Tom Sawyer

But is Fists of Iron an infallible historical record written by an omniscient god? Granted, there are arguments in favour of that but most of them are somewhat spurious.

sotto voce

No, but an omniscient deity could cause people to record in a way that made good sense to their contemporaries, while leaving a record that is less easily understood by people much later.

No conservative scholarship, in recent times, at least, has supposed that chariots were literally made of iron. It is not sensible to suppose that iron replaced increasingly rare and expensive bronze, but that iron was used on wood, probably for its strength under compression, where a hard edge or point would suffice to clear infantry from the path of an 'iron chariot', so protecting horses and occupants.

Moreover, along with much else in this book, the passage records the failure, not of deity, but of humans; in this case, of Judah. Judah the patriarch was both good, and bad, and we are made to realise it. Judah the tribe were likewise both good, and bad, as seen here; and likewise we are made to realise it. Judahites gave their name to Jews, who were prophesied in Luke to be divided by the coming messiah into good, and bad— with Mary of Nazareth included among the bad. And division was exactly what occurred after Jesus. And of course that division can be extended to the human race.

Now can we see why this myth that Judges records a failure of God is so tenaciously clung to?

Ratel

As I said, please feel free to offer your own exegesis of this passage, otherwise stop pretending you have something constructive to offer.

EDIT- I see that you just did that in the post above, apologies.

Please also feel free to justify your position that the religious and cultural context of the author has no bearing on its proper interpretation.

sotto voce

What timing.

Ratel

You must see, though, that a straight reading of the verse by someone without your theological pre-commitments would be different.

It suggests that the aid of Yahweh was quite useful, but not in any qualitatively different way than the aid of Athena was to the Homeric heroes- some physical dirty work had to be done to overcome the enemy.

Tom Sawyer

Right, so we agree that no omniscient deity was involved in the writing of the Bible.

Agreed. The passages in question are talking about Judah's army. It makes it quite clear, however, that God was with him at the time, so they also detail that he's a fairly puny god and there's not much of an upside to having him with you in a fight. Now, if the Judahites had gotten themselves a real god like Thor, then the outcome would have been very different:

sotto voce

I can see why people would dearly like to think that.

It does, to amateurs. But it does not say what you said it says. And of course, it's only a translation. Here's another:

'Judah also took Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron — each city with its territory; the Lord was with Judah. He drove (people) out of the hill country, but was unable to drive (them) from the plains, because they had iron chariots.'

Which, in the context, implies that God was not with Judah on the plains, because Judah did not have enough faith that God could defeat anyone, iron-clad chariots, inter-ballistic missiles, or not.

WVIncagold

Judges 1:20 And Low unto you I say. Judah did asketh unto the lord Thor for his mighty help and he did lend his hand to Mjolnir and did smite them,
Judges 1:21 To which one smallish man grew angry. He greweth very angry with The lord Thor and did forsooth become a giant of green Hulkishness.
Judges 1:22 Hulk Smash!

steve_bnk

I would not have thought chariots could be so provacative.

Tom Sawyer

Judges 1:23 And The lord Thor didst say unto the Hulk "Thou art correct, friend Banner. Whence thee growest angry, I like thee not."