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An Inconvenient Truth (Original)

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Brandon
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« Reply #30 on: December 30, 2007, 12:49:32 am »

Huggy

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  posted 06-22-2006 07:28 AM                   
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Environmental destruction and the rise of the phenomenon of the great Jewish Prophets

The famous Jewish prophets appeared briefly on the historical scene during the last two centuries of the existence of the Jewish state, followed by a brief renaissance following the return from exile in Babylon (an event which spurred another short episode of prophetic activity). In the prophetic writings we find a fusion of social protest combined with horror over a rapidly advancing environmental destruction, which they then interpreted as ‘the wrath of God.’ Thus environmental destruction they viewed as the righteous punishment for the corruption and immorality that was pervasive in the latter days of the Jewish state.

According to their testimony, oligarchies had arisen in the land, and the rich were dispossessing everyone else, and the welfare of the poor was being cast aside. The political leadership was heavily involved in schemes which involved drafting oppressive laws intended for the protection of a privileged elite at the expense of the rest of the population. The priests and the officially sanctioned prophets had corrupted themselves since they also held a privileged position and also benefitted from the ongoing corruption of the system.

“There is blood on your robes, the lifeblood of the innocent poor...for all this I shall punish you.” Jeremiah 2:34

“Jerusalem is a city ripe for punishment. Oppression is rampant within her...she keeps her wickedness fresh and violence and outrage echo in her streets.” Jeremiah 6:6

“Everyone is out for ill gotten gain. Priests and prophets are all frauds. They dress my people’s wound on the surface only with that saying of theirs, ‘All is well.’ All is well? Nothing is well. They ought to be ashamed of themselves but they don’t even know how to blush. Therefore they shall be overthrown.” Jeremiah 6:13 “The lives they lead are wicked, and the powerful misuse their powers. Even prophet and priest have all become godless...they encourage evildoers so that no one turns back from their sin..” Jeremiah 23:10

“The LORD opens the indictment against the leaders of the people. It is you have ravaged the land and in your houses are the spoils you have taken from the poor. Is it nothing to you that you crush my people and grind the faces of the poor?” Isaiah 4:14

“Your rulers are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone one of them loves a bribe. They deny the rights of orphans and the cause of the poor is never heard.” Isaiah 1:23

“Woe to those who pass unjust laws, and draft oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of justice and rob the weakest of my people of their rights, plundering the poor and despoiling the orphans.” Isaiah 10:1

“Listen you rulers of Israel, is it not for you to know what is right and yet you hate good and love evil, you who rip the skin off of my people and the tear the flesh from their bones...so wicked are their deeds.” Micah 3:1

“They are bent on evil, the grasping officer, the venal judge, and the powerful man who follows his own desires. Their goodness is twisted like some rotten weed.” Micah 7:3

As the environment continued to deteriorate, the social protests of the Jewish prophets became fused together with horror over the devastation taking place in land, so that the latter became the divine punishment which was due the former. If you sinned, the rain god would punish the injustice in the land by creating a desert. This type of thinking permeates the message of the Jewish prophets, and in particular is a defining characteristic of the prophecy of Jeremiah.

“When you entered this land, you defiled it, and you made loathsome the home that I gave you...the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed gods who were powerless to help.”


Baal was an ancient rain god, and as the land turned to desert the people turned to Baal the middle eastern rain god in their desperate search for a solution to their problem. In the mind of Jeremiah, this is reversed, and it is the worship of Baal which caused the drought (rather than the drought which led to the worship of Baal, which is what would have really happened).

“From our earliest days Baal worship has devoured the fruits of our father’s labors. Let us lie down in shame covered by our disgrace for we have sinned against our God.” Jeremiah 3:24

I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void ... I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled ... I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger. Jeremiah 4:23

They did not say, ‘Let us fear the Lord who brings the spring showers.’ But your wrongdoing has upset the natural order and your sins have kept away the bounty of nature. Jeremiah 5:24

Take up weeping and wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the animals have fled and are gone ... Who is wise enough to understand this? ... Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through? And the LORD says: Because they have forsaken my law ... and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them. Jeremiah 9:10


Now if we look back over all this from a modern scientific perspective it is easy to see that Jeremiah’s interpretation was in error. It was environmental destruction that led to desertification. The Jewish people had rolled the rain god and every other god into one single god, and when their rituals failed to call up this one god to end the drought, they turned to the worship of the traditional middle eastern rain god, the Baal. Baal worship did not cause the desertification of the country, but rather was a logically following consequence of desertification.

Further clues of environmental destruction emerge in the writings of the prophets, in particular their protests against the wide spread practice of driving animals to extinction, which was a consequence of land clearing policies which began early in the days of the Jewish state, a policy which was begun by Solomon, and then carried on by successive Jewish Monarchs. This practice of killing off the animals enraged the Jewish prophets, and it tells us something about the bad environmental practices that were the root cause of the decline of the environment and the resulting spread of the desert.. Animals disappear and go extinct when their habitat is destroyed, and so animal extinction is one of the key indicators of environmental destruction.

For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals will terrify you— because of violence to the earth. Habakkuk 2:17

How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away. Jeremiah 12:4

Bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing ... My quarrel is with you, O priest ... My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest. Hosea 4:2


It was typical for Jewish prophets to make use of the destruction of the environment in their sermons, and it was typical of them to use curses that employed devastation of the landscape as metaphors for punishment for all the evils they saw taking place in the land, desertification being seen as the just and righteous punishment for sin.

They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Jeremiah 17:6

Your mother shall be utterly shamed, and she who bore you shall be disgraced. Lo, she shall be the last of the nations, a wilderness, dry land, and a desert. Jeremiah 50:12

Her cities have become an object of horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one lives, and through which no mortal passes. Jeremiah 51:43

How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed. Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. Joel 1:18

The highways are deserted, travelers have quit the road. The treaty is broken, its oaths are despised, its obligation is disregarded. The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. Isaiah 33:7


The Jewish prophets were also concerned with the devastation of the forests, although they never made the connection between the advancing desertification in the Middle East and the clear cutting of the forests and the destruction of native flora to make wave for pastures and farmland. Apparently, all the nations of the region were pursuing similar policies to fuel the growth of their states, and eventually the growth of the military and the wealth of rising empires. The King of Babylon (ruling from what is now modern day Iraq) was clear cutting the forests according to a prophecy found in the book of Isaiah.

The translators of the King James Bible did not have access to the knowledge uncovered by modern archeology, and they were quite frank in their introduction in that they said that there was much of the Bible they could not translate, since the ancient words were unknown in their time, and so they were forced to guess what certain passages might mean. One example of this is the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, which they guessed was a poem damning Satan the Devil. Archeological discoveries have revealed that the mysterious words actually referred to the King of Babylon, and thus the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah actually makes sense today (it never did make sense as a poem about Satan the Devil since it refers to a King going down to the world of the grave, and Christian theology always held that Satan the Devil would not die, but rather would burn in hell).

The poem invites people to taunt the King of Babylon (in the King James you are invited to taunt Satan the Devil, and this is a mistranslation), and then the poem celebrates the fact that now that the King of Babylon is dead no one will be clear cutting the forests (also something that Satan the Devil was never famous for having done...however if Christians want to insist that clear cutting forests is the task of Satan the Devil then it follows that, in keeping with a consistent theology, the same Christians must be against clear cutting the last stands of old growth forest, which is the work of the devil...).

Take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased! How his insolence has ceased! God has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers, that struck down the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows, that ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution. The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. The cypresses exult over you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, "Since you were laid low, no one comes to cut us down." Sheol (the grave) beneath is stirred up to meet you ... all who were leaders of the earth ... all who were kings of the nations... You too have become as weak. Isaiah 14:4

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As Above So Below.

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