Men’s Bible Study #2 –
So, another blind reading?. As you’re reading, please ask yourself a few questions, like: What kind of text am I reading? What is the desired outcome? What kind of people wrote this?
All passenger motor vehicle carriers, operating under the provisions of chapter one hundred sixty-one-a of the Code of Virginia, shall separate the white and colored passengers in their motor buses and set apart and designate in each bus or other vehicle, a portion thereof or certain seats therein, to be occupied by white passengers, and a portion thereof or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored passengers, and such company or corporation, person or persons that shall fail, refuse, or neglect to comply with the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon indictment and conviction, shall be fined not less than fifty dollars nor more than two hundred and fifty dollars for each offense.
The said companies, corporations, or persons so operating motor vehicle carriers shall make no difference or discrimination in the quality or convenience of the accommodations provided for the two races under the provisions of the preceding section.
The driver, operator, or other person in charge of any motor vehicle above mentioned shall have the right and is hereby directed and required at any time when it may be necessary or proper for the comfort and convenience of passengers so to do, to change the designation so as to increase or decrease the amount of space or seats set apart for either race; but no contiguous seats on the same bench shall be occupied by white and colored passengers at the same time; and said driver, operator or other person in charge of the vehicle may require any passenger to change his or her seat as it may be necessary or proper; the driver, operator, or other person in charge of said vehicle who shall fail or refuse to carry out provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not less than five dollars no more than twenty-five dollars for each offense.
Ok, we’re not reading poetry, right? We’re also not reading a biblical text. In fact, this comes from section 4097y – bb of the Code of Virginia, and as you might expect, and older version. This is the Code of Virginia, 1942 to be exact. No, this is not current law.
1. Why did you know this was law? (Was the text vague? What kind of sentences were used?)
2. What was the motivation of this law? Why was it enacted?
3. How did the people who enacted this law view the world? What does reading this bit of law reveal about the people who lived in that time?
Readings are never neutral. They always have a writer who views the world in a particular way. They communicate information, but never everything there is to say on the subject. The above text, for instance, was grounded in a Supreme Court decision called Plessy vs. Ferguson, which declared segregation legal as long as it was “separate but equal.” Today, that same phrase communicates volumes about what was desired by that generation – a separation of peoples, even as people began to admit that inequality was not right.
There are parts of the Bible that are nothing but old legal codes too, and just like segregation laws, they may not apply today, but they do give an interesting glimpse into what both the people and their God desired.
4. Question: What percentage of the Bible do you think is legal in nature?
The answer may surprise you – even under the most generous definition of ‘legal texts’ is well under 10%, and of that percentage, only a small amount applied to the people. The primary ‘legal texts’ would be the second half of Exodus (starting with 1 chapter that is the 10 commandments, followed by a bunch of instructions about how the Temple should be built), the book of Leviticus, and then a repeat of Leviticus called Deuteronomy. Along with Genesis and Numbers, those books make up the most important Jewish scriptures – the Torah. Beyond the Torah, you could argue that parts of the New Testament in which Paul suggests certain behaviors as typifying a Christian life are “legal” in nature, and maybe even say that the book of Proverbs are “legal,” but I think you’re really stretching the definition at that point. The point is, relatively speaking, only very small parts of the Bible ‘regulate’ behavior. Contrary to what many unbelievers think, the Bible is NOT a set of rules on how to live your life.
So, if it’s not that, why do we read the old law at all? Well, there are a lot of reasons – the law makes us aware of our state before God (see Romans 5 & 6, Galatians 3:24) and the law contains within it many “types of Christ,” meaning that things the law had the Hebrews do were reminiscent of how Jesus would live, die, and come again (see Hebrews). But beyond just understanding the law in order to make sense of much of what the New Testament was arguing against, it also gives us insight into what motivated its author, namely God. Let’s look at laws concerning slavery, and something called “the Jubilee” in Leviticus:
You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. … 23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.
25 “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no one to
redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27 let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28 But if he has not sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.
29 “If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. 30 If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; it shall not be released in the jubilee. 31 But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee. 32 As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. 33 And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. 34 But the fields of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.
35 “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
So, let’s go back to our questions:
5. How does God appear to view slavery?
6. Is God commanding people to take slaves? Is he merely tolerating it or encouraging it? Does he
view slavery as a good thing or a bad thing?
7. What in period in Israel’s history does God harken back to when he talks about slavery? Why?
Let’s look at closely at the bolded phrase in Lev 25:10 – “proclaim liberty throughout the land.” Side note – the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia has Lev 25:10 inscribed on it. Anyways, that phrase appears a few more times elsewhere in the Bible. Rather than list them out for you, I want use to use a tool called a concordance to find out more. If you have a Strong’s Concrdance, you can use that, although I’ll admit, I prefer computer searches?
8. If you have internet access, go to http://biblos.com and search for the phrase ‘proclaim liberty.’ See if there is anything interesting there.
Let’s look at tithing, because again, it’s another one of those “laws” that people think they know. By way of explanation, a tithe is a tenth of all you have.
22 “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. 23 And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 24 And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, 25 then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses 26 and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. 27 And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you
9. Who is supposed to use the tithe? For what purpose?
10. Is God really a cosmic killjoy? Is there any truth to the old definition of the Puritan, “one who lives in fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy?”
Finally, you can’t really discuss Leviticus and Deuteronomy without talking about the categories of clean and unclean. There’s a lot who is and who is not clean, and it gets tied in with leprosy and stuff. (For a funny verse, if you have time, read Leviticus 13, starting somewhere in the middle and then stop on verse 40.) Clean and unclean are a lot like the segregation laws we started with.
Please Read Acts 10 to see what happened when Peter, a “clean” and observant Jew is first sent to proclaim the Gospel to the “unclean” Gentiles.
11. So, what does God think about the categories of clean and unclean? We’ll discuss this on Sunday. See you then!