The Duties of Deuteronomy: One of the Most Horrifying Books of the Bible

And yet, the one I feel like I could research again and again.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It’s no wonder that this book is what stopped me from posting regularly. I struggled to get through it, and I struggled to comprehend the extensive notes at the bottom of my New Oxford Annotated Bible. I would read a verse about how women who were raped were to marry their rapist — as a punishment for HIM — and then my eyes would flicker back to notes about how certain parts were added later and merged into one document, and the complicated history of Deuteronomy being added to the Pentateuch.

I don’t refer to myself as an expert on the Bible. I don’t have an M.Div, nor will I. I have a minor in Bible from an evangelical conservative Christian college. I was raised on literalist English scripture through the lens of white supremacy and American conservative values, taught by people who often had little training for any historic or extensive studies themselves.

Not that I think that academia is the only way to God or anything — but as for defining expertise on a subject to lead others toward something that is equally deeply personal and world-changing as religion is… I think we can have stricter standards.

All that to say: I felt like a dumbass reading Deuteronomy and the accompanying notes. I also felt rage. Rage at God, rage at ancient peoples, rage at men and their millennia-long subjugation over those of my gender and the little binary worlds they created, rage at the human impulse to choose violence and define it as a divine charge from God.

But, in reading the Bible as an exvangelical, I’ve tried to get over that. I read something disturbing and think, “hey, damn, that’s fucked up” and move on. When the Bible isn’t on a pedestal, you can look at things at face value. Of course, as someone who actually does still value the purpose of the Bible (and someone who is still a Christian) I want to move beyond THAT impulse, too. Which is why the annotations — even though here, they were extensive, complicated, and often took up more of the pages than the actual Biblical — were helpful.

Deuteronomy is the last book of the Torah, and some might say the most important, too. (Reminder: I am not Jewish nor am I any kind of expert in Judaism and as always you should seek out Jewish sources for Torah studies!) It has so many elements of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers rolled into one — stories, songs, rules, and promises and threats from God.

One interesting theme explored in Deuteronomy that I’ve never seen discussed before in my life is the concept of monolatry, which is the idea that God and his people acknowledge other gods exist, but God/Yahweh demands worship alone, and other gods are weaker. I wonder how monotheism derived from this exactly — perhaps eventually as cultures and their deities disappeared, only the “strong” remained. For the Middle Eastern part of the world, monotheism has certainly won.

I can see why Deuteronomy is so important for those of the Jewish faith, despite the horrors in its law code to my progressive Protestant perspective and women being treated no differently than livestock. It is an actual covenant between God and his people, here, identified once and for all. It established something in the Jewish people that clearly still exists today.

And even though the words themselves are often harsh to read, the blessings/curses section is… poetic? The Song of Moses is beautiful? The writers put SO much meaning into all of this, and we just take it all at face value. I don’t know Greek or Hebrew and I’ll probably die without knowing either, but if we just had the correct religious and and linguistic contextualization, wouldn’t we enjoy the Bible more? There’s no pressure to see any of it as the holy word of God that can’t be refuted. I just love reading it, you know?

See now that I, even I, am he;
    there is no god besides me.
I kill, and I make alive;
    I wound, and I heal;
    and no one can deliver from my hand.

The literalism of the Bible is one of the saddest parts of evangelicalism. Even other conservative Christian denominations aren’t necessarily like this. They usually tend to believe in evolution, climate change — even if they’re socially conservative otherwise. Evangelicals know nothing of moral, allegorical, and anagogical interpretations of the Bible, and I almost feel sorry for them, because they’re missing out.

Deuteronomy ends with the death of Moses, and the passing of the leadership role onto Joshua — the next book of the Bible, where our historical books begin. It may be the only instance in the Bible (correct me if I’m wrong) where God tells someone to go somewhere (Mount Nebo) and die, and then, if interpretations are correct, God then buried Moses himself.

Moses was allowed to look at the Promised Land. Despite his great honor, despite facing God directly, despite his tireless work to the Lord, he didn’t get to actually make it to the Promised Land. Now, I don’t know if there was an actual Moses. I know that the Promised Land was Canaan, where people presumably peacefully lived and worked and played and had no desire to be conquered by a random tribe for little to no reason.

But, conquered they would be. If not by Israelites, then the Philistines, or the Greeks, or the Romans, or the Moghuls. Whomever. Fighting for fertile land. And the winners believing it was divine intervention and God on their side. I don’t believe it was but who’s to say? So much changes, but so much stays the same.

I sit with so much duality in reading the Bible, in my life, and in my Christianity. I look around and I see the impact that this book, and the way those who follow it have acted, and how it has harmed so many people and continues to do so. I see the pain and misery my religion has wrought; the smugness of monotheism laid bare in a historical context as people fought like dogs over scraps and resources, assuring entire other tribes and nations and peoples were likely wiped out. I see the patriarchy taking shape, the violence, the belief that all our actions are approved by God because we are special, we are special, and nobody else can be special.

I think it’s bullshit.

And yet I’m still looking for the Promised Land myself.