doing more things « together, » making sure that everyone has an equal chance, tying each generation’s interests to its predecessors’ and its successors’ — with the precepts and ideals of the founders, rather than having them be seen as excesses of the modern welfare state.

As in the one-sentence summary at the start of the speech, Obama wants to claim not just Lincoln but also Jefferson, Madison, Adams, George Washington, and the rest as guiding spirits for his kind of progressivism. In this passage he works toward that end by numbering among « our forebears » — those honored ancestors who fought to perfect our concepts of liberty and of union — the likes of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martin Luther King and other veterans of Selma including still-living Rep. John Lewis, and the protestors 44 years ago at the Stonewall.

I call the passage above an allusion rather than a dog-whistle because a dog-whistle is meant not to be recognized or understood by anyone other than its intended audience. Obama certainly knew that parts of his audience would respond more immediately and passionately to the names Seneca Falls, Selma, and [especially] Stonewall than other parts, but his meaning is accessible to anyone. As is his reference, while speaking barely a two miles from the Lincoln Memorial, to what « a King » said on « this great Mall. »

I have no illusion, delusion, allusion, or even dog-whistle conception that this speech will change the partisan power-balance affecting passage of anything Obama mentioned, from climate legislation to reforming immigration law. But as politics it was a departure for him, and as rhetorical craftsmanship once again it deserves careful study.

Voir également:

President Obama’s Haunting Anti-Liberty Inaugural Speech

Robert Wenzel

January 22, 2013

I have now read President Obama’s second inaugural speech for the third time. The speech haunts me. In very clever language the speech lays out a plan for a more centralized government, for more interference by the government in the affairs of individuals. The speech is about government as the solution to society’s ills.

The President does this, though, while early on in his speech hailing the Constitution, which attempted to put a limit on government. He then quotes from the Declaration of Independence:

« We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. »

He then proceeds in the remainder of his speech to rip apart the Declaration’s call for Liberty.

But even before his mention of the Constitution and the quoting from the Declaration, in the very first paragraph, after greetings to the « Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens, » the speech is haunting. In the first paragraph that begins the President’s message, he speaks of that arrogant notion American exceptionalism:

What makes us exceptional, what makes us American, is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago[…]

Few realize it, but the concept of American exceptionalism came about as a result of a battle between two communist factions. Wikipedia explains the history well:

In June 1927 Jay Lovestone, a leader of the Communist Party in America and soon to be named General Secretary, described America’s economic and social uniqueness. He noted the increasing strength of American capitalism, and the country’s « tremendous reserve power »; a strength and power which he said prevented Communist revolution. In 1929, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, disagreeing that America was so resistant to revolution, called Lovestone’s ideas « the heresy of American exceptionalism »—the first time that the specific term « American exceptionalism » was used.

The term has been advanced most recently by the neocons, not surprising since their roots can be traced back to the Trotskyite movement.

Thus, at the very start of Obama’s speech, one has to wonder if Obama understands the communist roots of his chosen notion of an « exceptional » America. If he does, then, indeed, he is sending us a very chilling message.

In paragraph 4 of his speech, he said to the nation:

Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.

This is a very clever sentence. « A never-ending journey, » he says to « bridge » the words of the Declaration to « reality. » But is it really « a never-ending journey »? He attempts to answer this by saying:

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free.

This is true. Half-slave and half-free is not liberty for all. But, if there are no slaves anymore, what could Obama possibly mean when he talks of a « never-ending journey »? Wouldn’t the words in the Declaration meet reality when all men are free? The President apparently thinks not. In a twisted view of the Declaration, he sees less free, more government interference, as part of his « never-ending journey. »

He went on to say:

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.

What is this talk of « we »? Railroads, highways, schools and colleges all started out in the private sector. It was only through crony deals with special interests with private agendas that the government was brought into the picture. If the president means crony elitists in cahoots with government, as the « we, » then he is correct. If he is somehow attempting to link the « we » of government interference, with the Declaration of Independence and citizens of America, he is a con-man.

And then he completely exposes his anti-liberty views:

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

Ah yes, free markets with rules, that is, liberty with chains.

And he moves on with a great attack on private charity:

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Americans are not uncaring. The president insults Americans when he states that government by gun must force Americans to be charitable. It is another deceptive myth that the president likes to repeat often, Further, the « misfortune » that the president speaks of is not misfortune in the way private individuals think of it. It is the president as part on the Entitlement-Crony Complex in operation. It’s about buying votes and splitting up lucre.

And after heaping all this government interventionist stuff on us, he takes a break to throw smoke in our eyes and claim he is not talking about central planning:

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.

But, he quickly returns to his real theme, more government planning:

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action

Oh yeah, so much for the Declaration of Independence. « Times change. »

The central planner goes on:

No single person can train all the math and science teachers, we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

What a bizarre first phrase: « No single person can train all the math and science teachers. » Who anywhere, ever , said that a single person will have to train all the math and science teachers?

He goes on in that paragraph to state that somehow this must be done as « one nation. » He means by « one nation, » the government. And he does so without telling us why math and science teachers, road builders. networks and research labs, wouldn’t emerge under liberty, in free markets, without the interference of government.

And, while he is all about calling for central planning, he slips in a bit of class warfare:

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.

He does not explain that the growing wealth of a few, while others search for low-paying jobs, is because of government regulations that protect those who already have wealth (especially those with crony wealth who have ties to the government) and make it difficult, if not impossible, for others to compete against crony wealth.

The president goes on:

We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher.

Who is this « we » that the president is again talking about? It is, of course, the great central planning mechanism the government. Note also the call to « reform our tax code. » This is really a call for tax hikes. Tax code reform always ends up being about higher taxes through the closing of « loopholes. » What we need is lower taxes, not tax reform.

He then once more insults Americans, who are quite capable of providing charity on their own:

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.

All central planning all the time, from the « needy » to healthcare. And what does he mean reduce the cost of health care? What could that possibly mean other than in the president’s mind cutting back on some payments on various drugs and services.

The president then said:

The commitments we make to each other: through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

But there are takers. The takers are the government operatives. They take from us and redistribute the wealth, and those on the receiving end are, indeed, softened up, not strengthened. It is creating a dependent society. A society dependent on government for basic services.

The president also made this ominous comment about international affairs.

We will support democracy from Asia to Africa; from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom.

Here we are back to paragraph one and American « exceptionalism, » and the neocon view that the US should be the only superpower, the Empire, if you will. Haven’t we learned enough blowback lessons, so that it should be clear the US should stay out of other countries affairs? And if we are so gung ho about democracy, shouldn’t we stand by Iran and its democratic government? Instead of, say, the monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Is it really about democracy? It appears not. It is more smoke. It is about the US Empire, its behind the scenes cronies desiring global control.

Then, of course, while Obama hints at more violence abroad from the Empire, he obviously believes that there is nothing that those that live in the heart of the Empire should fear. He wants our guns:

Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.

And there you have it, from start to finish, with a bit of smoke thrown into the air, to confuse at just the right moment, the president’s speech was about moving away from the Declaration of Independence and closer to more government control, more power to the state.

In the end, Obama’s speech is about this, government controlled Americans with very armed government around every corner.

Voir encore:

Barack Obama inauguration speech: a greatest hits of rhetorical tricks

The president gave a smash-hits selection of oratorical devices, from emphatic anaphora to substantial syntheton

Sam Leith

The Guardian

21 January 2013

Barack Obama gives his second-term inauguration address in Washington, DC. His speech was rich in rhetorical devices. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Barack Obama’s second inaugural, as far as rhetoric goes, was the equivalent of a greatest hits album knocked out in time for Christmas. All his favourite oratorical devices were on display, and all at once, as if someone had knocked a candle into the firework box.

At a sentence-by-sentence level, it was filled with a device to which Obama is practically addicted: syntheton. That is, never say one thing when you can inflate the sentence with two: « effort and determination », « passion and dedication », « security and dignity », « hazards and misfortune », « initiative and enterprise », « fascism or communism », « muskets and militia » and so, unceasingly, on.

At the larger level of organisation we were seeing some other old favourites – in particular anaphora, where a phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive sentences. This speech was an anaphoric relay race: « Together, we » gave way to « We, the people », which temporarily ceded the track to « Our journey is not complete until », before « You and I, as citizens » staggered to the tape with the baton.

Also on show was his nifty way of shifting timescale, zipping between the grand sweep of history and the individual moment. « It will be up to those who stand here in four years, and 40 years, and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall. » That climax – the rising series of terms, given extra force with epistrophe (repeating « years ») – is saved from bombast by bringing it down to a moment in history. « Spare » is a lovely touch.

As far as the ethos appeal goes – that is, the way an orator positions himself with the audience – Obama stuck to what he does best: aligning himself with the founding fathers and with Martin Luther King. The former was, well, pro forma, and given that the inauguration coincided with King’s birthday, the latter perhaps irresistible.

The former was accomplished by what may have been his number one soundbite: that none-too-subtle repetition of the phrase that opens the US constitution: « We, the people. » He added his own tricolon to that of the Declaration of Independence when he declared it « our generation’s task to make these words, these rights, these values – of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – real ». He ghosted liberty’s « your tired, your poor, your huddled masses » when he invoked « the poor, the sick, the marginalised ». Tick, tick, tick.

As far as King goes, Obama’s allusion to hearing « a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth » is all but a quotation – semi-blasphemous wordplay and all – from some of his own 2008 speeches (« We heard a King’s call to let justice roll down like water »; « a King who took us to the mountaintop »). If Cornel West, a distinguished professor of African-American studies and what you might call a critical friend, now thinks Obama is milking it a bit, watch out.

His hissingly alliterative line about « Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall […] all those men and women, sung and unsung » (also, be it noted, instances of tricolon, polysyndeton and antithesis) is another near-on self-quotation. Obama loves placenames that alliterate (he once managed to get « Boston » and « Beijing », « Arctic » and « Atlantic » and « Kansas » and « Kenya » into a single sentence).

One slight surprise is that this speech made quite so free with the high style, given that attacks on the windiness of his oratory have been consistent and effective. Yes, it was slick, in places moving, and politically flinty. But I found it hard to agree with Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia, who thought it stronger and « better written » than the one four years ago. That first inaugural was downbeat to a purpose, managing expectations and reaching across the floor after a triumphal election night speech.

Here, he didn’t seem sure whether to be grim and determined (note the frowny brow for the first half) or messianic, and so did both slightly half-heartedly. Sometimes, too, he crossed the line from the poetic into the merely cliched: a people variously « seared » and « tempered »; « snow-capped peaks »; « that precious light of freedom »? Come on, Barry, one wants to say. You’re phoning it in.

• Sam Leith is the author of You Talkin’ To Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama (Profile)

Voir enfin:

« A poor hand to quote Scripture »: Lincoln and Genesis 3:19

Earl Schwartz

Volume 23, Issue 2, Summer 2002

« My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote Scripture. I will try it again, however. » Poor hand or not, Lincoln was persistent. The 1858 Senate campaign was in full swing and the Democratic candidate, Stephen A. Douglas, had recently charged that quoting Scripture did not suit his Republican adversary. Lincoln’s response to his « friend’s » claim, as he told an audience in mid-July, was to « try it again, » concluding his address with a vigorous defense of human equality, cast as a homily on the verse « Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which in heaven is perfect » (Matt. 5:48). [1]

It was easy enough for Douglas to impugn Lincoln’s grasp of Scripture. Lincoln was the product of a short and shallow formal education, and he had never fully identified with a Christian denomination or doctrinal tradition. [2] And yet in this case, as in so many others, Douglas was mistaken. Lincoln’s legacy, far more than any other president, has, over time, become inextricably bound up with the words and themes of the Bible.[3] He has been endowed repeatedly with biblical features—sometimes cast as Moses, on other occasions as Father Abraham, and yet again as a fiery prophet or martyred savior. An aura of prophetic authority has accrued to his own words,[4] heightened by his skillful use of literary devices that are also characteristic of biblical texts.[5] The Poor Hand’s homilies, like the man himself, now belong to the ages.

Lincoln contributed to this biblical aura through his adamant advocacy of what he referred to in his address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield in 1838 as an American « political religion. »[6] In remarks at Independence Hall in February 1861, he adopted a distinctly biblical metaphor to characterize his commitment to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, announcing, « ‘May my right hand lose its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth’ [Psalms 137:5–6] if ever I prove false to those teachings »—an oath that had originally referred to an abiding attachment to vanquished Jerusalem. Ten days earlier in Indianapolis, he made a similar transposition, declaring, « When the people rise in masses in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their country, truly may it be said, ‘The gates of Hell shall not prevail against them' » (Matt. 16:18).[7] In death, Lincoln became an icon of this American political faith—the only faith, it would seem, for which he could give his own last measure of devotion.

Lincoln’s Collected Works are, in fact, peppered with biblical references, including several dozen direct quotations. These are taken, for the most part, from Hebrew Bible narratives, the Psalms, Wisdom texts, and the Gospels. [8] The Bible was the common coin of literate nineteenth-century Americans, and Lincoln made good use of its currency.

On occasion Lincoln would cite a biblical text strictly for the sake of its imagery. The best-known example of his use of a biblical text for this limited purpose are his references to « a house divided » (Matt. 12:22–28, Mark 3:22–26, Luke 11:14–20). Lincoln consistently employed the metaphor of « a house divided » in literary settings wholly disassociated from its biblical context. [9] Herndon maintained that this was intentional. « I want to use some universally known figure [of speech], » Herndon recalled Lincoln telling him, « expressed in simple language as universally well-known, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to raise them up to the peril of the times. » [10]

In the case of the « house divided » references, literary and anecdotal evidence coincide to demonstrate that Lincoln’s primary interest was in decontextualized use of the text’s imagery rather than exegetical exploration of its content. Historians may speculate concerning his subconscious affinity for this and other decontextualized citations, [11] but it is clear that his conscious intention in such cases was to employ a passage’s imagery without reference to its original significance.

However, many of Lincoln’s biblical citations are exegetical. These latter references not only evidence the rhetorical skill with which he appropriated biblical imagery, but also shed light on his understanding of the passages cited. Foremost among these exegetical references, in terms of frequency as well as significance of occasion, are his citations of Gen. 3:19, which, according to the King James Version he used, reads, « In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. »

The Collected Works include four direct references to Gen. 3:19. First, in the so-called « Fragments of a Tariff Discussion, » which Page [End Page 39] Lincoln recalled having written in late 1847; next, in a response to a resolution of support he had received from a delegation of Baptist missionaries, written in May 1864; third, in a short autobiographical anecdote he arranged to have published in December 1864; and finally, in his Second Inaugural Address, delivered in March 1865. In addition, he appears to allude to the verse on several occasions in speaking about labor, as in his observation that the « old general rule » was that educated people « managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated, »[12] and his insistence that every human being has the right « to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned. … »[13] As will become clear, what all of these references have in common is their association with what historian Gabor Boritt has contended was Lincoln’s most fundamental, far-reaching and enduring political principal: the right of workers to claim and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Lincoln’s reading of Gen. 3:19 is a preeminent example of his skill in political homiletics, a skill rooted in his ability to draw radically new insights from ostensibly familiar sources. His idiosyncratic application of the verse demonstrates his ability to give memorable expression to his perspective on an issue through rhetorical coordination of both the form and content of a citation. In addition, careful examination of his references to the text, which extend from the beginning of his term in Congress through the Second Inaugural Address, can help to clarify the development of his thinking on the role of labor in human society, and, in turn, the origins and depth of his opposition to slavery.

The References

Gabor Boritt makes a convincing argument for the importance of practical economic concerns to Lincoln’s political and moral outlook, with the rights of workers situated at the center of these concerns. Boritt concludes that, « Above all, there remained in Lincoln, unchanged, that firm, moral-materialistic core. … Surely, Lincoln was also a highly moral, indeed spiritual, being. Yet this characteristic was thoroughly intermingled with his materialism and while cleansing it, also strengthened it. » [14] This intermingling of the moral and material, born along by images of « sweat, » « face, » and Page [End Page 40] « bread, » is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in his references to Gen. 3:19.

Reference 1: From « Fragments of a Tariff Discussion » (December 1, 1847?)

In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’ [Gen. 3:19]; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. And, in [as] much as most good things are produced by labour, it follows that [all] such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.[15]

Commenting on that passage, along with related references and allusions by Lincoln to Gen. 3:19 in connection with the rights and aspirations of workers, Boritt contends that « Whatever ideal he held to, whatever stood for America in his eyes, in the most basic sense was embodied for him in this faith. » Boritt concludes that this was, to use Lincoln’s own expression, the « central idea » of his political outlook throughout his public life.[16]

Boritt’s contention notwithstanding, one could easily pass over Lincoln’s reference to Gen. 3:19 in the « Fragments of a Tariff Discussion » as unexceptional. In form and language, it closely resembles a passage from Francis Wayland’s Elements of Political Economy:

« Labor has been made necessary to our happiness. No valuable object of desire can be produced without it … the Universal law of our existence, is, « In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground. » [17]

Wayland, a Unitarian minister and President of Brown University, published Elements of Political Economy in 1837. It quickly became the most popular book on economics in the country. Herndon recalled that Lincoln had a special liking for Wayland’s work. [18] Page [End Page 41]

Lincoln begins the « Fragment » by reiterating Wayland’s commonplace identification of Gen. 3:19 with the inevitability of labor. Wayland’s contention that, given this inevitability, workers should have the opportunity to prosper from their efforts may also have influenced the composition of the « Fragment. » But if Wayland is to be credited with the initial coupling of Gen. 3:19 with economic issues in Lincoln’s rhetoric, the implications Lincoln drew from the verse differed markedly from those Wayland endorsed.[19] Lincoln’s inference that it is a wholly appropriate and « worthy » object of good government to assist workers in securing the « whole product » of their labor suggests a personal connection to working people and comfort with political activism on their behalf that went far beyond Wayland’s tepid affirmation of workers rights. It is clear from numerous remarks Lincoln made throughout his career that he believed labor to be the source of all productive value, or, as Wayland put it, that capital was « pre-exerted labor. »[20] However, in opposition to Wayland, Lincoln went on to concur, he said, with a « certain class of reasoners, » that « labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed—that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior—greatly the superior—of capital. »[21] Wayland’s adamant insistence on an even-handed « equality » between capital and labor finds no echo here.

Though Wayland’s comment would appear to anticipate the « Fragment, » the differences in how the two men understood the salient implications of Gen. 3:19 far outweigh the similarities. There is, in fact, no record of a commentator having read Gen. 3:19 as an unambiguous affirmation of the rights of workers to enjoy the fruits of their labor before Lincoln’s « Fragment. » In future references Lincoln would continue to ignore the conventional interpretation of the verse as a curse brought upon humanity by Adam’s disobedience, Page [End Page 42] in favor of his own novel and daring inferences concerning the primacy of labor and the rights of workers.

Lincoln, of course, was not alone among mid-nineteenth-century thinkers in his preoccupation with the rights of workers. His « central idea » connected him to a far-flung chorus of observers, ranging from Marx to Mill, who would also lash out against « the same tyrannical principle »: « You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it. »[22] However, the manner in which Lincoln gave voice to his convictions about rights purchased by the sweat of a worker’s brow, amidst the unparalleled circumstances that converged upon him, was distinctly his own. Informed by his understanding of the priority of labor over capital, Lincoln’s reading of Gen. 3:19 as a statement about labor and its just rewards takes on revolutionary implications. He arrived at these implications by transforming a verse that was (and still is) commonly interpreted as a description of the human condition into a moral imperative.

In Lincoln’s hands, Gen. 3:19 serves as a stepping-off point for his conclusion that the fruits of labor rightfully belong to those who do the work, and that it is a public concern of the highest order that these rights be secured. In the earliest of his « sweat of thy face » texts, these two points are laid out in the form of commentary. In the remaining three cases, Lincoln progressively clarifies the connection between verse and commentary through underlining, paraphrase, and hypothetical antithesis. These devices will serve to direct the reader’s attention away from the theme of inevitable toil and toward a consideration of the moral significance of the possessive pronouns, actual and inferred, that Lincoln viewed as the verse’s pivotal terms.

Reference 2: From a « response to the preamble and resolutions of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society » (May 30, 1864)

To read in the Bible, as the word of God himself, that ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’ [Gen. 3:19] and to preach therefrom, that ‘In the sweat of other mans faces shalt thou eat bread,’ to my mind can scarcely be reconciled with honest sincerity. When brought to my final reckoning, may I have to answer for robbing no man of his goods [I Sam. 12:3]; yet more tolerable even this, than for robbing one of himself, and all that was his. When, a year or two ago, those professedly holy men of the South, met in the semblance of prayer and devotion, Page [End Page 43] and, in the name of Him who said ‘As ye would all men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them’ [Matt. 7:12], appealed to the christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men, as they would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking, they contemned and insulted God and His church, far more than did Satan when he tempted the Saviour with the Kingdoms of the earth. The devils attempt was no more false, and far less hypocritical. But let me forbear, remembering it is also written, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’ [Matt. 7:1] [23]

Lincoln’s « Response to … the American Baptist Home Mission Society » was composed in the midst of the 1864 presidential campaign, a period of deep political and military uncertainty. Nearly twenty years had passed since the composition of the « Fragment on Labor, » including three years of war, but Lincoln’s application of Gen. 3:19 remained essentially the same, though it was made more explicit by his underlining of « thy » and « other mans faces, » and his use of the antithetical « In the sweat of other mans faces shalt thou eat bread, » in counterpoint to the biblical quotation. In doing so, Lincoln reaffirms his general critique of the theft of the fruits of labor, and he unflinchingly extends it to the specific issue of slavery.

The manner in which Lincoln links the themes of workers’ rights and slavery in his « Response » to the Baptist missionaries suggests that he derived his position on the specific issue of slavery from his general perspective on the rights of workers. It is the unreasonableness of slavery that commands Lincoln’s attention here, and this unreasonableness allows no play for the paternalism or racism that in other contexts sometimes adhered to his remarks. Whatever patronizing biases Lincoln may have harbored are subordinated to a line of reasoning about the rights of workers that he found incontrovertible. It is not necessary to reconfigure Lincoln as completely free of such biases to appreciate his commitment to abolition, if we understand that in Lincoln’s case it was his revulsion at the exploitation of workers rather than anti-racism that was the initial catalyst for his opposition to slavery.

When it came to defending the rights of workers, Lincoln had little difficulty finding common ground with slaves. Two months earlier, in a letter to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Page [End Page 44] Republican Association, he had told his correspondents that « … the existing rebellion, means more, and tends to more, than the perpetuation of African Slavery … it is, in fact, a war upon the rights of all working people. » [24] In an early political address he went so far as to announce that in his impoverished youth he too « used to be a slave, » and that « we were all slaves one time or another, » but that he had seized the proffered opportunity to shake loose the bonds of economic subordination. Twenty years later he confirmed the persistence of this facet of his self-image when he concluded the autobiographical sketch circulated during the 1860 presidential campaign with the oblique comment that aside from his height, weight, and coloring, there were « no other marks or brands recollected »—an expression commonly used in the South in identifying runaway slaves.[25]

Lincoln’s application of Gen. 3:19 to the issue of slavery was a natural extension of his previously stated position that all workers have the right to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. However, this application is only possible on the basis of his atypical understanding of the verse, in which emphasis is placed on the sweat of thy brow purchasing thou the right to eat thy bread. In his « Response » to the Baptist missionaries, Lincoln refers to the verse as he moves from a general concern for worker’s rights to the specific case of slavery. He argues his case in the strongest of terms, characterizing slavery as a stealing of another’s « self, » more worthy of contempt than the theft of another’s « goods, » or even Satan’s attempt to seduce Jesus in the wilderness. The introduction of the latter motif carries with it a furious condemnation of the hypocrisy Lincoln ascribed to those who would attempt to reconcile the enslavement of others with Christian faith. This condemnation, in varying degrees of harshness, also accompanies his two subsequent uses of Gen. 3:19.[26]

Reference 3: « The President’s Last, Shortest, and Best Speech, » (published in the Washington Daily Chronicle, December [6?], 1864)

On Thursday of last week two ladies from Tennessee came before the President asking the release of their husbands held as prisoners of war at Johnson’s Island. They were put off till Page [End Page 45] Friday, when they came again; and were again put off till Saturday. At each of the interviews one of the ladies urged that her husband was a religious man. On Saturday the President ordered the release of the prisoners, and then said to this lady ‘You say that your husband is a religious man; tell him when you meet him, that I say I am not much of a judge of religion, but that, in my opinion, the religion that sets men to rebel and fight against their government, because, as they think, that government does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread on the sweat of other men’s faces [Gen. 3:19], is not the sort of religion upon which people can get to heaven.’ [27]

Lincoln passed this anecdote on to Noah Brooks, a reporter with whom he had close ties, with the request that it be published « right away. » It appeared in the Washington Daily Chronicle, along with the headline Lincoln had composed for it, on December 7, 1864. The humorously self-deprecating headline is significant. Though this is neither his last nor best speech, its reference to Gen. 3:19 in connection with the injustice and cruelty of unrequited slave labor, prospered or tolerated by the nominally « religious, » establishes the anecdote, along with the response to the Baptist missionaries, as a precursor to the climactic Second Inaugural Address. However, in this new setting, Lincoln sharpens his earlier renderings of the verse by his interpolation of the word « their » prior to « bread. » Lincoln had been working from this inference all along, but in this case, as well as in the Second Inaugural Address, he makes explicit his sense of the verse as a declaration of the right of workers to enjoy the fruit of their labors, and the wrong done workers when « some men … eat their bread on the sweat of other men’s faces. » It is also significant that Lincoln speaks here in terms of those who are disappointed with their government’s unwillingness to assist them in this theft. This reference to government as a potential « fence » for the stealing of labor’s just rewards flows directly from Lincoln’s long held conviction, already stated in the 1847 fragment, that it was « a most worthy object of any good government » to help secure for each laborer « the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible. »

Reference 4: « Second Inaugural Address » (March 4, 1865)

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces [Gen. 3:19]; but let us judge not that we be not judged [Matt. 7:1]. … The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’ [Matt. 18:7]. … Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether’ [Psalms 19:10][28]

In this short passage Lincoln strings together four direct biblical quotations.[29] Nevertheless, each quote enters the address honed and shaped by many years of conceptual and rhetorical development. Gen. 3:19 now carries for Lincoln the accumulated implications of twenty years of reflection, as indicated by his retention of an inferred « their » prior to « bread, » a condensed version of his earlier antithesis of « their bread » over against the « sweat of other men’s faces, » and the addition of the tortuous image of oppressors « wringing » their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, rather than simply eating it, as he had expressed it earlier.

Lincoln’s juxtaposition of Gen. 3:19 to Matt. 7:1 (« Let us judge not … ») reiterates his previous condemnation of slavery as the theft of another’s « self, » as well as his claim that he was obliged not to « judge » the motives of those who would lend their support to such a crime. Here, as in the « Response » to the Baptist missionaries, the counsel that one must withhold judgment appears ironic, though his convincing reference to « charity for all » in the peroration indicates a tempering of his earlier sarcasm. However, having counseled forbearance, Lincoln immediately goes on to declare that it was not to be expected that restraining the urge to judge would save the nation from undergoing judgment. Instead, in a passage punctuated by repeated references to justice (« just, » « judge, » « judged, » « judgments ») he joins his « materialist » reading of Gen. 3:19 to a corresponding vision of an immanent Divine judgment which was « true and righteous altogether, » purging the nation, Page [End Page 47] measure for measure, of slavery’s « wealth » and « lash. » The ravages of war had extracted a terrible price from those « by whom the offence cometh, » be they collaborators or bystanders, but the debate was over, and the conclusion, as he had long insisted, was « self evident. » The Almighty had had His own wrenching purposes. Those purposes having been accomplished, the time for rending was now speedily passing away, and a time for mending had begun. [30]

It is not surprising that Lincoln would return on several occasions over the course of his political career to Gen. 3:19. Its images of « sweat, « brow, » and « bread, » contrary to Douglas’s friendly concern, fit well with his rhetorical style. James M. McPherson points out that Lincoln’s facility with metaphor, as well as the particular types of metaphor he tended to employ, reflected his formative experiences in rural Indiana and Illinois. His skill with concrete imagery was nurtured through conversation with neighbors, and was therefore, as he later noted, well suited for political talk with his constituencies. [31] In addition, the verse’s imagery was neatly bound up with the themes of labor and, for Lincoln, justice, both of which were central to his political outlook.

But Lincoln’s ability to shape and apply the implications he drew from the metaphorical possibilities in Gen. 3:19 ran far deeper than nostalgia or stylistic considerations alone. Even an appreciation of the passage’s capacity to rhetorically integrate themes that were central to Lincoln’s political outlook, and to do so with great economy, does not adequately explain his persistent affinity for the verse. When purely rhetorical motives for repeated references to the verse are exhausted, there remains a personal dimension to its Page [End Page 48] prominence. For Lincoln, Gen. 3:19 was not only a verbal metaphor, it was also a life metaphor. His reading of the verse is wholly congruent with his own experience and character. It was not only an expression of what he thought, but of who he was. Though historians have done much to correct the popular romantic image of the young, pastoral Lincoln, it is clear that an overlay of middle-class gentility acquired in his later years could not completely obscure his own personal knowledge and appreciation of physical labor. Francis B. Carpenter, in his memoir Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln, recounted a remarkable demonstration of this aspect of Lincoln’s personality as part of his description of a visit to Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, in late March 1865. According to Carpenter, Lincoln was enthused by the warm reception he received from the soldiers, and he spent several hours with patients at the army hospital. As he concluded this marathon of handshaking, a surgeon commented that his arm must be terribly sore from the workout. Lincoln smiled and replied that he had « strong muscles, » and picking up a heavy ax, proceeded to vigorously chop wood for a few minutes. He then held out the ax horizontally, keeping it absolutely still—a feat that none of the soldiers present could duplicate. [32]

Lincoln’s pride in his continued physical strength is indicative of a « poor hand » well acquainted with labor. In his letter to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association, he maintained that « The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. » [33] A lifetime of social advancement could not sever this bond. One can safely assume that if Lincoln’s hand did not quiver as he held out the ax, there was, nevertheless, the gleam of sweat on his brow.

Notes

Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 9 vols. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 2: 501 (hereafter cited as Collected Works). Quote is from the King James Version. return to text

Richard Current, The Lincoln Nobody Knows (New York: Hill & Wang, 1958), chap. 3, for a review of the literature on Lincoln’s religious life, including the contention that he formally embraced Christianity in his later years.return to text

Elton Trueblood concluded that it was « partly in response to the pioneer culture in which he was steeped, [that] Abraham Lincoln’s religion was centered far more in the Bible than in the Church, » and cites William J. Wolf’s comment that for Lincoln, « … the Bible rather than the Church remained the highroad to the knowledge of God. » See Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln, Theologian of American Anguish, (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 55, and Allen C. Guelzo, introduction to Abraham Lincoln, Redeemer President (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999).return to text

In reference to Lincoln’s « Letter to Mrs. Bixby, » Carl Sandburg commented, « Here was a piece of the American Bible. » See Roy P. Basler, Abraham Lincoln, His Speeches and Writings, Universal Library Edition (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1962), 35.return to text

See Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings, (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 225–27, and Basler, Speeches and Writings, 34–49.return to text

« ‘The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions’: Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838, » Collected Works, 1: 108–15.return to text

Trueblood, 55–56. Matt. 16:18 is also the closing words of Lincoln’s « Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum, » Collected Works, 1: 115.return to text

Lincoln was clearly well read in Bible. Though it is an exceptional case, William J. Wolf counted no less than thirty-four biblical references in Lincoln’s manuscript of his 1858 Address to the Bloomington Young Men’s Association on « Discoveries and Inventions. » See William J. Wolf, Lincoln’s Religion, (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1970), 132.return to text

In its biblical context Jesus employs the image of « a house divided » to deflect the charge that his ability to exorcise demons came from Satan. Surely, he retorts, Satan would not divide his own house between exorcists and exorcised. Lincoln used the image in an 1843 pamphlet calling for unity among Whigs, and then again, more memorably, during the 1858 Senate campaign, in reference to the divisive effects of slavery. return to text

William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Life of Lincoln, ed. Paul M. Angle, (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1930), 325; David Donald has suggested that Lincoln took the metaphor from Aesop’s fable « The Lion and the Four Bulls. » Herndon’s reference to Lincoln’s stated motive for using the metaphor is ambiguous enough to allow for this possibility, but absent additional evidence in support of Donald’s contention, a biblical derivation would appear to be more likely. See Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), 68. return to text

See Strozier’s Lincoln’s Quest for Union for an example of this type of analysis of the House Divided motif.return to text

Collected Works, 3: 479. return to text

Ibid., 2: 520.return to text

Gabor Boritt, Abraham Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 240.return to text

Collected Works, 1: 411–12. return to text

Boritt, Lincoln and Economics, 278. return to text

Ibid., 123.return to text

Ibid.return to text

For a summary of Wayland’s economic views see Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization (New York: Viking Press, 1946), 758–67. Though it is possible that Lincoln’s rendering of the verse was sparked by a pamphlet, sermon, or conversation, I can find no evidence of such a source. Though written a century before Lincoln’s birth, Matthew Henry’s exegetical comment that « we are bound to work, not as creatures only, but as criminals; it is part of our sentence … » succinctly conveys the typical reading of the verse among both Christians and Jews of all denominations in Lincoln’s day as well.return to text

Ibid.return to text

Collected Works, 3: 478. return to text

Ibid., 315.return to text

Collected Works, 7: 368. return to text

Ibid., 259.return to text

Guelzo, Redeemer President, 121. return to text

See also LaWanda Cox, Black Freedom and Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 24–26, concerning Lincoln’s views on race, his personal relationships with African Americans, and his commitment to emancipation.return to text

Collected Works, 8: 154–55. return to text

Collected Works, 8: 332–33. return to text

The use of the terms « widow » and « orphan » in the closing paragraph of the Address also appear to be influenced by biblical usage, e.g., Exod. 22:22,24, Isa. 1:17. return to text

During the war years, Lincoln frequently referred to Providential « purpose, » « will, » and « justice. » One could see these references to the unsparing judgment of a Sovereign Will as a late personification of his earlier belief in the « doctrine of necessity. » Ann Douglas, discussing the Calvinist underpinnings of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, connects Captain Vere’s unwillingness to spare Budd from condemnation with Lincoln’s reference to Luke 1:17 in the Address. She concludes that in Budd’s story « history, presented in its uncompromised detail, merges, no matter how inscrutably and partially, ambiguously, with providence. » The same might be said of Lincoln’s observations concerning the Almighty’s « purposes. » See Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Avon, 1977), 391–95. On the « doctrine of necessity » see Current, Lincoln Nobody Knows, chap. 3.return to text

James M. McPherson, « How Lincoln Won the War With Metaphors, » in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford, 1990), 93–112, and see the discussion of Lincoln’s use of metaphors in Strozier, Quest for Union, 177–81.return to text

See David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 575. return to text

Collected Works, 7: 259.

Genèse: Souviens-toi que tu as été esclave (Looking back at the other liberation that the Sabbath celebrates)

Qui supprimé le joug imposé aux dieux ses ennemis, qui a créé l’humanité pour les libérer, le miséricordieux qui a le pouvoir de donner la vie ! Enuma Elish (mythe de la création babylonienne)

Observe le jour du repos, pour le sanctifier, comme l’Éternel, ton Dieu, te l’a ordonné. Tu travailleras six jours, et tu feras tout ton ouvrage. Mais le septième jour est le jour du repos de l’Éternel, ton Dieu: tu ne feras aucun ouvrage, ni toi, ni ton fils, ni ta fille, ni ton serviteur, ni ta servante, ni ton boeuf, ni ton âne, ni aucune de tes bêtes, ni l’étranger qui est dans tes portes, afin que ton serviteur et ta servante se reposent comme toi. Tu te souviendras que tu as été esclave au pays d’Égypte, et que l’Éternel, ton Dieu, t’en a fait sortir à main forte et à bras étendu: c’est pourquoi l’Éternel, ton Dieu, t’a ordonné d’observer le jour du repos. Deutéronome 5: 12-15

Ainsi furent achevés les cieux et la terre, et toute leur armée^. Dieu acheva au septième jour son oeuvre, qu’il avait faite: et il se reposa au septième jour de toute son oeuvre, qu’il avait faite^. Dieu bénit le septième jour, et il le sanctifia, parce qu’en ce jour il se reposa de toute son oeuvre qu’il avait créée en la faisant. Genèse 2: 1-3

Le sabbat a été fait pour l’homme, et non l’homme pour le sabbat. Jesus (Mark 2: 27)

C’est là un des grands problèmes de la décolonisation. Les dominés se réapproprient le discours du colonisateur pour le retourner contre lui, construire leur propre identité et légitimer leur combat. Pour affirmer leur unité, ils se définissent par référence à l’élément le plus simple : la couleur de la peau, ou la négritude chère à Aimé Césaire et Léopold Sédar Senghor. Ce faisant, ils ne sortent pas du système et s’enferment dans le piège d’une identité que j’appelle « chromatique ». (…) Les nationalistes ont récupéré cette identité et l’ont inversée pour démontrer que l’Afrique a une civilisation et une histoire, la négritude. Mais l’acceptation de cette définition chromatique a empêché de voir que les Africains forment des groupes aux intérêts très variés, plus ou moins accommodants avec le pouvoir colonial. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui cette vision raciale produit des effets pervers : quand un bourreau est africain et noir, on a du mal à le traduire en justice pour peu que les juges soient blancs, alors que ce serait l’intérêt des victimes qui peuvent être noires. (…) La vision « chromatique » de l’Afrique aboutit à une vision fausse de l’esclavage. La traite ne se limitait pas à la vente de Noirs à des Blancs dans des ports africains. Elle englobe la manière dont les esclaves étaient « produits » à l’intérieur du continent et acheminés sur la côte. Ce système atlantique était une organisation globale, qui mettait en relation, dans un partenariat asymétrique mais intéressé, les compagnies européennes avec des élites africaines. Celles-ci utilisaient la traite pour redéfinir les rapports de pouvoir sur le continent. (…) Dans n’importe quelle ville africaine, je suis frappé par la coexistence entre le grand nombre de 4 × 4 de luxe, et l’usage d’un moyen de transport qui remonte au néolithique, la tête des femmes. Cela signifie que les élites, au prix d’une violence extrême exercée sur les populations, s’emparent des ressources du pays, les exportent, et dépensent les recettes ainsi dégagées en achetant à l’étranger des biens d’une totale inutilité sociale autre que symbolique de leur capacité de violence. Ils ruinent les pays en pompant la force de travail des corps subalternes qui sont réduits à la misère. La réponse de la partie la plus dynamique de ces populations, c’est la fuite, les pirogues vers l’Europe. (…) A l’époque, des compagnies européennes apportaient en Afrique des biens tout aussi inutiles et destructeurs, comme la verroterie, l’alcool et les armes. Elles les remettaient aux élites qui organisaient la chasse aux esclaves. Déjà, le pillage permettait aux élites d’accéder aux biens de consommation importés. Aujourd’hui, le système s’est perfectionné puisque les esclaves se livrent eux-mêmes : ce sont les émigrés. (…) Si vous voulez comprendre le système de la traite négrière, observez le comportement actuel des élites africaines. Pourquoi nos systèmes de santé et d’éducation sont-ils aussi vétustes ? Parce que les élites ne s’y soignent pas et n’y éduquent pas leurs enfants, ils préfèrent les pays du Nord. Leur système de prédation ruine les campagnes et contraint les populations à s’exiler. Au point qu’aujourd’hui, si vous mettez un bateau dans n’importe quel port africain et proclamez que vous cherchez des esclaves pour l’Europe, le bateau va se remplir immédiatement. Certes, ce système fonctionne au bénéfice des multinationales, mais il n’existerait pas sans des élites africaines. A l’époque de la traite négrière, l’alcool et les fusils achetés aux Européens leur permettaient de se maintenir au pouvoir. Désormais ce sont les 4 × 4 et les kalachnikovs. (…) A l’époque de la guerre froide, les leaders africains jouaient déjà l’Occident contre le communisme pour obtenir le maximum. Aujourd’hui, ils peuvent miser sur la Chine, l’Inde, l’Iran, contre l’ancienne puissance coloniale, mais ils conservent leur culture de prédation. Pour les peuples africains, cela ne change rien. Tant que nos élites se contenteront de multiplier leurs partenaires pour leur livrer les matières premières et non développer la production, elles reproduiront le système qui a mis l’Afrique à genoux. (…) On était parti de l’idée que la toute-puissance de l’Etat appuyée sur un parti unique allait assurer le développement. On allait rattraper l’Europe en 2000 ! Par référence à la toute-puissance de l’Etat colonial, on a fétichisé l’Etat. Cela s’est avéré totalement inefficace parce que le groupe qui s’est emparé de l’Etat s’est servi de son pouvoir pour accumuler des richesses en étouffant l’initiative privée. Dès la fin des années 1970, le système a capoté. Les anciennes métropoles ont délégué le soutien financier au FMI et à la Banque mondiale qui ont disqualifié les Etats et promis le développement par le marché. Cela a produit des catastrophes encore plus graves que l’Etat. (…) On a « ONGisé » les sociétés pour suppléer les services publics. Ces organisations ont structuré la société civile, mais elles ont été récupérées par les élites. Les groupes qui détournaient l’argent de l’Etat accaparent désormais les ressources des ONG pour financer d’inutiles colloques ainsi que des flottes de 4 × 4, symboles de la néocolonisation de l’Afrique et agents actifs de détérioration de son environnement. (…) Certains intellectuels contestent radicalement le fonctionnement des Etats, mais c’est pour mieux négocier leur place. Du jour au lendemain, ils se retrouvent ministres du pouvoir qu’ils vilipendaient la veille. L’idée selon laquelle on accède aux ressources non par le travail mais par la simple posture politique est profondément ancrée. (…) L’Afrique est le seul continent où la majorité de la population n’a pas envie de rester. Cette situation est liée au choix des élites africaines qui, au moment de la traite, ont détruit l’artisanat et la métallurgie, préférant acheter le fer venu d’Europe, soumettre et vendre ceux qui auraient pu assurer la production. Ce mépris des productions locales reste flagrant. Quand le président sénégalais Abdoulaye Wade reçoit le khalife des mourides, il lui offre non pas des chaussures fabriquées au Sénégal, mais un tableau fabriqué en Iran, son chef du protocole insistant devant les caméras sur ce point. (…) Nous avons toutes les ressources pour nous en sortir. Allez dans n’importe quel marché à 5 heures du matin, vous verrez des centaines de femmes qui suent sang et eau pour nourrir leur famille. Nous n’avons rien à apprendre du point de vue du courage physique. Notre problème, c’est ce groupe qui a militarisé les sociétés africaines à partir de la traite atlantique en connivence avec les compagnies européennes pour insuffler cette culture de prédation. Ibrahima Thioub (université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar)

L’Enuma Elish est un mythe babylonien ou mésopotamien de la création racontant la lutte entre le chaos et l’ordre cosmique. Il s’agit essentiellement d’un mythe du cycle des saisons. Il est nommé d’après ses premiers mots et était récité le quatrième jour du festival du nouvel an de la Babylone antique. L’histoire de base existe sous des formes diverses dans la région. Cette version est écrite en akkadien, un vieux dialecte Babylonien et présente Marduk, la divinité protectrice de la ville de Babylone. Une version antérieure similaire en sumérien ancienne a pour héros Anu, Enil et Ninurta, ce qui suggère que cette version fut adaptée pour justifier les pratiques religieuses dans le culte de Marduk à Babylone. Cette version a été écrite dans le courant du XIIe siècle avant J.-C. dans l’écriture cunéiforme sur sept tablettes d’argile. Ils ont été trouvés au milieu du XIXe siècle dans les ruines du Palais d’Ashurbanipal à Ninive. George Smith a publié ces textes en 1876 comme la « Genèse chaldéenne ». En raison de nombreuses similitudes avec le récit de la Genèse, certains historiens ont conclu que le récit de la Genèse était simplement une réécriture de l’histoire babylonienne. Par réaction, beaucoup de ceux qui voulaient conserver le caractère unique de la Bible ont prétendu soit qu’il y n’avait aucun parallèle réél entre ces récits ou que les récits de la Genèse avaient été écrits en premier, et que le mythe babylonien avait emprunté au récit biblique. Cependant, il y a simplement trop de similitudes pour nier toute relation entre ces récits. Il existe également des différences importantes qui ne doivent pas être ignorées. Pourtant, il y a peu de doute que les versions sumériennes de l’histoire ont précédé le récit biblique de plusieurs centaines d’années. Au lieu d’opter pour les deux extrêmes de la dépendance totale ou d’aucun contact quel qu’il soit, il est préférable de voir les récits de la Genèse comme la libre utilisation des métaphores et du symbolisme d’un ensemble culturel commun pour affirmer leur propre théologie au sujet de Dieu. Dennis Bratcher

Le mythe de création babylonien, Enuma Elish, décrit une grande bataille entre les dieux, principalement entre Mardouk, le champion des dieux et Tiamat, l’océan primitif ou le « profond ». Parfois Tiamat est dépeint comme un grand serpent, le dragon du chaos ou le dragon de la mer. Mardouk surmonta ses forces et Tiamat et brisa son corps en deux parties pour faire le ciel, les étoiles, le soleil et la lune de la moitié et la terre de l’autre. Du sang du mari battu de Tiamat Kingu, un des dieux moindre, Ea (Enki) créa ensuite l’humanité pour être les serviteurs des dieux afin qu’ils n’aient plus jamais à travailler à nouveau.

Enfin, Kingu a été mis en évidence et tué, et de son sang, Marduk a formé des êtres humains pour servir lui et ses alliés afin qu’ils n’aient plus jamais à travailler. Après tout cela, la famille construit une belle maison dans lequel Marduk pourrait se détendre. Ils appelèrent l’endroit de Babylone, et reposant de Marduk et ses amis, manger et boire, alors que tout le monde chante les louanges de la grand libérateur Marduk par récitation 50 noms qui lui donna un hommage.

Les Israélites emprunté le langage culturel de Canaan, parce que cette langue était le meilleur, peut-être le seul, moyen à leur disposition dans leur contexte culturel pour formuler des observations sur le monde physique et les liens de Dieu à ce monde. Il n’y a pas d’autres catégories de pensée pour décrire ce que nous appelons les processus « naturels ». En fait, il n’y a aucun mot équivalent dans la langue hébraïque pour ce que nous entendons par « nature ». Les Israélites ne pouvaient pas parler de la « nature » comme un ensemble de forces naturelles. Il ne pouvaient parler que de Dieu. Pourtant, ils diffèrent radicalement des Cananéens et des cultures environnantes en refusant de considérer comme synonymes Dieu et le monde physique. Ils n’utilisaient pas les mythes pour articuler leur compréhension de Dieu. Ils n’avaient qu’un niveau historique et donc se séparèrent de l’Antiquité. Mais les Israélites n’ont pas quitté leur culture. Ils ne firent pas de percées radicales dans l’observation du monde physique. Si on les laissait au langage du mythe que de parler du monde physique, même quand ils l’ont compris en termes de création de Dieu. Ils utilisaient, non pas le contenu et les hypothèses du mythe lui-même, mais le langage du mythe pour témoigner de la relation de Dieu au monde physique comme créateur et libérateur. Dennis Bratcher

Les mythes parlent de quelque chose sur le plan cosmique, en essayant de décrire les forces invisibles qui façonnent l’existence humaine. Cependant, la Bible n’est pas directement mythologique, parce que la prémisse fondamentale de l’écriture, découlant de l’expérience d’Israël de Dieu est que Dieu se révèle dans l’histoire. Il n’est pas « là-bas » à un certain niveau cosmique, mais se révèle ici où nous vivons comme des êtres humains. En contraste frappant avec la mythologie des Cananéens, Israël a commencé à développer une vue très incarnée de Dieu très tôt dans son histoire. Cela ne signifie pas qu’Israël ait abandonné rapidement tous les vestiges du polythéisme ou la vision du monde mythologique qui lui est associée. Il faudra aux Israélites près de 800 ans de lutte acharnée pour tracer clairement ce nouveau chemin d’accès entre les nations. Pourtant, ce qui était souvent la voix de la minorité en Israël compris, c’est que Dieu avait choisi d’entrer en relation avec l’humanité dans l’arène où nous vivons. Israël savait ce qu’il savait au sujet de Dieu non pas parce qu’il avait projeté ses idées « là-bas » quelque part, ou spéculé sur ce que Dieu était, ou ce qu’il pourrait être, ou devrait être, ou ce dont ils avaient besoin qu’il soit. Ils savaient quelque chose au sujet de Dieu, car à un moment donné dans l’histoire humaine, un groupe de personnes se trouvait au bord de la mer des roseaux avait vu Dieu à l’œuvre. Et en tant que chrétiens, nous savons ce que nous savons au sujet de Dieu, non pas parce que nous sommes devenus plus sophistiqués dans nos spéculations ou notre enquête scientifique que les Israélites, mais parce qu’à un autre moment, un autre groupe de personnes se trouvait sous une croix et sur une tombe à l’extérieur de Jérusalem et a vu Dieu à l’œuvre dans l’histoire humaine.

Ce fait sépare non seulement l’écriture des mythes de l’antiquité en lui donnant une base solide dans l’histoire humaine, il souligne également deux aspects de la compréhension de la Bible et de ces récits de la Genèse, qui sont cruciales. Tout d’abord, les préoccupations des Israélites qui ont écrit ce matériau avaient à voir avec comment ils venaient à réconcilier avec cette compréhension radicalement nouvelle de la déité, et comment cela pourrait être vécu dans le monde dans lequel ils vivaient. Les gens qui ont écrit L’Ecriture, qui ont signalé et réfléchi sur les choses qu’ils avaient vues et entendues, cette personne ou une collectivité qui a écrit la Genèse, qu’ont-ils essayé de communiquer ? Qu’est-ce qu’ils essayaient de dire ? Quelles préoccupations se trouvaient  derrière les confessions de foi qu’ils faisaient au sujet de Dieu ? Ils étaient les plus susceptibles de ne pas essayer de nous parler de l’évolution, ou d’attaquer la science ou d’enterrer des codes secrets dans le texte au sujet de la troisième guerre mondiale ! Ce qu’ils devaient dire était quelque chose qui dirait aux gens que Ba’al n’est pas Dieu ! Que Baal ne fait pas pleuvoir. Que Baal ne contrôle pas le monde. Ils avaient besoin de déplacer les gens au-delà de la superstition et de la magie comme façon de comprendre la Déité. Ils avaient besoin d’affirmer le Dieu qu’ils avaient rencontrées dans l’Exode de telle sorte que les gens adorent et servent au lieu de fréquenter les temples de Ba’al et d’essayer de manipuler le monde par la magie.

Le seul arrière-plan qu’ils avaient pour ce faire au niveau de la communication était la culture dans laquelle ils vivaient. Donc ils ne vont pas nous donner des explications scientifiques sur ce qui fait pleuvoir qui répondrait à nos esprits du XXIe siècle. Ils n’avaient que deux choix. Si quelqu’un demandait à un Israélite de l’ancien Testament, « ce qui fait pleuvoir? », ils auraient dit soit « Ba’al fait pleuvoir » soit « Dieu fait pleuvoir. » Il n’y n’avait tout simplement aucun autre moyen de le dire ! Pourtant, quand ils commencent à décrire comment Dieu fait pleuvoir, ils décrivent un Dieu monté sur un nuage de tonnerre du désert, c’est-à-dire qu’ils diraient si ils étaient Cananéens adorer Ba’al. Ils nous raconteraient du pareil au même, sauf que c’est Dieu dont ils parlent plutôt que de Ba’al. Ces perspectives culturelles sont le seul cadre de référence qu’ils ont ; ils ne peuvent pas décrire le monde ou Dieu en termes de nos perspectives modernes, afin qu’ils utilisent le seul langage et symboles et métaphores, qu’ils doivent témoigner de cette foi radicalement nouvelle en un Dieu créateur unique. Dans quelle autre culture pourraient-ils écrire à part la leur ? Si nous ne leur permettons pas dans le texte biblique, alors nous devons faire d’autres hypothèses au sujet de l’Ecriture qui nous dépasse immédiatement le texte et son propre univers. La prise en charge doit alors être, sous une forme quelconque, qu’ils n’écrivent vraiment pas beaucoup le cas échéant de la Bible et au lieu de cela, Dieu a écrit ou leur a dit ce qu’il fallait écrire. Pourtant, après avoir examiné attentivement le texte, avec toutes les particularités de la langue hébraïque, avec toutes les métaphores qui ont des parallèles dans le monde culturel antique, avec tous les problèmes qui sont bien enracinés dans les problèmes de l’antiquité, je pense que c’est une erreur de faire de telles suppositions. Peut-être que le texte dit plus là dans leur culture que nous ne l’imaginions, si nous l’écoutons attentivement. Dennis Bratcher

Attention: une libération peut en cacher une autre !

En cette nouvelle journée de Sabbat qui commence …

Pendant qu’à tous les étages continuent les dérives victimaires …

Où la Bible célèbre la libération, par l’Eternel notre Dieu, du peuple hébreu de l’esclavage d’Egypte …

Comment ne pas voir, avec  Dennis Bratcher, cette autre libération rappelée par la Genèse …

Celle du Dieu créateur qui nous délivrait du dieu esclavagiste babylonien Mardouk …

Qui lui prétendait libérer les dieux en asservissant les hommes ?

Genesis Bible Study

Lesson One: Listening to the Text

Dennis Bratcher

Introduction

In this series of studies in Genesis, we will begin with some preliminary considerations about how we view Scripture and how we go about reading and studying the Bible as Scripture. Of course, this involves a lot of issues that move outside the Genesis narratives. But they are issues that directly impact how we understand these particular passages. There are a lot of issues that could be covered. However, rather than trying to cover all the ranges of possibility for interpretation and try to define what is or isn’t right or wrong with all of the possible perspectives, this study instead will concentrate on one particular way of hearing the biblical text. It is not presented as the only way, nor even the best way, but only as one method by which we can hear the biblical message perhaps in new ways.

The Problem of Modern Thinking

In this first lesson I would like to focus on some principals or ways of thinking related to how we read and interpret Scripture. I think we need to do this before we move into actually working with the Genesis passages, because how we come to Scripture and the way we think about Scripture as we come to it, affects how we can hear it and what we get out of it.

Particularly the first three or four chapters of Genesis have tended to be battle grounds for all kinds of speculation, some good and some bad, some helpful and some extremely divisive in the community of Faith. The goal here is to move beyond the debates and the battles and hear anew these passages as the living and active word of God for the Community of Faith. By allowing the debates and controversies to dominate, and to stake out certain positions ahead of time and then come at the text through those positions simply guarantees that we will end up discussing things about the text yet never really get to the message of the text itself. We end up talking all around the text about what it should be, what it ought to be or, what we think it is and never really get to the point of hearing what the text itself is actually saying. I simply think that it is time for us to hear what the text itself says in relation to the Community of Faith that is bearing witness to us about its encounter and journey with God. That, I think, is what it means for the Bible to be Scripture for the Christian community today.

[The following comments refer to the graphic Three Triads of Biblical Interpretation. It might be helpful to print off that graphic or have it cached in the browser for quick reference in the following discussion.]

What we tend to do as we casually read Scripture is to approach the Bible as if it were a sequentially written historical account that is simply recounting events for us to follow through history. On the accompanying graphic, The Three Triads of Biblical Interpretation, this is illustrated in the far left hand column, in assuming that we read the Bible on that level of the history, the event, the individual stories. From this perspective, when we read Scripture we think we are accessing the Bible, entering into the biblical message, on that level of the historical event. We than move from historical event over to application to our lives (on the chart the « down » arrows on the right side that lead to « Application for Spiritual Living Today »). We tend to think that the historical event relates directly to how we apply it to our lives: so as this happened to a certain individual, so it works that same way in our lives today.

Dealing With the Actual Shape of the Biblical Text

I think there is a serious problem with how we come to Scripture in this way of thinking, and I would like to suggest a different way of approaching Scripture. A much easier way to talk about this and illustrate it is to begin in the New Testament, since the difficulties with this assumption are much easier to demonstrate from the Gospel accounts where we have parallel accounts of the same events. Often we approach the Gospel narratives with these same assumptions, that we are reading a sequential historical account that is simply telling us in a matter of fact way what happened, what Jesus said and did. This is reinforced if we happen to be using a « red letter » edition of the New Testament. When we read those narratives and we see the words of Jesus in red, it is easy to assume that we are reading the actual words that Jesus spoke, especially since they are in quotation marks in our English Bible (none of the three languages in which the Bible was originally written, Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek have quotations marks; those are added by translators to conform to English usage, and are sometimes solely at the discretion of the translator where they are placed).

So, we read the text with the mental assumption that these are the very words of Jesus. This assumes that we are entering the Gospel accounts through the left side of the chart, through the level of historical event. In terms of simply reading the story as a historical narrative that superficial level of reading presents little difficulty.

However, when we move to study of the text for its theological message it raises serious problems. There are many places in the New Testament Gospels where we read the red letters, and then turn to a parallel passage in one of the other Gospels and find something different in some way. For example, we can read something in Mark’s Gospel and find notes in the margin directing us to the other Gospels where a parallel account is recorded. Yet when we turn to the parallel, for example to Luke, we find that there are differences. Sometimes there will be differences of single words, sometimes there will be differences in whole sentences, sometimes it will be in a totally different historical context, or sometimes the event will be in different setting or location.

Take for instance, in Luke, the return of Jesus to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth (Lk 4:16-30). If we compare that event in Luke with the versions of Matthew (13:54-58) and Mark (6:1-6), there are significant differences in how the incident is reported and what is recorded that Jesus said (John does not tell us about this incident, which raises the same question from a different perspective; that is, why did John omit this incident?). For example, Luke tells us about the passage Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll, a feature omitted in both other accounts. Also, the comment that Jesus made about being accepted in his home town is very different in Luke than in Matthew and Mark. In fact, even the words differ between Matthew and Mark.

And it is interesting to note the very different placement of this event in the story line of the Gospels. Matthew and Mark both place this event well into the Galilean ministry of Jesus after he had performed many specific public acts. He had raised the dead (Jairus’ daughter), had healed the lepers, had cast out demons particularly around the area of Capernaum, and then had returned to Nazareth. Yet in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ return to his hometown is the first public thing that he does after his baptism. Luke knows of other activities of Jesus, but he clearly wants us to see his return to Nazareth at the beginning of his ministry. In Luke, Jesus first returned to Nazareth and was driven away from his hometown, and then he expanded his ministry into the area around Capernaum by casting out the demons and raising Jairus’ daughter. It is obvious with a little careful reading that not only are the words of Jesus different in Luke, the chronology is also very different.

Significance and Importance for Faith

What this tells us is that we are not really listening to the kind of history that we might think we are by only a superficial reading. It is not that this is something less than history, in the sense that it is based on the real life activity of Jesus. But it is not the kind of matter-of-fact reporting of details that we would expect in a carefully constructed, scientifically investigated, data-based reporting of historical fact. Obviously, something very different is going on in these writings, and it is a serious mistake to think that we are simply reading the same kind of history book that we would write to report the data of event.

What I would like to suggest is that we take these features of the biblical text seriously and direct our attention to what the biblical text itself actually does in telling these stories, rather than trying to impose on the biblical text our ideas of what it ought to be in terms of modern history writing. Here is the observation that will underlie this study: what we have access to in Scripture is not directly historical event, but the testimony of the community of faith to the ongoing significance and importance for Faith of that event. It is that significance and importance for Faith that the biblical witness is communicating, not just the historical details and data.

When we pick up this book, this Bible, we need to realize that it is a piece of literature, it is a writing. It is the written testimony of the community of faith as that community has already interpreted the significance and importance of the biblical events. In other words, we do not have direct access to the left column of history and event; we only have access through the middle column of literature and author and community as they bear witness of things they have seen and heard (1 John 1:1-4). The middle column suggests that what we have in Scripture is not directly the historical event but someone telling us about the historical event. What we have in the Bible is testimony in the form of literature. The access that we have to Scripture is on the level of literature, of reading what people, what the community of Faith, are telling us.

That still has connection to history. One of our primary faith affirmations as Christians, along with Jews, is that God has revealed himself in history. That means the Bible is not mythological, like the myths of the Greeks, Romans, and Canaanites that simply personified the processes of nature into gods and then told stories about those gods as if they actually existed someplace in the cosmos. The Bible is anchored solidly in human history, which is simply another way to say that we believe God revealed himself directly in human history. He doesn’t operate on some cosmic abstract level like the gods of the Canaanites or Romans, but he really meets people where they are. So that historical level is valid and important. We believe that Jesus walked in a physical body, in a physical place, at a physical time in human history; that’s why we talk about the Incarnation. God incarnated himself and revealed himself in history. It is not a myth or a story about the gods that helps explain why the physical world works the way it does.

Scripture as Testimony

Yet, what we have in scripture is a community of faith’s testimony to that history, not the history itself. For example, John’s Gospel, as well as the First Johannine epistle (referenced above, 1 John 1:1-4), clearly tells us that the author is selecting certain events and writing about the things that he has seen and heard. That is testimony. But it is testimony aimed at a specific purpose, and that purpose will shape how the story will be told, what is included or excluded, even to how events are remembered, arranged, and connected together, even to how the words of Jesus are remembered and told (since contrary to modern thinking, in the ancient world exact words were not recorded, but the intent or the message was remembered).

At the end of John’s Gospel he tells us: « There are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the whole world could not contain the books that would be written. » (Jn 21:25). And he had already told us earlier in the book: « Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might come to believe [or « go on believing »] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you might have life in his name. » (Jn 20:30-31). He is selective and he represents a community of faith that is choosing certain aspects of history and interpreting them to instruct us in the faith. The focus is not on duplicating the exact events that happened in all their details, or even in getting the chronology of events all sorted out or making sure that the exact words of Jesus were repeated. The intent was to bear witness to who Jesus was and to call people to faith based on their acceptance of that witness. The writing serves that purpose, not the interests of our modern curiosity for historical data or details.

So, our access to Scripture is on the level of literature, which means we are really entering at the center column of the chart. As we read and study the biblical text, we are listening to literature written by an author who represents a community of faith. We are listening to the testimony of a community. That has several implications.

The biblical text is not direct reporting of history, it’s not just facts. Sometimes people make the comparison that history is like football scores because there is no interpretation of football scores. They are just data. But any sports fan will quickly tell you that the score does not always tell you the story of the game. In fact, the score may not at all reflect what went on in the game itself, or even the significance of the game.

What we are listening to in Scripture, at least in terms of the Gospels, is a community of faith picking and choosing events based on how that community of faith understood their significance, and what that community wanted or needed to say in relation to its own location in history. They knew the significance because they knew the end of the story. When we start reading in Luke, for example, the account of Mary at the birth of Jesus, we need to realize that Luke knows the end of the story when he tells us about those events. He is not writing it as it unfolds but he knows about the crucifixion and the resurrection. In fact, if Luke wrote the book of Acts as most scholars believe he did, he also knows about Pentecost and the origin of the church. Luke is actually writing somewhere around the year AD 80, or about 60 years after the crucifixion.

What Luke tells us about the birth of Jesus is shaped and guided by what he knows came later. So when he tells us that the Holy Spirit came to Mary, or the Holy Spirit came on Jesus at his baptism, or that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, or that Jesus returned from Nazareth in the power of the Spirit (features which the other Gospels omit!), we know that Luke is telling us those things from the perspective of the work of the Spirit at Pentecost and in the early church. He wants us to know the story from the perspective of God’s total work in the Incarnation, something that Mary or Elizabeth could not possibly have known at the time from their perspective. And he is emphasizing aspects of that significance that none of the other Gospel writers do. That means that we are not really listening to Mary and Elizabeth, but we are listening to Luke interpret those events from far the other side of the resurrection for his own purposes in the community of which he is a part. That is a crucial observation in understanding how to read biblical literature for its theological message!

The third (right hand) column on the chart simply says that the bottom line of what we are doing is theology. The reason we are studying Scripture is so we can learn something about God. We enter the biblical text on the level of literature as we listen to the community of Faith interpret and bear witness of the historical revelation of God. Yet, the purpose of listening to their testimony is to understand what they tell us about God, about ourselves, and our relationship with God so we can apply it today in our lives. We can understand, not just how God worked with them at a certain point in the past, but how he works with us now so we will know how to live, the application for spiritual guidance today.

The Implications of a Literary Approach

Now, it will be helpful for us to consider some of the implications of looking at Scripture through the lens of testimonial literature rather than trying to find historical details. Several observations will help us as we work thorough Genesis. One observation that we are not used to making as we look through the lens of historical reporting is that things are not always exactly as they appear on the surface in Scripture; it does not always just mean what it says!

This is one advantage of thinking literature as we read Scripture, because that lets us be sensitive to such literary features as sarcasm, irony, word plays, and narrative technique. It raises questions such as how an author in a community uses literature to communicate. That raises other issues, such as taking seriously the kind of literature with which we are dealing as a tool for helping us understand it. For example if we read Gulliver’s Travels and think we are reading a history of England, we are going to conclude some strange things about English history and never really hear what the author wants us to hear. Or if we pick up C. S. Lewis and read the Chronicles of Narnia or his space trilogy and think we are reading history on the one hand, or simply children’s fantasy on the other, we will have badly misunderstood the writing. Both assumptions will cause us to miss the beautifully true allegory of the Christian faith.

As a side observation at this point, we need to realize that there are two different levels of how we can read Scripture: exegetical study and devotional reading (See the article Devotional and Exegetical Reading of Scripture). Many people read scripture devotionally from a particular life situation as a means of communion with God. That is often reflected in statements like « God gave me this verse, » or « This passage has always meant a lot to me. » It is not that those insights or valuing of the biblical stories are wrong; it’s just that the « meanings » may not at all be related to the text itself because they are meanings imposed onto the text from a particular need and a particular life situation. And those « meanings » will most often differ widely from person to person even on the same verse since they are not really based on an understanding of the text itself.

Part of the reason we develop methods and techniques for exegetical study is to develop a common ground and common ways of reading the text. Hopefully, that will allow us to hear what the author is saying without going in all different directions or imposing our own needs and meaning onto the biblical text. That will not always happen, since we all work with certain assumptions and all come at the biblical text from a certain life situation that shapes what we ask and how we hear the answer, but hopefully in exegesis there is a little more common ground. I don’t think we can, in most places in Scripture, simply pick up the text and read it and understand the depth of its message. That does not say that we cannot understand Scripture or that it can’t impact our lives and change us. But it does suggest that to probe the depths of the truth of Scripture, and for it to become the living and active word of God, we will have to put out some effort to hear the testimony beyond our preconceived ideas and what we already think it means.

Theology as Story: The Role of Narrative

Since many of the guidelines we will be using in this study are covered in the article Guidelines for Interpreting Biblical Narrative, I won’t take the time to repeat them here. I will simply make a few additional observations and then address questions on the discussion forum that might arise from it.

Almost all the passages that we study in Genesis will be narrative, or will occur in a narrative context (e.g., genealogies). I have used the terms « story » and « narrative » interchangeably simply to designate a particular type of literature. « Story » does not suggest that it is false of fiction, only that it is narrative as opposed to prayer or prophecy or other types of literature.

Even by identifying this type of literature as narrative gives us some parameters for interpretation. Most narrative, especially narrative from the world of the Ancient Near East, intends to do something other than describe how things really are or « what really happened. » Our scientific methodology tends to use descriptions to try to duplicate external reality. For example, if I were to ask someone to describe something or if I would ask someone to describe another person, we would try to describe the external « reality » of the other person in terms of physical appearance, such as how many feet and inches tall they are, what color of hair they have, etc. We would use physical descriptors to try to describe them in time and space and physical reality. It would probably take us a little while to get around to describing them in terms of more abstract qualities, who they are as persons beyond external appearance such as personality, likes and dislikes, etc., the qualities of the person.

What I am suggesting here is that the Bible is primarily concerned with qualitative description, and only rarely if ever directly concerned with physical appearance except as a function of that quality. -1- For example, Saul is described as being head and shoulders above all the rest of the people (1 Sam 9:2). We translate that into our way of thinking as a reference to how tall he was, and would probably start trying to figure out how many feet and inches (or meters) that would be. But in the narrative thought world of the Old Testament, his height was not a matter of appearance, and therefore physical description, but was a way metaphorically and in a narrative context to say something about the quality of the person; that is, they only told us this bit of detail as a metaphorical way to describe him as a leader (more obvious in 1 Sam 10:23-24).

Likewise, David is described as having a ruddy complexion which doesn’t just describe the color of his hair or complexion but tells us he is a very young, analogous to our expressions « red-faced kid » or « wet behind the ears. » This feature is evident in several ways in biblical narrative, even showing up in the Hebrew language itself. In Hebrew there are no single words for color as simple abstractions; color words are words that relate to objects in life that exhibit that color, and when those terms are applied as descriptors in narrative, they become metaphors for aspects of objects that go beyond pigmentation.

For example, to say gray in Hebrew we would use a word that would also mean « old. » Or, to put it the other way, to say « old » we could use a word that means « gray » (e.g., Gen 42:38, Deut 32:25, etc.). The same is true of other colors: green for freshness, newness or youth (Gen 1:30, Jud 16:7. etc.), blood for red which is then used to refer to violence, etc. This simply suggests a different way of thinking, a different approach to reality. All of those descriptors we read about in the Old Testament are not just physical descriptors, they are quality descriptors. They are not trying to draw for us a picture of the external world, but they are trying to involve us in understanding what it is like on an experiential level. Biblical narratives are not trying to duplicate external reality, they are trying to share experience and then call us to respond to that experience.

Features of Narrative: Two Horizons

Narratives have particular features that can be used to identify them as narrative. The type of literature, the genre of literature called narrative, can usually be identified by three major features: a setting, characters, and a plot or the flow of the story that moves from stasis (or equilibrium) to conflict to resolution (climax and dénouement) to anticlimax or restored stability. Sometimes even recognizing these features of a narrative is important in understanding the message of the story.

The setting includes the historical, cultural, and social context of the narrative, and sometimes will even include aspects like geographical location that are factors in the narrative. One of the most difficult aspects of setting with which readers of Scripture must come to terms in understanding biblical narrative is that there are always two different historical contexts at work in the story. First, the setting of the narrative itself must be taken seriously as the immediate context of the story. It does not matter whether the context is improbable or illogical, because the setting of the story itself tells us how the story is to be heard. Some passages may require an attempt to find out more, if possible, about the historical setting in order to understand the narrative, but it must be kept in mind that the historical setting is just that: a setting. The truth or message of the passages does not lie in the historical setting.

The second setting of the narrative is the setting of the narrator telling us the story. He is situated in his own historical, cultural, and social context, and we need constantly to be aware of the « voice » of the narrator in the story. We will miss much of the significance and message of the story if we forget the role of the narrator, or forget that often the events or narrative being presented is being recounted by an author, a community, sometimes hundreds of years after the events themselves are presented as occurring.

This is easy to see in much of the historical material of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, which are obviously telling Israel’s history from the perspective of the Babylonian exile. We have already observed the same features at work in the Gospel narratives, in which the Gospel writers are recounting the narratives about Jesus 60, 80 or 100 years after he lived. That means we have two historical settings and two political realities with which to deal. For example, it is fairly obvious in John’s gospel that they are hearing and telling the events about Jesus’ life in the context of various severe persecutions in the church under which they were suffering toward the end of the first century. They are applying the Gospel message to the needs of that community at that time, and understanding that second context helps us understand the biblical text in John.

These two time references of the setting of the story and the setting of the narrator are sometimes called the two horizons of the text. It is a wise and skilled reader of Scripture who is constantly aware of both horizons. There is also a third time frame that we must consider in interpreting biblical texts. That is the time frame of the reader, us, as we bring yet another horizon or perspective to the text. Sensitivity to these different time frames of the text will not guarantee a correct interpretation, but neglecting them will almost insure an inadequate if not wrong interpretation.

As we will see, cultural setting will also play a very large role in some texts, as in the first chapters of Genesis. That cultural setting is not obvious directly in the text, but when we become sensitive to the cultural context in which the Israelites lived who are telling us this story, the features of the text that seem obscure take on new clarity. How we hear certain kinds of words and metaphors comes from a cultural background, and we have to realize that the cultural background of the biblical text is not ours, and that it is simply assumed and not explained in the biblical text.

At this point, we will have to put forth some effort to understand the world of the ancient Israelites. Sometimes it is hard for us to realize that the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is an oriental book. We live in a Western culture. The thought world of Oriental culture is radically different from the thought world of Western culture, particularly when we recall that there is a period of three thousand years between us and that culture. We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is not our world, and this is not our culture. Again, this does not mean that we can’t understand Scripture; it simply means we are going to have to put out some effort to understand the cultural background. They were writing from within their culture for that time. They were not writing three thousand years in the future for our time and our culture. That’s why they are not writing about evolution in Genesis 1; that’s 3,000 years in their future. They were not concerned with evolution in Genesis 1. They were not concerned with our problems nor were they trying to answer the questions we would ask.

The next question is, with what were they concerned? What were the issues facing that community? The answers to this crucial question will begin to emerge as we work thorough the Bible study. The clues to those concerns are in the biblical text that we will be studying, if we continue to remind ourselves that the authors of this text were Israelites who lived 3,000 years ago! They lived in a radically different world than the one with which we are familiar. Yet, they encountered God in ways that allowed them to understand him and bear witness to us of that understanding, an understanding that we still affirm as true after 3,000 years! It is that truth that we seek to hear anew in this Bible study.

Notes

1. « One of the most interesting features encountered in the reading of the Old Testament is the almost complete absence of visual descriptions of person or objects. In reading the description of the Garden in Eden, we search in vain for a pictorial view. In the description of Noah’s ark we completely fail to form a mental picture of what the ark looked like based on the biblical description. And even the more intricately detailed description of the building of the tabernacle and its furnishings fails adequately to describe the Tabernacle visually. » Dennis Bratcher, « Hebrew Thought Forms, » Unpublished Master’s Thesis, 1977.

Voir aussi:

Genesis Bible Study

Lesson Two: The Cultural Context of Israel

Dennis Bratcher

Historical and Cultural Background

There are two major hurdles that often prevent us from hearing the stories in Genesis. First, we tend to think that Israel emerged in a vacuum, fully formed and totally mature, nearly Christian, in their religious thinking. There are a lot of other factors that go into us making this assumption, such as ideas about the nature of Scripture forged in the 19th century (AD!), but the effect is that we have a hard time seeing Scripture against the cultural and historical background of the people who wrote it. Second, partly because of some of those same factors, we tend to assume that the Bible is directly addressing our concerns. We tend to spiritualize the text into addressing our questions without first asking what questions the text itself is actually addressing.

Both of these hurdles will take some effort to surmount, especially in these first chapters of Genesis, which are overlaid with centuries of interpretations and which have become battlegrounds for all sorts of religious wars. In addition to the guidelines expressed earlier, the goal here is to look at the biblical text in terms of: 1) the cultural and historical background of ancient Israel, especially as it shapes concerns and affects communication, and 2) the concerns with which that biblical community is dealing in the text, seen against the cultural and historical background and expressed in how the text tells its story. (See Guidelines for Interpreting Biblical Narratives). Two further principles will also guide this analysis: 3) the text is primarily theology, telling us about God, humanity, and their relationship; and 4) the text itself and its background are the primary object of analysis, with the guideline « stick to the text » intended to exclude interpretations imported from systematic theology or doctrinal assertions.

The Cultural Setting of the Ancient World

Let me begin by telling a story about a man named Apsu. Apsu was an old, gray haired man married to Tiamat. They had lots of children and grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren who all lived around him. Apsu needed his rest and liked to take long afternoon naps. One day he stormed to his wife complaining that the younger children were so boisterous day and night that he could never get enough rest. Tiamat had noticed the rowdiness of the kids as well, but she was a little taken aback at Apsu’s solution. He had decided that to silence the kids so he could get some rest that he would simply kill all the noisemakers and be done with it.

But before he could carry out his plan, one of his great-grandsons, Ea, found out about it. Catching Tiamat away from the house, Ea used his magical powers to cast a spell over Apsu. When he was asleep under the spell, Ea stole the symbols of Apsu’s position over the household, and killed him as he slept. Ea then settled into Apsu’s house and intended to take control of the family.

When Tiamat returned home and discovered that Ea had killed her husband she was enraged. She began assembling some of the children who supported her and prepared to do battle with Ea to take vengeance on him and his family for their treachery. She took a new husband, Kingu, and appointed him as commander of the army she was assembling. She also enlisted the aid of all the dragons and sea monsters, snakes and wild animals to help her fight Ea.

In the meantime Ea found out about the planned attack from Tiamat and her followers. He was understandably depressed that all the children seemed to be following Tiamat and that he found himself outnumbered. He sought out the counsel of his remaining allies, who agreed that Tiamat must be stopped, but none were able to face her. Finally, his advisors suggested that Ea consult his son Marduk, who was greatly respected in the family, to see what he would do. After being told of the problem, Marduk was scornful that a mere woman would come against Ea with weapons. He agreed to do battle with Tiamat, but only if he would be elevated to the head of the family. Ea and the children agreed and gave him great power, so Marduk took charge of the campaign.

He sent word challenging Tiamat who accepted in a fit of rage. The battle was fierce, but Marduk unleashed a magic wind that partially disabled her, and then with a well placed arrow, Marduk killed Tiamat. He immediately enslaved all her followers, including her husband Kingu. After tying up the lifeless body of Tiamat, he smashed her head with a mace, and then severed strategic arteries so that her blood ran all over the ground. Then he split her body in half. With one half Marduk formed the sky and with the other half he made the earth, with boundaries and guardians to keep each in its place. He continued making the stars and the sun and moon to establish seasons, months, and years. The children were all assigned roles in making certain that the boundaries were observed and his instructions carried out.

Finally, Kingu was brought out and killed and from his blood Marduk formed human beings to serve him and his allies so that they would never again have to work. After all of this, the family built a fine house in which Marduk could relax. They named the place Babylon, and Marduk and his friends rested, eating and drinking, while everyone sang the praises of the great deliverer Marduk by reciting 50 names that gave him homage.

Now, in case you have not already figured it out, this is the Babylonian (or Sumerian) myth of creation known as the Enuma Elish (« when on high, » from the first words of the poem). It occurs in two different forms, but the basic elements are the same. The seven tablets of this poem were discovered in the ruins of ancient Nineveh in the vast library of the Assyrian king Asshurbanapal (7th century BC). However, these texts were based on earlier Sumerian versions of the poem from as early as 2,000-1,700 BC, the time of Abraham and Hammurabi of Babylon (read the full text of the Enuma Elish).

Israel Among the Nations

This is the cultural background out of which the Israelites came. Basic elements of this Babylonian myth and the world view that underlay it became the Ba’al myth in Palestine and surrounding areas. And of course, Ba’al worship supported by the Ba’al myth was the arch rival of worship of God among the Israelites. In our world of scientific investigation and the millennia-old worship of a single deity, we sometimes dismiss myths as simply false without realizing how incredibly important they were to ancient peoples. Myths were ways to describe how the physical world exists and what makes it operate, or to express complex social relationships.

The Enuma Elish is far more than a fanciful story. It is actually a carefully crafted story about the cycle of seasons, an attempt by ancient people to give some coherence and order to a world that they did not really understand in terms of cause and effect. The myth of Marduk is a cosmology, a story told to describe what they observed about the physical world. Marduk represents Springtime and the fertility of the land that Spring brings. Marduk is a god who brings Springtime when crops grow and when livestock give birth. Especially in Canaanite forms of the story where Ba’al is the hero (in Assyria Marduk was replaced by Asshur, the patron deity of Assyria), he is the Spring rain that brings life and newness into the land after the dry season. As such, Marduk represents the stability and security of a world that is safe and stable. Both Marduk and Ba’al are fertility gods that promise newness and continuing life.

Tiamat represents winter, or in Canaanite forms of the myth the dry season, and the barrenness and threat that winter brings. She was also personified as the primeval ocean, the deep, the unordered forces of chaos that threaten to engulf the order and stability of the world. In this role, she was also portrayed as a great Dragon or Serpent of the Deep. Her companions are the uncontrolled waters of Flood, River, and Sea.

To ancient people, it was a real threat that spring and the spring rains might not come. That represented a threat to the very existence of humanity. The battle between Marduk and Tiamat was a way to express the cycles of seasons, the struggle between chaos and order that the people experienced as they waited for the renewal of Spring. That battle was an annual event, incorporated into the worship rituals of Near Eastern culture. Marduk had to kill Tiamat every Springtime or Winter would continue to rule. There would be no rain, crops would not grow, grass for the livestock would not sprout, nothing would survive. That battle was played out every spring in the great worship festivals in the Temple of Marduk in Babylon. Marduk had to be alive and be crowned king so that rain would come. The concern in the myth was not so much with the creation, as it was with the defeat of Tiamat and the reign of Marduk.

As noted, in Palestine this became the myth of Ba’al who was also the god of rain and the god of Springtime. In Palestine there must be rain at a certain time of year to make crops grow. Ba’al as the god of rain (called « Rider of the Clouds » in some texts; cf. Psa. 68:4) was personified as a thunder storm sweeping in from the desert, bringing rain, and making life possible in that part of the world. The worship of Ba’al in Palestine involved imitative magic in the form of ritual prostitution and other fertility rituals. The idea was that Ba’al needed to be sexually aroused so that the rains would come, the crops would grow, and the people survive. (There are other OT connections to this cultural background, such as the agricultural images used for women producing offspring; they are either fruitful or barren.)

In this mythical way of conceptualizing the world, Tiamat and the various images of uncontrolled water or dragons or sea monsters associated with her, represented disorder or chaos in the world. Marduk (or Ba’al or Ashur) in this mythology was the one who brought stability and order to the world, and guaranteed human existence. The role of human beings was to be sure the gods were happy and had what they needed so they would do the things necessary to ensure humanity’s continued existence. Yet, the gods had no direct relation to human existence since they were simply the personified forces of what we would call nature. Human existence was more the « fallout » from the activity of the gods, which further underscored the need to be sure the gods were happy and content.

Israel’s New Path

There is much more to the mythological cultural background of the ancient world, but perhaps this brief overview will provide a context to begin examining the Genesis narratives. (For more information see Speaking the Language of Canaan and links there). Myths speak about something on a cosmic level, trying to describe the unseen forces that shape human existence. However, the Bible is not directly mythological because the basic premise of Scripture arising from Israel’s experience of God is that God has revealed himself in history. He is not « out there » on some cosmic level, but has revealed himself here where we live as human beings.

In stark contrast to the mythology of the Canaanites, Israel began developing a very incarnational view of God very early in its history. That did not mean that Israel quickly abandoned all the vestiges of polytheism or the mythological world view associated with it. It would take Israelites nearly 800 years of fierce struggle to chart clearly that new path among the nations. Yet, what was often the minority voice in Israel understood that God had chosen to enter into relationship with humanity in the arena where we live. Israel knew what she knew about God not because they projected their ideas out « there » somewhere, or speculated about what God was, or what he might be, or ought to be, or what they needed him to be. They knew something about God because at one point in time in human history a group of people stood on the banks of the Reed Sea and watched God at work. And we as Christians know what we know about God, not because we have become more sophisticated in our speculation or our scientific inquiry than the Israelites were, but because at another point in time another group of people stood beneath a cross and at a tomb outside of Jerusalem and saw God at work in human history.

That fact not only separates Scripture from the myths of the ancient world in giving it a solid basis in human history, it also points to two aspects of understanding the Bible, and these Genesis narratives, that are crucial. First, the concerns of the Israelites who wrote this material had to do with how they were coming to terms with this radically new understanding of deity, and how that would be lived out in the world in which they lived. The people who wrote Scripture, who reported and reflected about things they had seen and heard, this person or community who wrote Genesis, what were they trying to communicate? What is it they were trying to say? What concerns lay behind the faith confessions they were making about God? They were most likely not trying to tell us about evolution, or attacking science, or burying secret codes in the text about World War III! What they needed to say was something that would tell people that Ba’al is not God! That Ba’al does not make it rain. That Ba’al does not control the world. They needed to move people beyond superstition and magic as the way to understand deity. They needed to affirm the God whom they had encountered in the Exodus in such a way that people would worship and serve him instead of frequenting the Ba’al temples and trying to manipulate the world by magic.

The only background they had to do that on the level of communication was the culture in which they lived. So they are not going to give us some scientific explanation about what makes it rain that would satisfy our 21st century minds. They only had two choices. If someone would ask an Israelite in the Old Testament, « What makes it rain? », they would either say « Ba’al makes it rain » or they would say « God makes it rain. » There was simply no other way to say it! Yet, when they start describing how God makes it rain, they described God riding in on a thunder cloud from the desert, which is what they would say if they were Canaanites worshipping Ba’al. They would tell us the same thing the same way, except that it is God they are talking about rather than Ba’al. Those cultural perspectives are the only frame of reference they have; they cannot describe the world or God in terms of our modern perspectives, so they use the only language and symbols and metaphors they have to confess this radically new faith in a single Creator God. What other culture could they write in except their own?

If we do not allow this in the biblical text, then we must make other assumptions about Scripture that immediately move us beyond the text and its own world. The assumption must then be, in some form, that they didn’t really write much if any of the Bible and instead God wrote it or told them what to write. Yet, after looking closely at the text, with all the idiosyncrasies of the Hebrew language, with all the metaphors that have parallels in the ancient cultural world, with all the concerns that are thoroughly rooted in the problems of the ancient world, I think it is a mistake to make such assumptions. Maybe the text says more there in their culture than we have imagined, if we listen to it carefully.

Second, this material was not written as it happened, but was written long after anything described here, to address the perspective and concerns of the people who were writing it (this is the principle of the « two horizons » mentioned in last week’s lesson). If we are not deliberate in our thinking, we sometimes assume that there were scribes sitting over in the corner of the Garden of Eden writing this all down (or, as mentioned above, that God simply told people what to write). Yet, this was likely written long after the Israelites had encountered God at the Reed Sea, probably around the time of David near 1000 BC, with the final form of the stories as we have them in Genesis dating to the period after the exile (c. 500 BC).

After the Israelites had encountered God in the Exodus and at Sinai, after they had spent years struggling in the wilderness, after they had entered the land and been confronted with the Canaanites and their fertility religion, after centuries of struggling to come to terms with the nature of this God who was not at all like the mythical gods of the people in the land, they looked back and wondered how they had come to that place.

They had learned things about God over some 800 years of history because God had revealed himself to them through that history. If God was God and not Pharaoh; if God was the kind of God who could hear the cry of oppressed slaves, bring plagues upon Egypt, part the waters of the Reed Sea, give manna in the desert, bring water out of a rock, knock down the walls of Jericho, help them defeat the Canaanites and settle in the land promised to Abraham hundreds of years earlier; if he is that kind of God, what is rain to him? It was only a short step to conceptualize God as Sovereign Creator, and to conclude that Ba’al was nothing but a stick of wood! Yet there were people who found the appeal of Ba’al worship overwhelming, and the faithful worshippers of God needed to express a profound faith in God that decisively rejected Ba’al as a competing deity. It is this purpose that the opening chapters of Genesis serve. And in some ways, that message may have more relevance for our modern world than we sometimes imagine!

Bible: La Genèse ne procède pas du vide (Genesis was not written in a vacuum: how the Scriptures appropriate non-Hebraic world views)

Dieu dit: Que la lumière soit! Et la lumière fut. Dieu vit que la lumière était bonne; et Dieu sépara la lumière d’avec les ténèbres. Dieu appela la lumière jour, et il appela les ténèbres nuit. Ainsi, il y eut un soir, et il y eut un matin: ce fut le premier jour. (….) Dieu dit: Qu’il y ait des luminaires dans l’étendue du ciel, pour séparer le jour d’avec la nuit; que ce soient des signes pour marquer les époques, les jours et les années; et qu’ils servent de luminaires dans l’étendue du ciel, pour éclairer la terre. Et cela fut ainsi. Dieu fit les deux grands luminaires, le plus grand luminaire pour présider au jour, et le plus petit luminaire pour présider à la nuit; il fit aussi les étoiles. Dieu les plaça dans l’étendue du ciel, pour éclairer la terre, pour présider au jour et à la nuit, et pour séparer la lumière d’avec les ténèbres. Dieu vit que cela était bon. Ainsi, il y eut un soir, et il y eut un matin: ce fut le quatrième jour. Genèse 1: 3-19

Je n’ai (…) aucune difficulté à accepter, par exemple, l’opinion de ces savants qui nous disent que le récit de la création dans la Genèse est issu d’histoires sémitiques païennes et mythologiques antérieures. Nous devons être bien sûr tout à fait clair sur la signification de ce « est issu ». Les histoires ne se reproduisent pas comme des souris. Elles sont racontées par des hommes. Chacun soit répète exactement ce que son prédécesseur avait dit ou bien le change. Il peut changer involontairement ou délibérément. S’il le change délibérément, son invention, son sens de la forme, son éthique, ses idées de ce qui est adapté, ou édifiant ou simplement intéressant, tout cela entre en jeu. S’il le fait sans le savoir, cela signifie que son inconscient (qui est responsable de tant de nos oublis) a été au travail. Ainsi, à chaque étape de ce qui est appelé – de façon un peu trompeuse – l’ « évolution » d’une histoire, un homme, tout ce qu’il est et toutes ses attitudes, jouent un rôle. Et aucun bon travail n’est fait n’importe où sans une aide du Père des lumières. Quand une série de ces reprises transforme un récit de la création qui, dans un premier temps, n’avait presque aucune signification religieuse ou métaphysique en une histoire qui réalise l’idée de la création véritable et d’un créateur transcendant (comme le fait le livre de la Genèse), alors rien ne me fera croire que certains de ces hommes, ou certains d’entre eux, n’ont pas été guidés par Dieu. Ainsi un récit qui n’était à l’origine que naturel – la sorte de mythe que l’on retrouve chez la plupart des nations– se retrouvera-t-il élevé par Dieu au-dessus de lui-même, qualifié et contraint par lui de remplir des fonctions qui, de lui-même, il n’aurait pas servi. CS Lewis

Le même divine humilité qui décréta que Dieu devienne un bébé nourri au sein d’une simple paysanne et, plus tard, un prédicateur de rue arrêté aux mains de la police romaine, décréta aussi qu’Il soit prêché dans un langage vulgaire, prosaïque et non-littéraire. Si vous avez l’estomac pour l’un, vous aurez l’estomac pour l’autre. L’Incarnation est en ce sens une doctrine irrévérencieuse : le christianisme, en ce sens, une religion incurablement irrévérencieuce. Lorsque nous nous attendons à ce que la vérité sur Dieu aurait dû venir au Monde dans toute la beauté que nous ressentons maintenant dans la Version autorisée, nous sommes aussi loin de la marque que les juifs étaient en attendant que le Messie vienne comme un grand roi terrestre. La sainteté véritable, la vraie beauté et la sublimité du Nouveau Testament (comme la vie du Christ) sont d’un genre différent : à des kilomètres plus profond ou plus intérieur. Car on nous a appris que l’Incarnation elle-même procéda « non par la transformation  de la divinité en chair, mais parce que l’humanité a été assumée en Dieu » ; en elle, la vie humaine devient le véhicule de la vie Divine. Si les écritures procédent non de la conversion de la parole de Dieu en littérature, mais en reprenant une littérature pour être le véhicule de la parole de Dieu, cela n’est pas anormal. CS Lewis

Une des plus grandes erreurs que nous puissions faire dans l’interprétation de la Bible est de la lire comme si elle était écrite pour nous aujourd’hui. (…) comme si c’était une apolégétique contre les connaissances scientifiques modernes sur les origines du monde (Darwin), quand en réalité c’était une apolégétique contre une compréhension antique opposée de la création (Enuma Elish). Tremper Longman

L’Enuma Elish est un mythe babylonien ou mésopotamien de la création racontant la lutte entre le chaos et l’ordre cosmique. Il s’agit essentiellement d’un mythe du cycle des saisons. Il est nommé d’après ses premiers mots et était récité le quatrième jour du festival du nouvel an de la Babylone antique. L’histoire de base existe sous des formes diverses dans la région. Cette version est écrite en akkadien, un vieux dialecte Babylonien et présente Marduk, la divinité protectrice de la ville de Babylone. Une version antérieure similaire en sumérien ancienne a pour héros Anu, Enil et Ninurta, ce qui suggère que cette version fut adaptée pour justifier les pratiques religieuses dans le culte de Marduk à Babylone. Cette version a été écrite dans le courant du XIIe siècle avant J.-C. dans l’écriture cunéiforme sur sept tablettes d’argile. Ils ont été trouvés au milieu du XIXe siècle dans les ruines du Palais d’Ashurbanipal à Ninive. George Smith a publié ces textes en 1876 comme la « Genèse chaldéenne ». En raison de nombreuses similitudes avec le récit de la Genèse, certains historiens ont conclu que le récit de la Genèse était simplement une réécriture de l’histoire babylonienne. Par réaction, beaucoup de ceux qui voulaient conserver le caractère unique de la Bible ont prétendu soit qu’il y n’avait aucun parallèle réél entre ces récits ou que les récits de la Genèse avaient été écrits en premier, et que le mythe babylonien avait emprunté au récit biblique. Cependant, il y a simplement trop de similitudes pour nier toute relation entre ces récits. Il existe également des différences importantes qui ne doivent pas être ignorées. Pourtant, il y a peu de doute que les versions sumériennes de l’histoire ont précédé le récit biblique de plusieurs centaines d’années. Au lieu d’opter pour les deux extrêmes de la dépendance totale ou d’aucun contact quel qu’il soit, il est préférable de voir les récits de la Genèse comme la libre utilisation des métaphores et du symbolisme d’un ensemble culturel commun pour affirmer leur propre théologie au sujet de Dieu. Dennis Bratcher

Do we automatically assume that because we understand the words of Scripture (after they have been translated into English) we also understand the meaning? Is the language and world view presented in the Bible God’s language and world view, written by God himself, and therefore an absolute truth? If so, does that mean that all of Scripture must be read absolutely literally? Or should we ask what the frame of reference and world view from which the biblical writers spoke might have been? How do we decide when the biblical writers are using symbol and metaphor? Do the writers of scripture use language symbols and cultural metaphors that are immediately translatable into our world view? Or is our modern perception of the world so different that the ancient stories are totally untranslatable and therefore irrelevant to us? Is it possible to understand enough of the biblical writers’ frame of reference and context to understand their meaning? Is there anything particularly sacred or absolute about their world view that compels us to adopt it as our own? Or was it simply a common cultural heritage shared by other peoples of the ancient world and appropriated by the Israelites and the early church? And if so, wherein lies the uniqueness of Scripture as the word of God? And how does all of this relate to our modern, Western, American, 21st century, scientifically-oriented frame of reference, world view and set of cultural metaphors? The problem is especially acute in Old Testament Scriptures, because in most places the cultural context is far more alien to us than in the New Testament. As a result, we are more conscious of the incongruity between the ancient Israelite perception of the world and our own. We want to believe the Old Testament, because it is Scripture of the Church, or at least our faith confessions say that it is. Yet there are places where, because of our modern world view, we find it difficult to believe. From our understanding of the physical world and our ideas of motion and inertia, how can the sun stand still and not disrupt the entire solar system and destroy the earth itself (Josh 10:12-15)? How can we account for the volume of water necessary to cover the entire surface of the earth to a depth of over 5 miles (Gen 6-7)? How can long-buried bones revive a dead corpse (1 Kings 13:20-21)? How can there be plants flourishing before there was a sun (Gen 1:11-19)? Too often, people adopt responses that fail to deal with the questions. They may respond that since God is doing it, and since he can do anything, there is no problem. Others may reject the Old Testament stories as mere superstition, while others reject the scientific world view and adopt a near magical perspective, or develop a sophisticated intellectual schizophrenia that allows them to function in one world at church and another world the rest of the time. The issue is especially critical for people of faith who accept the validity of work in the Natural Sciences where it seems the world views are irreconcilable. (…) To understand language, for it to be communication, I must know the frame of reference for the symbols of that language. Without a frame of reference, an understanding of the context of the symbols, I will not know how to understand the symbol. I may see the symbol K. A chemist would immediately think of Potassium. But a sailor would think of a unit of speed, a knot. A jeweler would think of caret, a chess player would think of a King or a knight, a linguist would think of a certain sound, or lack of one, a statistician might think of the 11th unit in a sequence, and a computer programmer would think of units of data. I would probably first think of the King City Glass Works in King City, Indiana, because K is the embossing on glass insulators made there, which I happen to collect. But you would need to know something about me and my immediate frame of reference to understand my appropriation of the symbol in that way. If the point here about language and symbol is valid, then it applies to theological language and theological symbols as well. Whatever else it may be, the Bible is theological language. It communicates something about God, about humanity, and about humanity’s relationship to God. Because of this understanding of the language of the Bible, I am not a literalist in interpreting Scripture. The words and the symbols of biblical language, and of theology, communicate truth, but they are not the truth themselves. Dennis Bratcher

Alors que depuis la découverte de la « Genèse chaldéenne » par George Smith dans les ruines du Palais d’Ashurbanipal de Ninive au milieu du XIXe siècle qui a révélé les indéniables liens entre le récit biblique de la création et les récits antérieurs sumériens ou babyloniens …

L’on nous somme de choisir entre « les deux vues extrêmes de la dépendance totale ou d’aucun contact quel qu’il soit » …

Comment ne pas voir, avec, Dennis Bratcher, qu’il est « préférable de voir les récits de la Genèse comme la libre utilisation des métaphores et du symbolisme d’un ensemble culturel commun pour affirmer leur propre théologie au sujet de Dieu » ?

Speaking the Language of Canaan:

The Old Testament and the Israelite Perception of the Physical World

How the Scriptures Appropriate Non-Hebraic World Views

Dennis Bratcher

Consultation on the Relationship Between the Wesleyan Tradition

and the Natural Sciences

Kansas City, Missouri

October 19, 1991

I will confess at the outset that I am an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction writing. I began in Junior High School reading Jules Verne and Jonathan Swift, then graduated to Isaac Asimov and C. S. Lewis. I suppose it was inevitable that I would became a devoted Star Trek fan. I eventually figured out that this form of literature and drama intrigued me because of the satirical nature of the genre.

Satire, which is the true genre of most fantasy, is about the human condition, aspects of human experience shared by everyone of all cultures and all times. Satire is a safe and effective means of addressing the folly, prejudices, injustices, and outright corruption of political systems, social mores, and individuals. Yet beyond and beneath the specifics of the metaphors and symbols of fantasy, once understood, is the common experience of humanity.

1. words, meanings, and world views

There is a fascinating episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that deals with the interrelationship between history, culture, and communication. The crew of the Enterprise encountered an alien race of people with whom they could not communicate. They could understand all of the words spoken, but the words made no sense. As the plot unfolded, Captain Picard learned that the aliens’ language was built of only brief metaphorical references to stories from their cultural heritage. A simple phrase, which only named a person and a place or an action, evoked a whole range of meanings associated with the event.

For example, « Juliet, on the balcony » in our context could be a metaphorical reference for love, loyalty, and devotion drawn from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. Even understanding the words, the phrase has no meaning apart from the original story. To understand the meaning of the words, a person must understand the function of the phrase in the narrative history of a culture, as told in a specific story with specific images. And yet, the images evoke a basic experience and set of emotions shared by all humanity. The Star Trek episode concluded with Captain Picard reading ancient Greek epics, observing that a knowledge of cultural heritage preserved in ancient stories might help him better communicate in his modern (future) world.

The story is fantasy. But the point stands. All communication must occur within a frame of reference. Knowing all the words does not necessarily mean that communication or understanding will occur. For there to be communication, both parties must operate with some shared assumptions and a common frame of reference. Or, in the case of Captain Picard, one party must learn enough about the assumptions of the other in order to understand the frame of reference and move beyond the words to the meaning.

It is these shared assumptions about the world and human existence in it that make up world view. James Sires has defined world view as « . . . a set of presuppositions (or assumptions) which we hold (consciously or unconsciously) about the basic makeup of the world. » -1- This set of presuppositions is usually adopted from the culture in which a person lives. World view, on a large scale, deals with the most basic issues of life.

What is the nature of the physical world? What is ultimately real (gods, matter, etc.)? What is the nature of humanity? What is the basis of right conduct? What is the meaning of human existence? -2- How answers to these questions are expressed in any society, and what language symbols and metaphors are used to express them, depends both on the particular world view held combined with the cultural heritage of the society. For our purposes in this paper, the term « world view » will include not just those presuppositions about the world, but also the language symbols used to express them. In fact, I will focus more narrowly on the language symbols than the underlying tenants of the world view itself.

2. the questions

This brings us to the heart of the topic of this paper. Do we automatically assume that because we understand the words of Scripture (after they have been translated into English) we also understand the meaning? Is the language and world view presented in the Bible God’s language and world view, written by God himself, and therefore an absolute truth? If so, does that mean that all of Scripture must be read absolutely literally? Or should we ask what the frame of reference and world view from which the biblical writers spoke might have been? How do we decide when the biblical writers are using symbol and metaphor? Do the writers of scripture use language symbols and cultural metaphors that are immediately translatable into our world view? Or is our modern perception of the world so different that the ancient stories are totally untranslatable and therefore irrelevant to us?

Is it possible to understand enough of the biblical writers’ frame of reference and context to understand their meaning? Is there anything particularly sacred or absolute about their world view that compels us to adopt it as our own? Or was it simply a common cultural heritage shared by other peoples of the ancient world and appropriated by the Israelites and the early church? And if so, wherein lies the uniqueness of Scripture as the word of God? And how does all of this relate to our modern, Western, American, 21st century, scientifically-oriented frame of reference, world view and set of cultural metaphors?

The problem is especially acute in Old Testament Scriptures, because in most places the cultural context is far more alien to us than in the New Testament. As a result, we are more conscious of the incongruity between the ancient Israelite perception of the world and our own. We want to believe the Old Testament, because it is Scripture of the Church, or at least our faith confessions say that it is. Yet there are places where, because of our modern world view, we find it difficult to believe.

From our understanding of the physical world and our ideas of motion and inertia, how can the sun stand still and not disrupt the entire solar system and destroy the earth itself (Josh 10:12-15)? How can we account for the volume of water necessary to cover the entire surface of the earth to a depth of over 5 miles (Gen 6-7)? How can long-buried bones revive a dead corpse (1 Kings 13:20-21)? How can there be plants flourishing before there was a sun (Gen 1:11-19)?

Too often, people adopt responses that fail to deal with the questions. They may respond that since God is doing it, and since he can do anything, there is no problem. Others may reject the Old Testament stories as mere superstition, while others reject the scientific world view and adopt a near magical perspective, or develop a sophisticated intellectual schizophrenia that allows them to function in one world at church and another world the rest of the time. The issue is especially critical for people of faith who accept the validity of work in the Natural Sciences where it seems the world views are irreconcilable.

B. The Nature of Scripture

Of course, an underlying issue here is the nature and character of Scripture. There are a host of issues that could, and properly should, be addressed here, ranging from theories of inspiration of Scripture (see Revelation and Inspiration of Scripture) to philosophical assumptions about the nature of God and the extent of His activity in the world. But given the limited scope of this presentation, I will only briefly touch on the issues, mainly to establish my own assumptions and frame of reference in addressing some of the questions.

1. fundamentalism and inerrancy

The influence of fundamentalism, and its accompanying doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, is pervasive in evangelical circles of the church (see The Modern Inerrancy Debate). Many of the issues in the relationship between science and religion in our tradition arise from this context. The influence of the doctrine of inerrancy, mixed with the anti-intellectualism that emerged in some parts of the American religious scene in the 1920s, and the other-worldly emphasis picked up from the millenarian movements of the late 19th century, has fermented to produce a strange concoction of beliefs in the Church of the Nazarene, as well as other traditions. This phenomenon of inerrancy has been adequately documented by church historians, so I will not elaborate here. The important point to understand is that the doctrine of inerrancy that emerges from fundamentalism has its roots in Calvinism and Reformed theology, with all of the philosophical presuppositions that accompany that doctrinal system.

I cannot debate the issue of inerrancy here. For our purposes, I will simply reject the idea of the inerrancy of Scriptures, along with most of the philosophical assumptions that drive it, as incompatible with a thoroughly Wesleyan theological perspective. -3- One of the basic assertions of a Wesleyan stance is that God actually works with human beings, allowing them a degree of autonomy through His prevenient grace. If we take this seriously as a theological principle, it must affect how we view Scripture. The content and message of Scripture reveals God and His relationship to human beings and the world. But the form of that Scripture, the language, the words, the historical, religious, and cultural contexts, and therefore the cultural metaphors, are human. It is God’s word, but in human words. And it is those human words that we read in Scripture.

2. language, symbol, and theology

All language is metaphorical. Whether a language is alphabetically or phonetically based as in most modern languages, pictorially based as in some ancient and eastern languages, unwritten as in some remote dialects even today, or composed of motions as in sign language for the deaf, the basic elements of the language (word, pictograph, sign) represent something. They stand for a thing, an idea, an action or a set of relationships. The words, word clusters, and phrases function as symbols for those ideas and relationships.

Perhaps it is easier to speak of the symbolic nature of language from the perspective of mathematics, the natural sciences, or even from areas of the humanities than from theology. For example, chemists use a technical language -4- of symbols to describe the processes of interaction between various substances. Physicists and mathematicians use symbols to describe an amazing array of relationships between objects and processes. And the poet is well trained in the use of images of one kind to evoke a response in a different domain.

The premise of the Star Trek episode is valid here. To understand language, for it to be communication, I must know the frame of reference for the symbols of that language. Without a frame of reference, an understanding of the context of the symbols, I will not know how to understand the symbol. I may see the symbol K. A chemist would immediately think of Potassium. But a sailor would think of a unit of speed, a knot. A jeweler would think of caret, a chess player would think of a King or a knight, a linguist would think of a certain sound, or lack of one, a statistician might think of the 11th unit in a sequence, and a computer programmer would think of units of data. I would probably first think of the King City Glass Works in King City, Indiana, because K is the embossing on glass insulators made there, which I happen to collect. But you would need to know something about me and my immediate frame of reference to understand my appropriation of the symbol in that way.

If the point here about language and symbol is valid, then it applies to theological language and theological symbols as well. -5- Whatever else it may be, the Bible is theological language. It communicates something about God, about humanity, and about humanity’s relationship to God. Because of this understanding of the language of the Bible, I am not a literalist in interpreting Scripture. The words and the symbols of biblical language, and of theology, communicate truth, but they are not the truth themselves.

Unlike the natural sciences, the danger in theological language, especially when we are considering Scripture, is that the language symbols used to communicate theology can be allowed to become ends in themselves and take on a life, a reality, of their own. This is the value of asking our questions about world view. If we can come to an understanding of the frame of reference and context of the language, and so better understand how the language images of the Bible work, perhaps we can better understand the message, the theology, which the language, the symbols, the metaphors of language are expressing.

3. imaging history

Unlike most aspects of our modern world view, with its complicated development from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the emergence of a technologically oriented culture, the world view of the Bible is not preoccupied with data. It is rooted in the faith confession that God entered human history and interacted with humanity in a significant way. But the events, the history of the Bible, are not reported as data points, as facts to be processed into some practical application or accumulated as a contribution to tracing the causes and effects of a positivistic world view. The community has already processed the events and the history is told as story.

Even when it emerges in a more reflective, even philosophical, form as in the Old Testament wisdom literature (Job, Proverbs, etc.), the story uses language images and cultural symbols, not to reproduce the data of the event, but to communicate the significance, impact, and meaning of the events for the ongoing community. The history emerges in the Bible as theological confession and witness. -6- Biblical history is not just reported, it is imaged. That is, it is retold in the images created by language drawing on the cultural milieu and heritage of the writer and using the cultural symbols of that milieu as the vehicle for talking about God (theology).

II. Old Testament Scriptures in Cultural Context

Having outlined the issues and assumptions and set a general framework within which to proceed, we may now turn to the biblical traditions themselves to understand how the Scriptures appropriate non-hebraic world views. At the outset, there is a problem with phrasing the topic this way. Exactly what is a « Hebraic » world view and how should it be defined? And to what extent does a Hebraic world view differ from, say, a Canaanite or a Babylonian world view?

This is likewise a complex issue, so we can only make some superficial observations. For the moment we will simply assume that there is something unique and identifiable about the Hebraic world view, and return to the issue later. However, rather than focusing on the unique aspects of Hebraic culture and world view, for the topic of this paper our preliminary discussion has led in the direction of looking at aspects of Israelite culture shared by surrounding peoples as a profitable means to understand aspects of Old Testament Scripture.

A. The Appropriation of Culture

1. the cultural pool of the ancient Middle East

Biblical historians tell us that we should not assume that the uniqueness of the Hebrews or Israelites lay in their distinctiveness from surrounding Middle Eastern peoples on the level of culture. -7- While the Israelites came to a radically new understanding of God, His relationship to the world, and human beings’ place in that world, the Israelites shared much of their culture and cultural heritage with surrounding peoples. There was a large common « pool » of culture and cultural metaphors. -8-

In the realm of religion, for example, many of the peoples of the ancient Middle East shared the same gods and the same myths about those gods. The details of the stories and the names of the gods changed between ancient Sumer, Akkad, and later Babylon, or between Phoenicia, Assyria, and Aram. -9- But the essential elements of the stories, and the basic world views they expressed, were remarkably similar. Israelite law codes provide an example from the social sphere. While in many respects the Israelite Torah differed from, for example, the Code of Hammurabi of Babylon, there are enough points of contact to reveal a certain degree of shared concerns from a shared cultural perspective (see Israel’s Codes of Conduct Compared to Surrounding Nations).

There is also evidence from the historical side. The Israelites not only lived in the midst of Canaanite culture, a certain number of them were originally Canaanites or were native to the environment of Palestine. -10- So it seems likely, and there is little in the biblical traditions which would dispute the fact, that the Israelites moved in this cultural milieu and drew from its stock of metaphors, language symbols, customs, and, to some degree, its world view.

2. the growth of Israelite community

As the Israelite community emerged in the twelfth century BC they did not simply create a new culture from whole cloth. The escaped Hebrew slaves, the Egyptians who left with them, and various groups, including Canaanites, who joined them in route to Canaan or after they settled in the land, brought with them social conventions, mores, customs, and a world view (or views). So, for example, when the Israelites began sacrificing to Yahweh in the desert, they were appropriating a ritual practiced by virtually every group of people in the ancient world. But they gave the symbol added content, because they sacrificed to Yahweh and celebrated a new understanding of deity. And they did it as people of God so that the symbol became a means of doing theology.

The same is true of the Passover festival. Originally there were two distinct ancient festivals celebrating the spring birthing of livestock (Passover) and the planting of crops (Feast of Unleavened Bread). Passover emerges in later Israelite tradition, on one level as a celebration of God’s deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt, and on another level as a confession that God enters the arena of human history and reveals himself to human beings. The ancient pagan rituals were appropriated as vehicles for confessing the Israelites’ understanding of God. The same could be said of other familiar « Israelite » institutions such as circumcision, the priesthood, the temple, and the yearly festival cycle. As the community grew and matured through time, the origins of the symbols became more and more obscure and more distinctly Israelite. Yet, that does not alter the fact that their origin lay in Canaanite culture.

B. Mythical Images in Scripture

Beyond the elements of social culture and convention that the Israelites shared with other peoples, there is also a whole range of broader and less easily defined conventions. These are the conventions of thought, what we might call in our context a philosophical framework for thinking and articulating abstract ideas.

Most peoples of the ancient world, including Canaanites (and the Romans of New Testament time), viewed the world from the perspective of myth. Contrary to what I have often heard from the pulpit, the term « myth » as used here does not mean « false » or « fiction. » Even in my old and yellowed Webster’s, « fiction » is the third meaning of the word. In its primary and more technical meaning « myth » refers to a story or group of stories that serve to explain how a particular society views their world. The stories of myth often deal with phenomena of the physical world for which the culture does not have an adequate explanation. Or they may deal with human actions and emotions that are potentially valuable or destructive for the community. Myth is a means by which a society can express its collective experience of the world, with the fear, frustration, anxiety, and promise that it holds.

The myth is also the technique by which the society comes to terms with the world in which it lives and tries to make sense out of it. For example the Oedipus myth of Greek culture attempts to verbalize, and condemn, the sexual attraction between a parent and child. The deities of myth are usually little more than the forces of nature or traits of human beings personified. Often the gods of myth are simply human beings writ large whose actions on a cosmic level produce effects in the physical world. Sexual union of the gods, for example, produces the fertility of the earth to grow crops. The means by which humans affect a world construed in myth is magic. The magic used to control the world is usually expressed in two ways. Either people imitate the activity of the gods thereby causing them to perform a desired action. Or they appease the gods by some act, such as sacrifice, to put them in a good frame of mind so they will respond in the desired way.

1. the Ba‘al myth and the physical world

The most prevalent mythical system in the immediate Canaanite context of Israelite culture was the myth of Ba‘al. As with most myths, the entire story is complex, varying in details and emphasis between peoples. The basic features, however, are fairly simple. Ba‘al religion revolved around the cycles of nature necessary for survival in the ancient world, primarily growing crops or raising livestock. Not surprisingly, in an arid and agriculturally marginal area of the world, the fertility of land and crops played a large role in Canaanite world view. And also as expected, water was a major element of the myth and its images.

We do not have time here to go into much detail concerning the Ba‘al myth and its counterparts. What we know of the basic elements of the myth actually comes from two groups of texts. The Babylonian creation hymn, Enuma Elish, describes a great battle among the gods, primarily between Marduk, the champion of the gods, and Tiamat, the primeval ocean or the « deep. » Sometimes Tiamat is portrayed as a great serpentine beast, the dragon of chaos or the dragon of the sea. Marduk overcame Tiamat and her forces and after splitting her body into two parts, made the sky, stars, sun, and moon from one half, and the earth from the other. From the blood of Tiamat’s defeated husband Kingu, one of the lesser gods, Ea (Enki) then created humanity to be servants of the gods so they would never have to work again. Marduk continued to bring order into the chaos caused by Tiamat, setting each of the astral deities in their place in the heavens and establishing the cycles of nature.

This theme of a cosmic battle among the gods personifies the struggle for life. It describes the annual renewal of the earth in springtime; it is a myth of the cycle of seasons. This cosmic battle was not understood as a historical event of the past, but occurred anew each year and was reenacted in cultic ritual. Marduk represents the forces of order, the coming of spring with its renewal of life and the end of the reign of the chaos and death of winter. Marduk is the spring sun that gives life and renewed energy to the earth. Tiamat represents those forces that threaten human existence, the threat of a disordered world in which springtime never comes. The ancient theme of an original primeval ocean that threatens to break out and engulf the world in killing salt water is also seen in Tiamat. Creation, in Babylonian thinking, was an ongoing struggle between order and chaos, a way of thinking no doubt related to the uncertainties of life in the ancient world.

The second group of texts comes from Ugarit, in northern Syria. They are chiefly concerned with the emergence of Ba‘al as the leader of the gods. Basically, Ba‘al was the storm god, the bringer of rain, and thus fertility, to the land. There was rivalry among the gods and a struggle erupted between Yamm, the sea, and Ba‘al, the rain. With the help of his sister Anat, the goddess of war, and Astarte, the goddess of earth and fertility, Ba‘al defeated Yamm, and his cohorts, Tannin, the dragon of the sea, and Loran (or Lothan, cf. Isa 27:1), the serpent with seven heads. The gods began to build a magnificent house for Ba‘al so that he could be at rest and provide abundant rain for the earth. But Ba‘al was challenged by Mot (or Mut), the god of death and the underworld. Mot temporarily triumphed and Ba‘al disappeared into the underworld. Anat and Shapash, the sun god, found Ba‘al, brought him back to life, and restored him to his house.

This series of stories is even more clearly, especially in its details, an agrarian myth personifying the cycle of rainy and dry seasons of the Middle East. Like the Enuma Elish, these texts deal with the danger inherent in drought and ensuing famine. The disappearance of rain in the dry season (Ba‘al’s descent into the underworld) portended catastrophe if it did not return in the Spring.

But this myth is more explicitly concerned with fertility, specifically cast in terms of human sexuality. Worship of Ba‘al involved imitative magic, the performance of rituals, including sacred prostitution, which were understood to bring vitality to Ba‘al in his struggle with Mot. It takes little imagination to see the connection between the human sexual act and rain watering the earth to produce fruit. It is interesting to note in passing that the biblical traditions use these same agrarian images of being fruitful or barren to describe vitality in human beings.

The emphasis here is not on the order of the world, but on the necessity of rain. The needed water cannot be the unrestrained water of flood or the lifeless salt water of Yamm (the Sea). It must be life-giving rain, falling at the proper time. Ba‘al is often portrayed as « Rider of the Clouds, » and described in imagery associated with storms and meteorological phenomena, including clouds, thunder, lightning, and hail. The myth gives assurance of some stability in the physical world, assisted by humans in their service to the gods, which would allow continued human existence.

2. poetic images and the language of creation

Since the Israelites shared the cultural milieu of the Middle East, it would not be surprising, as pervasive as these myths were in that area, that they would use some of this imagery. The creation narratives in Genesis 1, for example, draw from the images of chaos and the primeval ocean associated with the Babylonian myth, although without the cosmic battle of the gods.

The « deep » (Heb: tehom), which has cultural parallels in both Tiamat and Yamm, is formless and void. By the « breath » of God, he brings order into this formless water. We may speak philosophically of ex nihilo creation (creation out of nothing) as a logical necessity, but in Genesis 1 the images are of God as a bringer of order. The creative activity in Genesis 1 is concerned with setting limits and boundaries, bringing order into the chaos. The idea of « separating » is a recurring one. Boundaries are set between light and darkness, between earth and sky, between sea and dry land, between the waters above and the waters below. Boundaries are also set for living things; plants and animals only produce after their kinds (see The Cultural Context of Ancient Israel and God and Boundaries: Genesis 1:1-2:25).

It is this sense of order that leads to unusual laws in Israel, such as the prohibition against sowing two kinds of seeds in the same field or wearing clothing made of two different kinds of material (Deut 22:9-11). If the mythic images are taken seriously here, creation emerges not as a static and self-sustaining system, but as dynamic, sustained by the ongoing activity of God. Unlike the myths, however, God does not need the magical assistance of human beings to sustain the world. Genesis 1 is not about the world and creation; it is about God the Creator and Sustainer of the world.

The Genesis 2-3 account is slightly different in focus. It emphasizes by the use of rain, mist, and rivers the life giving necessity of water on the earth brought by God. But the real focus of the story is the creature adam who had understood the boundaries and limits of God’s creation and yet violated them thereby bringing disruption and chaos into the harmonious order of God’s world. The chaos comes not because of a battle between the gods but because of human sinfulness (see A Literary Analysis of Genesis 2:4-3:24).

However, the serpent imagery may well have its origin in the recurring theme of the dragon of chaos. It is interesting to note that in the book of Revelation (12:1-13:9), the only place in the Bible where the serpent of Genesis 3 is identified with the satan and the devil, both are also identified with the red dragon that causes upheavals in the entire order of the universe (12:4), along with the dragons of the sea that disrupt the world and human society (13:1ff). It is also interesting that the dragon devil uses a flood of water from his mouth to pursue humanity, in the figure of the woman and her child (12:15-17).

These images of chaos and order show up in a variety of other places in the biblical traditions. Probably the most striking use of the imagery is in the prophets as they use the idea to warn the people of impending judgment. Jeremiah (4:23-28), using the phrase « formless and void, » warns of God’s punishment on the nation of Judah for her sins. The images are of a world gone totally awry in which mountains move, there is no sun, no water, and no life. God will simply withdraw His presence and the world will collapse back into primeval chaos.

Chaos is a major concern in the Flood story (Gen 6-9) where the sinful actions of humanity have brought a disruption into the world, described in terms of water engulfing the earth. It is crucial to note, however, that the water, contrary to the eastern myths, is not in rebellion against God but responds to His will.

Isaiah (34:8-17) also describes the « day of Yahweh’s vengeance » in which chaos and confusion will come to the people, accompanied by water turning to fire and earth become brimstone. Interestingly, in this passage also are rare Old Testament references to mythical Canaanite « demons, » the satyr and Lilith, the storm god of the desert (see Demons in the Old Testament).

Joel, using a devastating locust plague that threatened the produce of the land as a symbol of God’s wrath on sin, also tapped into this imagery of chaos: the sun and stars cease to shine, the moon becomes blood, the earth burns, and the sky moves. It is significant that when Joel wanted to speak of God’s forgiveness and hope for the future, he used images of rain, abundant fresh water, and fertility of the ground (1:21-27, 3:18).

In exilic Isaiah, written to encourage the people following the exile, creation language is abundant. In Isaiah 45:18-19, in a deliberate play on the earlier warnings, the writer promised that God would continue to act as Creator to avoid the chaos and to establish a stable world for his people after the exile. These images of cataclysm emerge as the standard way of talking about God’s judgment, later becoming the stock of images used in apocalyptic writings such as Revelation.

The idea of God the Creator as the bringer of order also appears extensively in Psalms and in the Wisdom traditions. The psalmic creation hymns often portray the Creator God in terms of the order and stability of the world: the sun keeps its course (19:4b-6), the waters are contained (33:7), the pillars supporting the earth are solid (75:3), the rains come on time (66; 147:8), the crops grow (104:14ff), even the animal world follows set patterns (105:20:23). This stability is a frequent topic of wisdom writings, as in the « times » of Ecclesiastes (3:1-9).

There are many passages, chiefly from the Psalms, which portray God in images from the Ba‘al myth. Yahweh speaks from the mighty waters, His voice lightning and His words thunder (Psa 29; 104:7). Frequently, God is described as shooting flashing arrows from the heavens as He rides in a chariot in the clouds (Psa 76:3-9; 77:16-20; 97:1-5; 104:1-4; cf. Hab 3:4-9). He has smashed the head of the sea dragon (Levithian, Rahab) and established the boundaries of the earth (Psa 74:12-17; 89:10; 104:5-9; 148:6; cf. Isa 27:1ff; Job 26:12-13). It is Yahweh alone who rules over the waters of the deep and controls the raging of the sea (Heb: yam; Psa 77:16; 89:5-13; 93:3-4).

Clearly, the biblical traditions, when they want to speak of the physical world and express God’s relation to it, draw on the cultural idiom of the language of Canaan. However, it is equally clear that the Israelites understood the difference between using the images to speak of God’s world and adopting the images as truth. Some did take the images themselves as truth and succumbed to the worship of Ba’al as another deity. But they were always condemned in biblical tradition as distorting the proper worship of God.

3. Yahweh, the divine warrior, and the language of theophany

We have discussed the mythical images of Canaanite culture in relation to biblical creation language. Another significant use of these images from Canaanite culture is in salvation language of the Old Testament. In the understanding of God acting in history to reveal Himself to humanity, Israel makes the most decisive break with her cultural neighbors. But again, it is not on the level of language, the surface level of the images, or even in the understanding of the physical world depicted, but on a deeper level of the background and content of the metaphorical language.

The paradigmatic event in Israel’s history was the exodus, specifically the crossing of the Sea of Reeds (see The Yam Suph: Red Sea or Sea of Reeds?). Since this event involved water, there is a natural connection with the myths of ancient Middle Eastern culture. The Song of the Sea, following the Reed Sea incident (Exod 15:1-21), is one of the oldest writings in the Old Testament, and draws on the imagery of the conquest of Yamm (Sea). Yahweh is portrayed as a mighty warrior doing battle for His people (v. 3; cf Psa 24:8). While there are historical references to Pharaoh and his army, the battle itself is described in relation to the sea. The deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptians was effected by Yahweh’s control of the sea, the waters, the floods, and the deep. Israel remembered the deliverance as a historical event. Yet when they described it, they used the language of Canaan, the poetic images common to the cultural milieu of the day (note Psa 77:16-20).

The event itself became a paradigm, a metaphorical way to confess God as Deliverer and Savior. Likewise, the poetic language used to depict the event also took on a larger symbolic function. The « coming » of God for the salvation of His people, cast in images of the Divine Warrior marching at the head of the heavenly armies, became a conventional way of referring to God and His activity in the world. This emerged in a special literary form called a theophany, in which the presence of Yahweh among His people was depicted in images rooted in the Ba‘al myths.

A typical example is the hymn of Habakkuk 3. There Yahweh marches from the southern desert riding upon the storm clouds. Pestilence (Heb: derek) and Plague (Heb: resheph), known elsewhere as the Canaanite deities Derek and Resheph, march at His side. With lightning flashing from his hands, He comes for the salvation/deliverance of His people. While Habakkuk is writing at the time of the Babylonian invasion, Yahweh’s foes are Nahar, Yam, and Tehom, the river, the sea, and the deep.

Although the literary form of a theophany can be varied, other theophanies exhibit similar references to clouds, lightning, thunder, gloom and darkness, and heavenly armies or assemblies of the heavenly court (Exodus 19; Psa 77:16-20). The Israelite writers exhibited a great deal of creativity in theophanies, and some of the images may have origins elsewhere. Yet, there are enough overtones of the mythical metaphors to see some contact with the stock of cultural metaphors of surrounding culture.

As already noted, it is likely that the images of chaos and cosmic struggle in the Ba‘al myths, mediated through the metaphorical language of theophany, also emerge in the highly stylized and symbolic language of apocalyptic, represented in Old Testament by the book of Daniel and in the New Testament by the book of Revelation. While the specific origin of many of the symbols of apocalyptic writings cannot be traced, several basic elements, including the struggle between God and the dragon, the images of fire, cloud (smoke), and water, and cataclysmic upheavals in the physical world, have a common background in Canaanite and Middle Eastern culture.

Some of these images, especially the cosmic battle waged for control of the world, translate well from their Semitic origins into the more dualistic thought world of the inter-testamental period and the early church. Unfortunately, in our day, many have again taken the metaphors themselves as truth and understand the Christian life in terms of this ancient cosmic battle between God and the dragon of chaos. This explains the popularity of « spiritual warfare » language current in some circles of the Church today.

III. Believing the Old Testament in the Twenty-First Century

We now return to our original questions and perhaps are ready to consider some answers. One thing remains to be considered, however. We have noted the ancient Israelites’ way of talking about their world and about God. In summary, we need to compare the ancient world’s way of speaking with the way we talk about our world and about God as we near the twenty-first century.

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A. Ancient and Modern Perceptions of the World

1. the reign of myth and magic

Apart from Israel, the ancient world was dominated by myth and magic, which explained how the world functioned and how human beings related to it. The myths grew out of experience, but were actually a means of articulating speculative thought about the world.  The myths revealed a way of thinking that saw the world as the embodiment of personal forces that could be controlled or manipulated by human actions. The myths were not concerned with data, natural « laws, » or absolutes. They were only concerned with establishing order and stability for the survival of life. Nothing else was necessary to explain human existence beyond the activity of the gods on some cosmic level, because the gods and the world were essentially the same thing (see chart on the Comparison of World Views, Myth).

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2. the reign of naturalism and positivism

Our modern world, at least in Western, 20th century society, is largely dominated by rationalistic approaches that deal only with data, empirical observation, and processes that are more or less self-sustaining. We call these processes « natural law, » although there is an increasing awareness that this label may not be totally adequate. This naturalistic view sees the world only in terms of a sequence of causes and effects (positivism); it is a closed system that needs no outside « interference » to operate. Nothing else is necessary to explain human existence beyond the operation of the laws of nature on a physical level, because the gods do not exist and the cosmos is self-contained (see chart on the Comparison of World Views, Naturalism/Positivism).

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A slightly more nuanced version of this view is that of classic philosophy (or the later adaption of rationalism into Deism). That view distinguishes between some ultimate or primary cause, whether a « big bang » or God however defined, and the more immediate causes of specific events or effects, such as the dynamics of the atmosphere that create weather.

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B. Myth, Symbol, and Mythopoetic Language

1. myth, ancient and modern

I would suggest that the naturalistic view of the world, whether it emerges in historical positivism, philosophical deism, or atheistic empiricism, is just as mythical in the technical sense as is the Enuma Elish or the Ba‘al myth. It assumes that one way of looking at the physical world is the only way, and that one set of metaphors, and one language, is adequate. This ascension of the myth of naturalism and natural law has created the tension that most of us have experienced as we move from our modern world view to the world view of the Scriptures. While this modern myth of immutable natural law is being modified from the perspectives of quantum physics, the theory of random event, and chaos theory, there is still a disposition, perhaps a need, to see the world in rational categories, in terms of stability and order. After all, that is a basic premise for most of the work done in the Natural Sciences.

2. religious language: having it both ways

Must we, living in a culture where the way we view our world seems totally at odds with the perspective of ancient Israelite culture, choose one or the other? I think not. I think we can have it both ways! It is here that the Bible can be our greatest ally and can provide a solution rather than being the source of the problem.

I contend that the Israelites borrowed the cultural language of Canaan because that language was the best, perhaps the only, means available to them in their cultural context to articulate observations about the physical world and how God related to that world. There were no other thought categories available to them to describe what we call « natural » processes. In fact, there is no equivalent word in the Hebrew language for what we mean by « nature. » The Israelites could not speak of « nature » as a collection of natural forces. They could only speak of God.

Yet, they differed radically from the Canaanites and surrounding cultures by refusing to equate God with the physical world. They did not use the myths to articulate their understanding of God. They did that on a historical level and so parted company with the ancient world. But the Israelites did not leave their culture. They did not make radical breakthroughs in observation of the physical world. So they were left with the language of myth by which to speak of the physical world, even when they understood it in terms of creation by God. They used, not the content and assumptions of the myth itself, but the language of myth to confess God’s relationship to the physical world as Creator and Deliverer (see chart on the Comparison of World Views, Bible/Mythopoetic).

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Understanding this puts us a long ways towards understanding the use of mythical imagery in the Old Testament. In fact, this is probably the single most important point in this paper: when it addresses aspects of the physical world, the language of the Old Testament is often the language of Canaan, cast in the images of contemporary Canaanite culture, although the content of those images is informed and transformed by a different understanding of God and his actions in the world.

The difference in understanding is not on the level of the description of the physical world or the surface levels of the images themselves. On that level, the Israelites were much nearer the mythical world of their Canaanite neighbors than they are to us (see chart on the Comparison of World Views). This helps explain the Israelites’ seven hundred year struggle to break free from a syncretistic religion that tried to make the appropriated symbols truth in themselves. On a deeper level, the mythical images of the culture were used in a metaphorical way much as the metaphors functioned in the Star Trek episode mentioned earlier. They became in biblical traditions simply the conventions of poetic description, what scholars call mythopoetic language. The difference is in the radically different view of deity and humanity that the poetic images were used to convey.

C. The Dynamics of Tradition, Community, and Culture

1. speaking what must be spoken

As the community of faith, what should we speak to our modern, rationally, scientifically, technologically oriented world? What is it that we need to say about God? What should the Church, the people of God, be expending its energy getting people to believe? The Church, as it has often done in the past, can set itself totally against culture, reject the language of Canaan as too pagan, and create its own closed community with its own system of symbols and metaphors, a language that only the initiated can understand and which the initiated are required to speak. It can haul the Galileos in its midst before the Inquisition and silence them. But that does not erase what we know. Galileo was forced before the Inquisitor to recant his Copernican theories of planetary motion, which held that the earth was not the immovable center of the universe. Legend says that Galileo arose from before the Inquisitor and quietly whispered, « But the earth does move. »

We must, as people living in the Western world at the end of the second millennium after Christ, live in our world. As much as we might like to return to a simpler world, to a biblical world, uncomplicated by the knowledge, the technology, the problems, and the questions of our time, we cannot. We can never be « BC  » persons and we can never be first century Christians. We have learned too much about our world in 2,000 years. If we are to be authentic persons, authentic Christians, we must come to terms with our world, not capitulate to it, but learn to function well in it as Christians. We must learn to be genuine theists in a way that takes seriously the biblical confession that God is Creator and Sustainer of his creation, and yet also takes seriously what we have come to know about that creation and how it works (see chart on the Comparison of World Views, Theism).

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We cannot simply construct a new myth, whether it be magically or rationally based. If we are to retain a dynamic and growing Faith in the twenty-first century, we must learn to articulate that Faith in ways, in symbols, in metaphors, that twenty-first century people can understand. If they do not know the cultural context of our words, the words will have no meaning and our message, our witness to our God, our salvation, our hope for the world runs the risk being unintelligible, or worse rejected as irrelevant. Our Faith will never be totally rational, but it cannot be irrational, and, if Wesleyan tradition is at all correct, it should be reasonable.

2. what language shall we speak?

As Christians, we must speak. Like Jeremiah the prophet, we have a message for the world that if we do not speak, it becomes a burning fire inside us that we cannot shut in. We must speak. But what language shall we speak? What symbols shall we borrow? And who will listen?

If the Israelites could hold a primitive view of the physical world much like their Canaanite neighbors, and yet still affirm Yahweh as Creator, perhaps we should realize that our faith is not finally linked to such matters unless WE force it to be. If Israelites thought that the world was flat and floated on the primeval ocean like a lily pad, and could still acknowledge God as Creator, perhaps we can believe that the world is billions of years old or that there is intelligent life on other planets in remote solar systems and still be Christian. If the biblical traditions could appropriate the language of Canaan and « sanctify » it to carry their own faith confessions, perhaps the Church should not be so threatened by science and the language of science when it informs us about our physical world.

I would suggest that we can, and should, as Christians, allow the Natural Sciences their voice in the church. I see nothing in scientific methodology that is inherently alien or threatening to the Christian faith. I see only scientists, as well as theologians, sometimes using their methodology badly. Perhaps we can even appropriate some of this modern language of Canaan in articulating our Faith confessions. We may have to give it added content, shape it to our Faith confessions, even reject some of the presuppositions that inform it. We may have to be more deliberately Wesleyan, even more deliberately Christian, in our thinking.

But in the end, we must learn to speak the language simply because it is the language that our modern world outside the church speaks. After all, the words and the language itself are not truth, they only bear witness to the truth. And I contend that, ultimately, it is the message and the witness Himself who is believed, not just his words. But the words and the language must be understood or no one will even hear the message.

Endnotes

1. James Sires, The Universe Next Door: A Basic World-View Catalog, InterVarsity Press, 1976, 17.

2. James Sires, The Universe Next Door: A Basic World-View Catalog, InterVarsity Press, 1976, 18.

3. Here I need to make clear that Wesleyan theology in and of itself does not demand a certain set of philosophical assumptions, nor does it demand the rejection of certain systems of thought. Many in the Wesleyan tradition have held the same set of assumptions as those in opposing traditions. The point is that for me, in my understanding of the basic aspects of a Wesleyan system, especially the concept of prevenient grace and human freedom/responsibility that results, the classical Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophical systems upon which Calvinistic and Reformed theology is based does not lend itself to articulating the essential elements of that Wesleyan view. For a more detailed presentation of the perspectives on Scripture that lie behind this view, see The Modern Inerrancy Debate, Revelation and Inspiration: The Foundation in Scripture)

4. There is clearly a difference between language as the specific ways in which sounds and words are combined to produce speech common to a particular group, as the English language, and the more general sense in which I am using language here to emphasize any means of communication through symbols. However, the difference is more one of degree than of substance; the former is a more specialized aspect of the latter.

5. Here I am using « theology » is a non-technical sense simply to refer to « talk about God, » which is the basic meaning of the word.

6. This dimension is emphasized in two of the Gospels: Luke 1:1-2, John 20:30-31, 21:24-25.

7. William A. Irwin, « The Hebrews, » in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, University of Chicago Press, 1972 [1946], 224ff.

8. There are no surviving texts from the Canaanite culture that the Israelites replaced in Palestine. Most of our information comes from archaeological excavations and from the Old Testament itself. However, large numbers of texts have been discovered in Syria (Ugarit), Assyria (Nineveh), and Babylon (Sumerian and Akkadian), as well as Egypt. These texts describe religious myths, beliefs, and practices that correspond very closely in significant details to the Israelite characterization of Canaanite religion presented in the Old Testament. We can also trace the similarity in law codes, customs, building practices, etc. Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 185, passim.

9. For example: Sumer, 18th century BC, An, Enlil, Ninhursanga (Heaven, Air, Earth); Akkad, 12th century BC, Marduk, Enlil, Tiamat; Ugarit (Ras Shamra), 13th century BC, El, Ashirat, Baal (Hadd or Hadad), Anat; Hittite/Hurrian, 13th century BC, Teshub, Kumarbi; Sidon, 5th century BC, Eshmun (Gk: Asclepius), Astarte; Tyre, 5th century BC, Baal Melqart (Gk: Heracles); Carthage, 5th century BC, Baal Hammon, Tanit; Damascus, eighth century BC, Baal Shamamin, Shamash, Shahar (Lord of Heaven, Sun, Moon); Babylon, 9th -5th century BC, Marduk, Ishtar. Ancient Sumerian and Akkadian texts name over 3,000 deities. Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 69, passim.

10. Norman Gottwald has postulated that the great majority of « Israelites » that emerged in the period of the Davidic monarchy were actually disenfranchised Canaanites who rebelled from the overlords of the city states of Palestine and joined a core group of escaped slaves in a battle for freedom (Norman Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh). Even without accepting this hypothesis, there is biblical evidence that at least some Canaanites, as well as some Africans from Egypt, joined the Israelites as they moved into Canaan. This would partly explain the recurrent problem with the worship of Baal and other non-Israelite deities. See Josh 9, Exod 12:38, Num 11:4. Also, scholars have suggested that the lack of battles fought in the central highlands of Samaria as the Israelites entered the land is evidence that clan members related to the Israelites remained in this area during the several centuries-long Egyptian sojourn of Abraham’s family.

11. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, The Southwestern Company, 1962, 495.

12. H. and H. A. Frankfort, « Myth and Reality, » in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, University of Chicago Press, 1972 [1946], 3-27.

13. Again noting that there are no surviving texts from Canaanite culture. The most complete text of the Ba‘al myth comes from Ugarit.

14. Space prohibits dealing with the equally interesting Epic of Gilgamesh or the earlier Atrahasis Epic, both of which contain stories in which water threatens to re-engulf the world. Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 89-97.

15. This mythical battle, called a theogony, is a recurring theme in most mythical systems from ancient Greece and Rome to modern popular Hinduism.

16. Pierre Grimal, ed., Larousse World Mythology, Chartwell Books, 1976 [1965], 63-70; Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 80-84.

17. Pierre Grimal, ed., Larousse World Mythology, Chartwell Books, 1976 [1965], 86-92; Walter Beyerlin, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating To the Old Testament, Westminster, 1978 [1975], 185-221.

18. See F. M. Cross, « The Song of the Sea and Canaanite Myth, » in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 113-120.

19. See Samuel Terrien, The Elusive Presence: The Heart of Biblical Theology, Harper and Row, 1983, 63-152.

20. This is the conclusion of the Frankforts in H. and H. A. Frankfort, « The Emancipation of Thought from Myth, » in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: As Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, University of Chicago Press, 1972 [1946], 363-388.

21. There is much debate about the development and transition to a « post-modern » perspective that is less rationalistic, less concerned with self sustaining processes, and that is more aware of spontaneity and random event. This has led, especially in scientific circles to talk more about the processes by which events occur rather than the final cause for them according to a definable « natural law. » This perspective may (or may not) mark a transition to a new world view. However, there is sufficient diversity in the perspectives right now to describe them generally as falling somewhere in a range between theism (emphasizing a certain external cause), deism (acknowledging some external cause), to naturalism (the cause resides within the system) whether or not that cause is defined in terms of « natural law ».

Voir aussi:

Enuma Elish: « When on High . . . »

The Mesopotamian/Babylonian Creation Myth

Dennis Bratcher

The Enuma Elish is a Babylonian or Mesopotamian myth of creation recounting the struggle between cosmic order and chaos. It is basically a myth of the cycle of seasons. It is named after its opening words and was recited on the fourth day of the ancient Babylonian New Year’s festival. The basic story exists in various forms in the area. This version is written in Akkadian, an old Babylonian dialect, and features Marduk, the patron deity of the city of Babylon. A similar earlier version in ancient Sumerian has Anu, Enil and Ninurta as the heroes, suggesting that this version was adapted to justify the religious practices in the cult of Marduk in Babylon.

This version was written sometime in the 12th century BC in cuneiform on seven clay tablets. They were found in the middle 19th century in the ruins of the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. George Smith first published these texts in 1876 as The Chaldean Genesis. Because of many parallels with the Genesis account, some historians concluded that the Genesis account was simply a rewriting of the Babylonian story. As a reaction, many who wanted to maintain the uniqueness of the Bible argued either that there were no real parallels between the accounts or that the Genesis narratives were written first and the Babylonian myth borrowed from the biblical account.

However, there are simply too many similarities to deny any relationship between the accounts. There are significant differences as well that should not be ignored. Yet there is little doubt that the Sumerian versions of the story predate the biblical account by several hundred years. Rather than opting for either extreme of complete dependence or no contact whatever, it is best to see the Genesis narratives as freely using the metaphors and symbolism drawn from a common cultural pool to assert their own theology about God (see Speaking the Language of Canaan).

The version presented here is a combination of several translations but is substantially based on the translation of E. A. Speiser in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition, edited by James Pritchard (Princeton, 1969), with modifications based on various other translations (for example, the translation of L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation, London 1902). The translation of these texts is not exact. In some cases, badly damaged tablets make reading the text difficult. Some translators leave the gaps, while others attempt to reconstruct the text based on what remains. In other cases, there are differing interpretations of the meaning of words or the reading of the cuneiform itself. Many translations of the tablets try to capture the sense of the text rather than a literal translation. That is the approach taken here. In this version, many of the names of the gods are left untranslated.

Tablet I

The stage is set for the story. The various gods represent aspects of the physical world. Apsu is the god of fresh water and thus male fertility. Tiamat, wife of Apsu, is the goddess of the sea and thus chaos and threat. Tiamat gives birth to Anshar and Kishar, gods who represented the boundary between the earth and sky (the horizon). To Anshar and Kishar is born Anu, god of sky, who in turn bears Ea. These « sons of the gods » make so much commotion and are so ill-behaved that Apsu decides to destroy them. When Ea learns of the plan, he kills Apsu and with his wife Damkina establishes their dwelling above his body. Damkina then gives birth to Marduk, the god of spring symbolized both by the light of the sun and the lightning in storm and rain. He was also the patron god of the city of Babylon. Meanwhile Tiamat is enraged at the murder of her husband Apsu, and vows revenge. She creates eleven monsters to help her carry out her vengeance. Tiamat takes a new husband, Kingu, in place of the slain Apsu and puts him in charge of her newly assembled army.

When on high the heaven had not been named,

Firm ground below had not been called by name,

When primordial Apsu, their begetter,

And Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,

Their waters mingled as a single body,

No reed hut had sprung forth, no marshland had appeared,

None of the gods had been brought into being,

And none bore a name, and no destinies determined–

Then it was that the gods were formed in the midst of heaven.

Lahmu and Lahamu were brought forth, by name they were called. (10)

Before they had grown in age and stature,

Anshar and Kishar were formed, surpassing the others.

Long were the days, then there came forth…..

Anu was their heir, of his fathers the rival;

Yes, Anshar’s first-born, Anu, was his equal.

Anu begot in his image Nudimmud.

This Nudimmud was of his fathers the master;

Of broad wisdom, understanding, mighty in strength,

Mightier by far than his grandfather, Anshar.

He had no rival among the gods, his brothers. (20)

Thus were established and were… the great gods.

They disturbed Tiamat as they surged back and forth,

Yes, they troubled the mood of Tiamat

By their hilarity in the Abode of Heaven.

Apsu could not lessen their clamor

And Tiamat was speechless at their ways.

Their doings were loathsome unto . . . .

Thier way was evil; they were overbearing.

Then Apsu, the begetter of the great gods,

Cried out, addressing Mummu, his minister: (30)

« O Mummu, my vizier, who rejoices my spirit,

Come here and let us go to Tiamat! »

They went and sat down before Tiamat,

Exchanging counsel about the gods, their first-born.

Apsu, opening his mouth,

Said to resplendent Tiamat:

« Their ways are truly loathsome to me.

By day I find no relief, nor repose by night.

I will destroy, I will wreck their ways,

That quiet may be restored. Let us have rest! » (40)

As soon as Tiamat heard this,

She was furious and called out to her husband.

She cried out aggrieved, as she raged all alone,

She uttered a curse, and unto Apsu she spoke:

« What? Should we destroy that which we have built?

Their ways indeed are most troublesome, but let us attend kindly! »

Then Mummu answered, giving counsel to Apsu;

Ill-wishing and ungracious was Mummu’s advice:

« Do destroy, my father, the mutinous ways.

Then you will have relief by day and rest by night! » (50)

When Apsu heard this, his face grew radiant

Because of the evil he planned against the gods, his sons.

As for Mummu, he embraced him by the neck

As that one sat down on his knees to kiss him.

Now whatever they had plotted between them,

Was repeated unto the gods, their first-born.

When the gods heard this, they were astir,

Then lapsed into silence and remained speechless.

Surpassing in wisdom, accomplished, resourceful,

Ea, the all-wise, saw through their scheme. (60)

A master design against it he devised and set up,

Made artful his spell against it, surpassing and holy.

He recited it and made it subsist in the deep,

As he poured sleep upon him. Sound asleep he lay.

When he had made Apsu prone, drenched with sleep,

Mummu, the adviser, was powerless to stir.

He loosened his band, tore off his tiara,

Removed his halo and put it on himself.

Having fettered Apsu, he slew him.

Mummu he bound and left behind lock. (70)

Having thus established his dwelling upon Apsu,

He laid hold of Mummu, holding him by the nose-rope.

After Ea had vanquished and trodden down his foes,

Had secured his triumph over his enemies,

In his sacred chamber in profound peace had rested,

He named it « Apsu, » for shrines he assigned it.

In that same place his cult hut he founded.

Ea and Damkina, his wife, dwelled there in splendor.

[The Birth of Marduk]

In the chamber of fates, the abode of destinies,

A god was engendered, most able and wisest of gods. (80)

In the heart of Apsu was Marduk created,

In the heart of holy Apsu was Marduk created.

He who begot him was Ea, his father;

She who bore him was Damkina, his mother.

The breast of goddesses he did suck.

The nurse that nursed him filled him with awesomeness.

Alluring was his figure, sparkling the lift of his eyes.

Lordly was his gait, commanding from of old.

When Ea saw him, the father who begot him,

He exulted and glowed, his heart filled with gladness. (90)

He rendered him perfect and endowed him with a double godhead.

Greatly exalted was he above them, exceeding throughout.

Perfect were his members beyond comprehension,

Unsuited for understanding, difficult to perceive.

Four were his eyes, four were his ears;

When he moved his lips, fire blazed forth.

Large were all four hearing organs,

And the eyes, in like number, scanned all things.

He was the loftiest of the gods, surpassing was his stature;

His members were enormous, he was exceeding tall. (100)

« My little son, my little son! »

My son, the Sun! Sun of the heavens! »

Clothed with the halo of ten gods, he was strong to the utmost,

As their awesome flashes were heaped upon him.

Anu brought forth and begot the fourfold wind

Consigning to its power the leader of the host.

He fashioned . . . , stationed the whirlwind,

He produced streams to disturb Tiamat.

The gods, given no rest, suffer in the storm.

Their hearts having plotted evil, (110)

To Tiamat, their mother, said:

« When they slew Apsu, your consort,

You did not aid him but remained still.

When he created the dread fourfold wind,

Your vitals were diluted and so we can have no rest.

Let Apsu, your consort, be in your mind

And Mummu, who has been vanquished! You are left alone!

. . . you pace about distraught,

. . . without cease. You do not love us!

. . . our eyes are pinched, (120)

. . . without cease. Let us have rest!

. . . to battle. Avenge them!

. . . and render them as the wind! »

When Tiamat heard these words, she was pleased:

 » . . . you have given. Let us make monsters,

. . . and the gods in the midst . . . .

. . . let us do battle and against the gods . . . ! »

They banded themselves together and marched at the side of Tiamat.

Enraged, they plot without cease night and day,

They are set for combat, growling, raging, (130)

They form a council to prepare for the fight.

Mother Hubur, she who fashions all things,

Added matchless weapons, bore monster-serpents,

Sharp of tooth, unsparing of fang.

With venom for blood she has filled their bodies.

Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror,

Has crowned them with haloes, making them like gods,

Whoever beheld them, terror overcame him,

And that, with their bodies reared up, none might turn them back.

She set up the Viper, the Dragon, and the monster Lahamu, (140)

The Great-Lion, the Mad-Dog, and the Scorpion-Man,

Mighty lion-demons, the Dragon-Fly, the Centaur–

Bearing weapons that do not spare, fearless in battle.

Her decrees were firm, they were beyond resisting.

All together eleven of this kind she brought forth.

From among the gods, her first-born, who formed her Assembly,

She elevated Kingu, made him chief among them.

The leading of the ranks, command of the Assembly,

The raising of weapons for the encounter, advancing to combat,

To direct the battle, to control the fight, (150)

These she entrusted to his hand as she seated him in the Council:

« I have cast for you the spell, exalting you in the Assembly of the gods.

To counsel all the gods I have given you full power.

Truly, you are supreme, you are my only consort!

Your utterance shall prevail over all the Anunnaki! »

She gave him the Tablet of Destinies, fastened on his breast:

« As for you, your command shall be unchangeable, your word shall endure! »

As soon as Kingu was elevated, possessed of the rank of Anu,

they decreed the fate for the gods, his sons:

« Your word shall make the first subside, (160)

Shall humble the `Power-Weapon,’ so potent in its sweep! »

Tablet II

Tiamat represents the forces of disorder and chaos in the world. In the cycle of seasons, Tiamat is winter and barrenness. In the second tablet, to avenge the murder of her husband Tiamat prepares to unleash on the other gods the destructive forces that she has assembled. Ea learns of her plan and attempts to confront Tiamat. While the tablet is damaged, it is apparent that Ea fails to stop Tiamat. Then Anu attempts to challenge her but fails as well. The gods become afraid that no one will be able to stop Taimat’s vengeful rampage.

When Tiamat had thus lent import to her handiwork,

She prepared for battle against the gods, her offspring.

To avenge Apsu, Tiamat planned evil.

That she was girding for battle was divulged to Ea.

As soon as Ea heard of this matter,

He lapsed into dark silence and sat still.

The days went by, and his anger subsided,

He went to Anshar, his fore father.

When he came before his grandfather, Anshar,

He repeated all that Tiamat had plotted to him: (10)

« My father, Tiamat, she who bore us, detests us.

She has set up the Assembly and is furious with rage.

All the gods have rallied to her;

Even those whom you brought forth march at her side.

They throng and march at the side of Tiamat,

Enraged, they plot without cease night and day.

They are set for combat, growling, raging,

They have formed a council to prepare for the fight.

Mother Hubur, she who fashions all things,

Has added matchless weapons, has born monster-serpents, (20)

Sharp of tooth, unsparing of fang.

With venom for blood she has filled their bodies.

Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror,

Has crowned them with haloes, making them like gods,

So that he who beholds them is overcome by terror,

Their bodies rear up and none can withstand their attack.

She has set up the Viper, the Dragon, and the Sphinx,

The Great-Lion, the Mad-Dog, and the Scorpion-Man,

Mighty lion-demons, the Dragon-Fly, the Centaur–

Bearing weapons that spare not, fearless in battle. (30)

Her decrees are firm, they are beyond resisting.

All together eleven of this kind she has brought forth.

From among the gods, her first-born, who formed her Assembly,

She has elevated Kingu, has made him chief among them.

The leading of the ranks, command of the Assembly,

The raising of weapons for the encounter, advancing to combat,

To direct the battle, to control the fight,

She entrusted these to his hands as she seated him in the Council:

‘I have cast the spell for you, exalting you in the Assembly of the gods.

To counsel all the gods I have given you full power. (40)

Truly, you are supreme, you are my only consort!

Your utterance shall prevail over all the Anunnaki!’

She has given him the Tablet of Destinies, fastened on his breast:

‘As for you, your command shall be unchangeable, your word shall endure!’

As soon as Kingu was elevated, possessed of the rank of Anu,

They decreed the fate for the gods, her sons:

‘Your word shall make the fire subside,

Shall humble the « Power-Weapon, » so potent in its sweep!’

When Anshar heard that Tiamat was sorely troubled,

He struck his loins and bit his lips. (50)

[The following lines are corrupted because the tablet is damaged here; there are various proposals for how to reconstruct them]

His heart was gloomy, his mood restless.

He covered his mouth to stifle his outcry:

. . . battle.

. . .you . . .

Lo, you killed Mummu and Apsu.

Now, kill Kingu, who marches before her.

. . . wisdom. »

Nudimmud, the. . . of the gods, . . . .

[A break in the tablet loses about 12 lines here.]

He addressed a word to Anu, his son:

 » . . . mighty hero,

Whose strength is outstanding, his onslaught cannot be withstood.

Go and stand before Tiamat,

That her mood be calmed, that her heart may be merciful.

If she will not listen to your word,

Then tell her our word, that she might be calmed. »

When he heard the command of his father, Anshar,

He made straight for her way, following the road to her. (80)

But when Anu was near enough to see the plan of Tiamat,

He was not able to face her and he turned back.

[He came abjectly to his father,] Anshar.

. . . he addressed him:

[The following 20 lines are badly damaged; there are various reconstructions of this section]

« My hand suffices not for me to subdue you. »

Anshar was speechless as he stared at the ground,

Hair on edge, shaking his head at Ea.

All the Anunnaki gathered at that place;

Their lips closed tight, they sat in silence.

« No god, » they thought « can go to battle and, (90)

Facing Tiamat, escape with his life. »

. . .Anshar . . .

. . .he said to . . .

. . .an avenger . . .

. . .the hero! »

. . .in his place of seclusion.

. . .he spoke to him:

. . .your father,

For you are my son who comforts his heart.

When facing Anshar, approach as though in combat; (100)

Stand up as you speak; seeing you, he will grow restful. »

The lord rejoiced at the word of his father;

He approached and stood before Anshar.

When Anshar saw him, his heart filled with joy.

He kissed his lips and his fear departed from him

« Anshar, be not muted; open wide thy lips.

I will go and attain thy heart’s desire.

Anshar, be not muted; open wide your lips.

I will go and attain your heart’s desire!

What male is it who has pressed his fight against you? (110)

. . .Tiamat, a woman, that flies at you with weapons!

. . . be glad and rejoice;

You shall soon tread upon the neck of Tiamat!

. . . be glad and rejoice;

You shall soon tread upon the neck of Tiamat! »

« My son, you who knows all wisdom,

Calm Tiamat with your holy spell.

On the storm-chariot proceed with all speed.

For your blood shall not be spilled; you will return again. »

The lord rejoiced at the word of his father. (120)

His heart exulting, he said to his father:

« Creator of the gods, destiny of the great gods,

If I indeed, as your avenger,

Conquer Tiamat and give you life,

Set up the Assembly, proclaim my destiny to be supreme!

When jointly in Ubshukinna you have sat down rejoicing,

Let my word, instead of you, determine the fates.

What I may bring into being shall be unalterable;

The command of my lips shall be neither recalled nor changed. »

Tablet III

Anshar’s minister Gaga is dispatched to the other gods to report the activities of Tiamat and to tell them of Marduk’s willingness to face her. Much of this tablet is poetic repetition of previous conversations.

Anshar opened his mouth and

Addressed a word to Gaga, his minister:

« O Gaga, my vizier, who gladdens my spirit,

I will dispatch you to Lahmu and Lahamu.

. . . you are adept;

. . . produce you before me!

. . . let all the gods,

Let them hold converse, sit down to a banquet,

Let them eat bread, let them mix wine,

For Marduk, their avenger, let them fix the decrees. (10)

Be on your way, Gaga, take the stand before them,

And that which I shall tell you repeat to them:

‘Anshar, your son, has sent me here,

Charging me to give voice to the dictates of his heart,

He says that Tiamat, she who bore us, detests us.

She has set up the Assembly and is furious with rage.

All the gods have rallied to her;

Even those whom you brought forth march at her side.

They throng and march at the side of Tiamat.

Enraged, they plot without cease night and day. (20)

They are set for combat, growling, raging,

They have formed a council to prepare for the fight.

Mother Hubur, she who fashions all things,

Has added matchless weapons, has born monster-serpents,

Sharp of tooth, unsparing of fang.

With venom for blood she has filled their bodies.

Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror,

Has crowned them with haloes, making them like gods,

So that he who beholds them is overcome by terror,

Their bodies rear up and none can withstand their attack. (30)

She has set up the Viper, the Dragon, and the monster Lahamu,

The Great-Lion, the Mad-Dog, and the Scorpion-Man,

Mighty lion-demons, the Dragon-Fly, the Centaur–

Bearing weapons that spare not, fearless in battle.

Her decrees are firm, none can. resist them;

After this fashion eleven of this kind she has brought forth.

From among the gods, her first-born, who formed her Assembly,

She has elevated Kingu, has made him chief among them.

The leading of the ranks, command of the Assembly,

The raising of weapons for the encounter, advancing to combat, (40)

To direct the battle, to control the fight,

These to his hands she entrusted as she seated him in the Council:

« I have cast the spell for you, exalting you in the Assembly of the gods.

To counsel all the gods I have given you full power.

truly, you are supreme, you are my only consort!

Your utterance shall prevail over all the Anunnaki! »

She has given him the Tablet of Destinies, fastened on his breast:

« As for you, your command shall be unchangeable, your word shall endure! »

As soon as Kingu was elevated, possessed of the rank of Anu,

For the gods, her sons, they decreed the fate: (50)

« Your word shall make the fire subside,

Shall humble the « Power-Weapon, » so potent in its sweep! »

I sent forth Anu; he could not face her.

Nudimmud was afraid and turned back.

But Marduk came forth, the wisest of gods, your son,

His heart having prompted him to set out to face Tiamat.

He opened his mouth, saying unto me:

« If I indeed, as your avenger,

Am to vanquish Tiamat and save your lives,

Set up the Assembly, proclaim supreme my destiny! (60)

When jointly in Ubshukinna you have sat down rejoicing,

Let my word, instead of you, determine the fates.

Unalterable shall be what I may bring into being;

Neither recalled nor changed shall be the command of my lips! »

Now hasten here and promptly fix for him your decrees,

That he may go forth to face your mighty foe!’ »

Gaga departed, proceeding on his way.

Before Lahmu and Lahamu, the gods, his fathers,

He made obeisance, kissing the ground at their feet.

He bowed low as he took his place to address them: (70)

« It was Anshar, your son, who has sent me here,

Charging me to give voice to the dictates of his heart,

He sya that Tiamat, she who bore us, detests us.

She has set up the Assembly and is furious with rage.

All the gods have rallied to her,

Even those whom you brought forth march at her side.

They re banded together and march at the side of Tiamat.

Enraged, they plot without cease night and day.

They are set for combat, growling, raging,

They have formed a council to prepare for the fight. (80)

Mother Hubur, she who fashions all things,

Has added matchless weapons, has born monster-serpents,

Sharp of tooth, unsparing of fang.

With venom for blood she has filled their bodies,

Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror,

Has crowned them with haloes, making them like gods,

So that he who beholds them terror overcomes him,

Their bodies rear up and none can withstand their attack.

She has set up vipers, dragons, and the monster Lahamu,

Great-lions, mad-dogs, and scorpion-men, (90)

Mighty lion-demons, dragon-flies, and centaurs–

Bearing weapons that spare not, fearless in battle.

Firm are decrees, past withstanding are they.

After this fashion eleven of this kind she has brought forth.

From among the gods, her first-born, who formed her Assembly,

She has elevated Kingu, has made him chief among them.

The leading of the ranks, command of the Assembly,

The raising of weapons for the encounter, advancing to combat,

To direct the battle, to control the fight,

These to his hands she has entrusted as she seated him in the Council: (100)

« I have cast the spell for you, exalting you in the Assembly of the gods.

To counsel all the gods I have given you full power.

Truly, you are supreme, you are my only consort!

Your utterance shall prevail over all the Anunnaki! »

She has given him the Tablet of Destinies, fastened on his breast:

« As for you, your command shall be unchangeable, your word shall endure! »

As soon as Kingu was elevated, possessed of the rank of Anu,

For the gods, her sons, they decreed the fate:

« Your word shall make the fire subside,

Shall humble the « Power-Weapon, » so potent in its sweep! »(110)

I sent forth Anu; he could not face her.

Nudimmud was afraid and turned back.

But Marduk came forth, the wisest of gods, your son,

His heart having prompted him to set out to face Tiamat.

He opened his mouth, saying unto me:

« If I indeed, as your avenger,

Am to vanquish Tiamat and save your lives,

Set up the Assembly, proclaim supreme my destiny!

When in Ubshukinna jointly you sit down rejoicing,

Let my word, instead of you, determine the fates. (120)

Unalterable shall be what I may bring into being;

Neither recalled nor changed shall be the command of my lips! »

Now hasten here and promptly fix for him your decrees,

That he may go forth to face your mighty foe! »

When Lahmu and Lahamu heard this, they cried out aloud,

All the Igigi wailed in distress:

‘How strange that they should have made this decision!

We cannot fathom the doings of Tiamat!’

They made ready to leave on their journey,

All the great gods who decree the fates. (130)

They entered before Anshar, filling Ubshukinna.

They kissed one another in the Assembly.

They held converse as they sat down to the banquet.

They ate bread, they mixed wine.

They wetted their drinking-tubes with sweet intoxicant.

As they drank the strong drink, their bodies swelled.

They became very languid as their spirits rose.

For Marduk, their avenger, they fixed the decrees.

Tablet IV

The council of the gods tests Marduk’s powers by having him make a garment disappear and then reappear. After passing the test, the council enthrones Marduk as high king and commissions him to fight Tiamat. With the authority and power of the council, Marduk assembles his weapons, the four winds as well as the seven winds of destruction. He rides in his chariot of clouds with the weapons of the storm to confront Tiamat. After entangling her in a net, Marduk unleashes the Evil Wind to inflate Tiamat. When she is incapacitated by the wind, Marduk kills her with an arrow through her heart and takes captive the other gods and monsters who were her allies. He also captured her husband Kingu. After smashing Tiamat’s head with a club, Marduk divided her corpse, using half to create the earth and the other half to create the sky complete with bars to keep the chaotic waters from escaping. The tablet ends with Marduk establishing dwelling places for his allies.

They erected for him a princely throne.

Facing his fathers, he sat down, presiding.

« You are the most honored of the great gods,

Your decree is unrivaled, your command is Anu.

You, Marduk, are the most honored of the great gods,

Your decree is unrivaled, your word is Anu.

From this day your pronouncement shall be unchangeable.

To raise or bring low–these shall be in your hand.

Your utterance shall be true, your command shall be unimpeachable.

No one among the gods shall transgress your bounds! (10)

Adornment being wanted for the seats of the gods,

Let the place of their shrines ever be in your place.

O Marduk, you are indeed our avenger.

We have granted you kingship over the universe entire.

When you sit in Assembly your word shall be supreme.

Your weapons shall not fail; they shall smash your foes!

O lord, spare the life of him who trusts you,

But pour out the life of the god who seized evil. »

Having placed in their midst a garment,

They addressed themselves to Marduk, their first-born: (20)

« May thy fate, O lord, be supreme among the gods,

Say but to wreck or create; it shall be.

Open your mouth: the garment will vanish!

Speak again, and the garment shall be whole! »

At the word of his mouth the garment vanished.

He spoke again, and the garment was restored.

When the gods, his fathers, saw the fruit of his word,

Joyfully they did homage: « Marduk is king! »

They conferred on him scepter, throne, and vestment;

They gave him matchless weapons that ward off the foes: (30)

« Go and cut off the life of Tiamat.

May the winds bear her blood to places undisclosed. »

Bel’s destiny thus fixed, the gods, his fathers,

Caused him to go the way of success and attainment.

He constructed a bow, marked it as his weapon,

Attached thereto the arrow, fixed its bow-cord.

He raised the mace, made his right hand grasp it;

Bow and quiver he hung at his side.

In front of him he set the lightning,

With a blazing flame he filled his body. (40)

He then made a net to enfold Tiamat therein.

The four winds he stationed that nothing of her might escape,

The South Wind, the North Wind, the East Wind, the West Wind.

Close to his side he held the net, the gift of his father, Anu.

He brought forth Imhullu « the Evil Wind, » the Whirl-wind, the Hurricane,

The Fourfold Wind, the Sevenfold Wind, the Cyclone, the Matchless Wind;

Then he sent forth the winds he had brought forth, the seven of them.

To stir up the inside of Tiamat they rose up behind him.

Then the lord raised up the flood-storm, his mighty weapon.

He mounted the storm-chariot irresistible and terrifying. (50)

He harnessed and yoked to it a team-of-four,

The Killer, the Relentless, the Trampler, the Swift.

Their lips were parted, their teeth bore poison.

They were tireless and skilled in destruction.

On his right he posted the Smiter, fearsome in battle,

On the left the Combat, which repels all the zealous.

For a cloak he was wrapped in an armor of terror;

With his fearsome halo his head was turbaned.

The lord went forth and followed his course,

Towards the raging Tiamat he set his face. (60)

In his lips he held a spell;

A plant to put out poison was grasped in his hand.

Then they milled about him, the gods milled about him,

The gods, his fathers, milled about him, the gods milled about him.

The lord approached to scan the inside of Tiamat,

And of Kingu, her consort, the scheme to perceive.

As he looks on, he loses his way,

His will is distracted and his doings are confused.

And when the gods, his helpers, who marched at his side,

Saw the valiant hero, their vision became blurred. (70)

Tiamat emitted a cry, without turning her neck,

Framing savage defiance in her lips:

« You are too important for the lord of the gods to rise up against you!

Is it in their place that they have gathered, or in your place? »

Thereupon the lord, having raised the flood-storm, his mighty weapon,

To enraged Tiamat he sent word as follows:

« Why are you risen, haughtily exalted,

You have charged your own heart to stir up conflict, . . . sons reject their own fathers,

While you, who have born them, have foresworn love! (80)

You have appointed Kingu as your consort,

Conferring upon him the rank of Anu, not rightfully his.

Against Anshar, king of the gods, you seek evil;

Against the gods, my fathers, you have confirmed your wickedness.

Though your forces are drawn up, your weapons girded on,

Stand up, that I and you might meet in single combat! »

When Tiamat heard this,

She was like one possessed; she took leave of her senses.

In fury Tiamat cried out aloud.

To the roots her legs shook both together. (90)

She recites a charm, keeps casting her spell,

While the gods of battle sharpen their weapons.

Then Tiamat and Marduk joined issue, wisest of gods.

They strove in single combat, locked in battle.

The lord spread out his net to enfold her,

The Evil Wind, which followed behind, he let loose in her face.

When Tiamat opened her mouth to consume him,

He drove in the Evil Wind while as yet she had not shut her lips

As the terrible winds filled her belly,

Her body was distended and her mouth was wide open. (100)

He released the arrow, it tore her belly,

It cut through her insides, splitting the heart.

Having thus subdued her, he extinguished her life.

He cast down her carcass to stand upon it.

After he had slain Tiamat, the leader,

Her band was shattered, her troupe broken up;

And the gods, her helpers who marched at her side,

Trembling with terror, turned their backs about,

In order to save and preserve their lives.

Tightly encircled, they could not escape. (110)

He made them captives and he smashed their weapons.

Thrown into the net, they found themselves ensnared;

Placed in cells, they were filled with wailing;

Bearing his wrath, they were held imprisoned.

And the eleven creatures which she had charged with awe,

The whole band of demons that marched on her right,

He cast into fetters, their hands he bound.

For all their resistance, he trampled them underfoot.

And Kingu, who had been made chief among them,

He bound and accounted him to Uggae. (120)

He took from him the Tablet of Destinies, not rightfully his,

Sealed them with a seal and fastened them on his breast.

When he had vanquished and subdued his adversaries,

Had . . . the vainglorious foe,

Had wholly established Anshar’s triumph over the foe,

Had achieved Nudimmud’s desire, valiant Marduk

Strengthened his hold on the vanquished gods,

And turned back to Tiamat whom he had bound.

The lord trod on the legs of Tiamat,

With his unsparing mace he crushed her skull. (130)

When the arteries of her blood he had severed,

The North Wind bore it to places undisclosed.

On seeing this, his fathers were joyful and jubilant,

They brought gifts of homage to him.

Then the lord paused to view her dead body,

That he might divide the form and do artful works.

He split her like a shellfish into two parts:

Half of her he set up as a covering for heaven,

Pulled down the bar and posted guards.

He bade them to allow not her waters to escape. (140)

He crossed the heavens and surveyed the regions.

He squared Apsu’s quarter, the abode of Nudimmud,

As the lord measured the dimensions of Apsu.

The Great Abode, its likeness, he fixed as Esharra,

The Great Abode, Esharra, which he made as the firmament.

Anu, Enlil, and Ea he made occupy their places.

Tablet V

Marduk builds dwelling places for the other gods. As they take their place, they establish the days and months and seasons of the year. Since this is a myth about the natural world, the « stations » that Marduk establishes for the gods correspond to the celestial luminaries that figured in Babylonian astrology. The phases (horns) of the Moon determine the cycles of the months. From the spittle of Tiamat Marduk creates rain for the earth. The city of Babylon is established as the audience room of King Marduk.

He constructed stations for the great gods,

Fixing their astral likenesses as the stars of the Zodiac.

He determined the year and into sections he divided it;

He set up three constellations for each of the twelve months.

After defining the days of the year by means of heavenly figures,

He founded the station of the pole star [Nebiru] to determine their bounds,

That none might err or go astray.

Alongside it he set up the stations of Enlil and Ea.

Having opened up the gates on both sides,

He strengthened the locks to the left and the right. (10)

In her belly he established the zenith.

The Moon he caused to shine, entrusting the night to him.

He appointed him a creature of the night to signify the days,

And marked off every month, without cease, by means of his crown.

At the month’s very start, rising over the land,

You shall have luminous horns to signify six days,

On the seventh day reaching a half-crown.

So shall the fifteen-day period be like one another-two halves for each month.

When the sun overtakes you at the base of heaven,

Diminish your crown and retrogress in light. (20)

At the time of disappearance approach the course of the sun,

And on the thirtieth you shall again stand in opposition to the sun.

I have appointed a sign, follow its path,

. . . approach and give judgement. »

[Lines 25-44 are badly damaged and untranslatable. Apparently after Marduk created the moon he then created the sun (Shamash).]

After he had appointed the days to Shamash, (45)

And had established the precincts of night and day,

Taking the spittle of Tiamat

Marduk created . . .

He formed the clouds and filled them with water.

The raising of winds, the bringing of rain and cold, (50)

Making the mist smoke, piling up . . .

These he planned himself, took into his own hand.

Putting her head into position he formed thereon the mountains,

Opening the deep which was in flood,

He caused to flow from her eyes the Euphrates and Tigris,

Stopping her nostrils he left . . . ,

He formed from her breasts the lofty mountains,

Therein he drilled springs for the wells to carry off the water.

Twisting her tail he bound it to Durmah,

. . . Apsu at his foot, (60)

. . . her crotch, she was fastened to the heavens,

Thus he covered the heavens and established the earth.

. . . in the midst of Tiamat he made flow,

. . . his net he completely let out,

So he created heaven and earth . . . ,

. . . their bounds . . . established.

When he had designed his rules and fashioned his ordinances,

He founded the shrines and handed them over to Ea.

The Tablet of Destinies which he had taken from Kingu he carried,

He brought it as the first gift of greeting, he gave it to Anu. (70)

The gods who had done battle and been scattered,

He led bound into the presence of his fathers.

Now the eleven creatures which Tiamat had made . . . ,

Whose weapons he had shattered, which he had tied to his foot:

Of these he made statues and set them up at the Gate of Apsu saying:

« Let it be a token that this may never be forgotten! »

When the gods saw this they were exceedingly glad,

Lahmu, Lahamu, and all of his fathers

Crossed over to him, and Anshar, the king, made manifest his greeting,

Anu, Enlil, and Ea presented to him gifts. (80)

With a gift Damkina, his mother, made him joyous,

She sent offerings, his face brightened.

To Usmi who brought her gift to a secret place

He entrusted the chancellorship of Apsu and the stewardship of the shrines.

Being assembled, all the Igigi bowed down,

While everyone of the Anunnaki kissed his feet,

. . . their assembly to do obeisance,

They stood before him, bowed and said: « He is the king! »

After the gods, his fathers, were satiated with his charms. (89)

[Lines 90-106 are too badly damaged for translation. Apparently it describes Marduk on his throne with his weapons.]

Ea and Damkina . . . , (107)

They opened their mouths to speak to the great gods, the Igigi:

« Formerly Marduk was merely our beloved son,

Now he is your king, proclaim his title! » (110)

A second speech they made, they all spoke:

« His name shall be Lugaldimmerankia, trust in him! »

When they had given the sovereignty to Marduk,

They declared for him a formula of good fortune and success:

« Henceforth you will be the patron of our sanctuaries,

Whatever you command we will do. »

Marduk opened his mouth to speak,

To say a word to the gods, his fathers:

« Above the Apsu where you have resided,

The counterpart of Esharra which I have built over you, (120)

Below I have hardened the ground for a building site,

I will build a house, it will be my luxurious abode.

I will found therein its temple,

I will appoint its inner rooms, I will establish my sovereignty.

When you come up from the Apsu for assembly,

You will spend the night in it, it is there to receive all of you.

When you descend from heaven for assembly,

You will spend the night in it, it is there to receive all of you.

I will call its name Babylon which means the houses of the great gods,

I shall build it with the skill of craftsmen. » (130)

When the gods, his fathers, heard this speech of his,

They put the following question to Marduk, their firstborn:

« Over all that your hands have created,

Who will have your authority?

Over the ground which your hands have created,

Who will have your power?

Babylon, which you have given a fine name,

Therein establish our abode forever!

. . . , let them bring our daily ration,

. . . our . . . , (140)

Let no one usurp our tasks which we previously performed,

Therein . . . its labor . . .. »

Marduk rejoiced when he heard this and

He answered those gods who had questioned him,

He that slew Tiamat showed them light,

He opened his mouth, his speech was noble:

 » . . . them . . .,

. . . will be entrusted to you. »

The gods bowed down before him, they spoke to him,

They said to Lugaldimmerankia: (150)

« Formerly the lord was merely our beloved son,

Now he is our king, proclaim his title!

He whose pure incantation gave us life,

He is the lord of splendor, mace, and sceptre.

Ea who knows the skill of all crafts,

Let him prepare the plans, we will be the workers. »

Tablet VI

Marduk decides to create human beings, but needs blood and bone from which to fashion them. Ea advises that only one of the gods should die to provide the materials for creation, the one who was guilty of plotting evil against the gods. Marduk inquires of the assembly of the gods about who incited Tiamat’s rebellion, and was told that it was her husband Kingu. Ea kills Kingu and uses his blood to fashion mankind so they can perform menial tasks for the gods. To honor Marduk, the gods construct a house for him in Babylon. After its completion, Marduk gives a great feast for the gods in his new house who all praise Marduk for his greatness in subduing Tiamat. The first group of the fifty throne names of Marduk are recited.

When Marduk heard the words of the gods,

His heart prompted him to fashion artful works.

Opening his mouth, he addressed Ea

To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:

« I will take blood and fashion bone.

I will establish a savage, ‘man’ shall be his name.

truly, savage-man I will create.

He shall be charged with the service of the gods

That they might be at ease!

The ways of the gods I will artfully alter. (10)

Though alike revered, into two groups they shall be divided. »

Ea answered him, speaking a word to him,

Giving him another plan for the relief of the gods:

« Let but one of their brothers be handed over;

He alone shall perish that mankind may be fashioned.

Let the great gods be here in Assembly,

Let the guilty be handed over that they may endure. »

Marduk summoned the great gods to Assembly;

Presiding graciously, he issued instructions.

To his utterance the gods pay heed.

The king addressed a word to the Anunnaki: (20)

« If your former statement was true,

Now declare the truth on oath by me!

Who was it that contrived the uprising,

And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle?

Let him be handed over who contrived the uprising.

His guilt I will make him bear. You shall dwell in peace! »

The Igigi, the great gods, replied to him,

To Lugaldimmerankia, counselor of the gods, their lord:

« It was Kingu who contrived the uprising,

And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle. » (30)

They bound him, holding him before Ea.

They imposed on him his punishment and severed his blood vessels.

Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.

He imposed on him the service and let free the gods.

After Ea, the wise, had created mankind,

Had imposed upon them the service of the gods–

That work was beyond comprehension;

As artfully planned by Marduk, did Nudimmud create it–

Marduk, the king of the gods divided

All the great gods [Anunnaki] above and below. (40)

He assigned them to Anu to guard his instructions.

Three hundred in the heavens he stationed as a guard.

In like manner the ways of the earth he defined.

In heaven and on earth six hundred thus he settled.

After he had ordered all the instructions,

To the Anunnaki of heaven and earth had allotted their portions,

The Anunnaki opened their mouths

And said to Marduk, their lord:

« Now, O lord, you who have caused our deliverance,

What shall be our homage to you? (50)

Let us build a shrine whose name shall be called

‘Lo, a chamber for our nightly rest’; let us repose in it!

Let us build a throne, a recess for his abode!

On the day that we arrive we shall repose in it. »

When Marduk heard this,

Brightly glowed his features, like the day:

« Construct Babylon, whose building you have requested,

Let its brickwork be fashioned. You shall name it `The Sanctuary.' »

The Anunnaki applied the implement;

For one whole year they molded bricks. (60)

When the second year arrived,

They raised high the head of Esagila equaling Apsu.

Having built a stage-tower as high as Apsu,

They set up in it an abode for Marduk, Enlil, and Ea

In their presence he was seated in grandeur.

To the base of Esharra its horns look down.

After they had achieved the building of Esagila,

All the Anunnaki erected their shrines.

The three hundred Igigi . . . . . . all of them gathered,

The lord being on the lofty dais which they had built as his abode, (70)

The gods, his fathers, at his banquet he seated:

« This is Babylon, the place that is your home!

Make merry in its precincts, occupy its broad places. »

The great gods took their seats,

They set up festive drink, sat down to a banquet.

After they had made merry within it,

In Esagila, the splendid, had performed their rites,

The norms had been fixed and all their portents,

All the gods apportioned the stations of heaven and earth.

The fifty great gods took their seats. (80)

The seven gods of destiny set up the three hundred in heaven.

Enlil raised the bow, his weapon, and laid it before them.

The gods, his fathers, saw the net he had made.

When they beheld the bow, how skillful its shape,

His fathers praised the work he had wrought.

Raising it, Anu spoke up in the Assembly of the gods,

As he kissed the bow: « This is my daughter! »

He named the names of the bow as follows:

« Longwood is the first, the second is Accurate;

Its third name is Bow-Star, in heaven I have made it shine. » (90)

He fixed its position with the gods its brothers.

After Anu had decreed the fate of the bow,

And had placed the lofty royal throne before the gods,

Anu placed it in the Assembly of the gods.

When the great gods had assembled,

They extolled the destiny of Marduk, they bowed down,

They pronounced among themselves a curse,

Swearing by water and oil to place life in jeopardy.

When they had granted him the exercise of kingship of the gods,

When they had given him dominion over the gods of heaven and underworld, (100)

Anshar pronounced supreme his name, Asarluhi, saying:

« Let us do obeisance at the mention of his name,

To his utterance let the gods give heed,

Let his command be supreme above and below!

Most exalted be the Son, our avenger;

Let his sovereignty be surpassing, having no rival.

May he shepherd the black-headed ones, his creatures.

To the end of days, without forgetting, let them acclaim his ways.

May he establish for his fathers the great food-offerings; (110)

Their support they shall furnish, shall tend their sanctuaries.

May he cause incense to be smelled, . . . their spells,

Make a likeness on earth of what he has wrought in heaven.

May he order the black-headed to revere him,

May the subjects ever bear in mind to speak of their god,

And may they at his word pay heed to the goddess.

May food-offerings be borne for their gods and goddesses.

Without fail let them support their gods!

Their lands let them improve, build their shrines,

Let the black-headed wait on their gods. (120)

As for us, by however many names we pronounce, he is our god!

Let us then proclaim his fifty names:

`He whose ways are glorious, whose deeds are likewise,

Marduk, as Anu, his father, called him from his birth;

Who provides grazing and drinking places, enriches their stalls,

Who with the flood-storm, his weapon, vanquished the detractors,

And who the gods, his fathers, rescued from distress.

Truly, the Son of the Sun, most radiant of gods is he.

In his brilliant light may they walk forever!

On the people he brought forth, endowed with life, (130)

The service of the gods he imposed that these may have ease.

Creation, destruction, deliverance, grace–

Shall be by his command. They shall look up to him!

Marukka truly is the god, creator of all,

Who gladdens the heart of the Anunnaki, appeases the Igigi.

Marutukku truly is the refuge of his land, city, and people.

Unto him shall the people give praise forever.

Barashakushu stood up and took hold of its reins;

Wide is his heart, warm his sympathy.

Lugaldimmerankia is his name which we proclaimed in our Assembly. (140)

His commands we have exalted above the gods, his fathers.

Truly, he is lord of all the gods of heaven and underworld,

The king at whose discipline the gods above and below are in mourning. »

Nari-Lugaldimmerankia is the name of him

Whom we have called the monitor of the gods;

Who in heaven and on earth founds for us retreats in trouble,

And who allots stations to the Igigi and Anunnaki.

At his name the gods shall tremble and quake in retreat.

Asaruludu is that name of his

Which Anu, his father, proclaimed for him.

He is truly the light of the gods, the mighty leader,

Who, as the protecting deities of god and land, (150)

In fierce single combat saved our retreats in distress.

Asaruludu, secondly, they have named Namtillaku,

The god who maintains life,

Who restored the lost gods, as though his own creation;

The lord who revives the dead gods by his pure incantation,

Who destroys the wayward foes. Let us praise his prowess!

Asaruludu, whose name was thirdly called Namru,

The shining god who illumines our ways.

Three each of his names have Anshar, Lahmu, and Lahamu proclaimed;

Unto the gods, their sons, they did utter them:

« We have proclaimed three each of his names. (160)

Like us, do you utter his names! »

Joyfully the gods heeded their command,

As in Ubshukinna they exchanged counsels:

« Of the heroic son, our avenger,

Of our supporter we will exalt the name! »

They sat down in their Assembly to fashion destinies,

All of them uttering his names in the sanctuary.

Tablet VII

Continuation of praise of Marduk as chief of Babylon and head of the Babylonian pantheon because of his role in creation. The rest of Marduk’s fifty throne names declaring his dominion are recited. Final blessings on Marduk and instructions to the people to remember and recite Marduk’s deeds.

Asaru [Marduk], bestower of cultivation, who established water levels;

Creator of grain and herbs, who causes vegetation to sprout.

Asarualim, who is honored in the place of counsel, who excels in counsel;

To whom the gods hope, not being possessed of fear.

Asarualimnunna, the gracious, light of the father, his begetter,

Who directs the decrees of Anu, Enlil, Ea and Ninigiku.

He is their provider who assigns their portions,

Whose horned cap is plenty, multiplying . . . .

Tutu is he, who created then anew.

Let him purify their shrines that they may have ease. (10)

Let him devise the spell that the gods may be at rest.

Should they rise in anger, let them turn back.

Truly, he is supreme in the Assembly of the gods;

No one among the gods is his equal.

Tutu is Ziukkinna, life of the host of the gods,

Who established for the gods the holy heavens;

Who keeps a hold on their ways, determines their courses;

He shall not be forgotten by the beclouded. Let them

Remember his deeds!

Tutu they thirdly called Ziku, who brings purification,

god of the favoring breeze, the Lord of hearing and mercy; » (20)

Who produces riches and treasures, establishes abundance;

Who has turned all our wants to plenty;

Whose favoring breeze we felt in sore distress.

Let them speak, let them exalt, let them sing his praises!

Tutu, fourthly, let the people magnify as Agaku,

The lord of the holy charm, who revives the dead;

Who had mercy on the vanquished gods,

Who removed the yoke imposed on the gods, his enemies,

And who, to redeem them, created mankind;

The merciful, in whose power it lies to grant life. (30)

May his deeds endure, not to be forgotten

In the mouth of the black-headed, whom his hands have created.

Tutu, fifthly, is Tuku, whose holy spell their mouths shall murmur;

Who with his holy charm has uprooted all the evil ones.

Shazu, who knows the heart of the gods,

Who examines the inside;

From whom the evildoer cannot escape;

Who sets up the Assembly of the gods, gladdens their hearts;

Who subdues the insubmissive; their wide-spread protection;

Who directs justice, roots out crooked talk,

Who wrong and right in his place keeps apart. (40)

Shazu may they, secondly, exalt as as Zisi,

Who silences the insurgent;

Who banishes consternation from the body of the gods, his fathers.

Shazu is, thirdly, Suhrim, who with the weapon roots out all enemies,

Who frustrates their plans, scatters them to the winds;

Who blots out all the wicked ones who tremble before him.

Let the gods exult in Assembly!

Shazu is, fourthly, Suhgurim, who insures a hearing for the gods, his fathers,

Creator of the gods, his fathers,

Who roots out the enemies, destroys their progeny;

Who frustrates their doings, leaving nothing of them.

May his name be evoked and spoken in the land! (50)

Shazu, fifthly, they shall praise as Zahrim, the lold of the living,

Who destroys all adversaries, all the disobedient; pursues the evil;

Who all the fugitive gods brought home to their shrines.

May this his name endure!

To Shazu, moreover, they shall, sixthly, render all honor as Zahgurim,

Who all the foes destroyed as though in battle.

Enbilulu, the lord who makes them flourish, is he;

The mighty one who named them, who instituted roast-offerings ;

Who ever regulates for the land the grazing and watering places;

Who opened the wells, apportioning waters of abundance. (60)

Enbilulu, secondly, they shall glorify as Epadun,

The lord who sprinkles the field,

Irrigator of heaven and earth, who establishes seed-rows,

Who forms fine plow land in the steppe,

Dam and ditch regulates, who delimits the furrow;

Enbilulu, thirdly, they shall praise as Enbilulugugal,

The irrigator of the plantations of the gods;

Lord of abundance, opulence, and of ample crops,

Who provides wealth, enriches all dwellings,

Who furnishes millet, causes barley to appear.

Enbilulu is Hegal, who heaps up abundance for the people’s consumption;

Who causes rich rains over the wide earth, provides vegetation.

Sirsir, who heaped up a mountain over her, Tiamat, (70)

Who the corpse of Tiamat carried off with his weapon;

Who directs the land–their faithful shepherd;

Whose hair is a grain field, his horned cap furrows;

Who the wide-spreading Sea vaults in his wrath,

Crossing her like a bridge at the place of single combat.

Sirsir, secondly, they named Malah–and so forth–

Tiamat is his vessel and he the rider.

Gil, who stores up grain heaps–massive mounds–

Who brings forth barley and millet, furnishes the seed of the land.

Gilma, who makes lasting the lofty abode of the gods, Creator of security, (80)

The hoop that holds the barrel together, who presents good things.

Agilma, the exalted one, who tears off the crown from the wrong position,

Who creates the clouds above the waters, makes enduring aloft.

Zulum, who designates the fields for the gods, allots the creation,

Who grants portions and food-offerings, tends the shrines.

Mummu, Creator of heaven and earth, who directs. . . .

The god who sanctifies heaven and earth is, secondly, Zulummar,

Whom no other among the gods can match in strength.

Gishnumunab, Creator of all people, who made the world regions,

Destroyer of the gods of Tiamat; who made men out of their substance. (90)

Lugalabdubur, the king who frustrated the work of Tiamat,rooted out her weapons;

Whose foundation is firm in front and in the rear.

Pagalguenna, the foremost of all the lords, whose strength is outstanding;

Who is pre-eminent in the royal abode, most exalted of the gods.

Lugaldurmah, the King of the band of the gods, lord of rulers,

Who is pre-eminent in the abode of the gods, most exalted of the gods.

Aranunna, counselor of Ea, creator of the gods, his fathers,

Whose princely ways no god whatever can equal.

Dumuduku, whose pure dwelling is renewed in Duku;

Dumuduku, without whom Lugalkuduga makes no decision. (100)

Lugallanna, the king whose strength is outstanding among the gods,

The lord, strength of Anu, who became supreme at the call of Anshar.

Lugalugga, who carried off all of them amidst the struggle,

Who all wisdom encompasses, broad in perception.

Irkingu, who carried off Kingu in the thick of the battle,

Who conveys guidance for all, establishes rulership.

Kinma, who directs all the gods, the giver of counsel,

At whose name the gods quake in fear, as at the storm.

Esizkur shall sit aloft in the house of prayer;

May the gods bring their presents before him, (110)

That from him they may receive their assignments;

None can without him create artful works.

Four black-headed ones are among his creatures;

Aside from him no god knows the answer as to their days.

Gibil, who maintains the sharp point of the weapon,

Who creates artful works in the battle with Tiamat;

Who has broad wisdom, is accomplished in insight,

Whose mind is so vast that the gods, all of them, cannot fathom it.

Addu be his name, the whole sky may he cover.

May his beneficent roar ever hover over the earth; (120)

May he, as Mummu, diminish the clouds;

Below, may he furnish sustenance for the people

Asharu, who, as is his name, guided the gods of destiny;

All of the people are truly in his charge.

Nebiru shall hold the crossings of heaven and earth,

So that the gods cannot cross above and below, they must wait upon him.

Nebiru is the star which in the skies is brilliant.

May he hold the Beginning and the Future, may they pay homage unto him,

Saying: « He who forced his way through the midst of Tiamat without resting,

Let Nebiru be his name, who controls its midst. (130)

May they uphold the course of the stars of heaven;

May he shepherd all the gods like sheep.

May he vanquish Tiamat; may her life be strait and short!

Into the future of mankind, when days have grown old,

May she recede without cease and stay away forever.

Because he created the spaces and fashioned the firm ground,

Father Enlil called his name « Lord Of The Lands. »’

When all the names which the Igigi proclaimed,

Ea had heard, his spirit rejoiced, Thus:

« He whose names his fathers have glorified,

He is indeed even as I; his name shall be Ea. (140)

All my combined rites he shall administer;

All my instructions he shall carry out! »

With the title « Fifty » the great gods

Proclaimed him whose names are fifty and made his way supreme.

Epilog

Let them be kept in mind and let the leader explain them.

Let the wise and the knowing discuss them together.

Let the father recite them and impart to his son.

Let the ears of shepherd and herdsman be opened.

Let him rejoice in Marduk, the Enlil of the gods,

That his land may be fertile and that he may prosper. (150)

Firm in his order, his command unalterable,

The utterance of his mouth no god shall change.

When he looks he does not turn away his neck;

When he is angry, no god can withstand his wrath.

His heart is unfathomable, his purpose is broad,

Sinner and transgressor may come before him.

He wrote down and thereby preserved it for the future.

The dwelling of Marduk which the gods, the Igigi, had made,

. . . let them speak. (160)

. . . the song of Marduk,

Who vanquished Tiamat and achieved the kingship.