I last read The First Book of Samuel fifty-eight years ago, long enough not to by blinded by the reflective glare of familiarity.
It starts off with a simple tale which arouses interest and sympathy. A man has two wives. One has borne children, but the other is barren. Her name is Hannah and he loves her the most. This prompts the less-loved wife to “provoke her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb”. Hannah goes to the temple and prays for a man-child, vowing that she’ll surrender her firstborn to the Lord. There are parts of the world where this still happens, not always in the best interests of the child, if the prayed-for miracle happens. Anyway it works for Hannah, and as soon as he is weaned she gives Samuel to the old priest Eli. This was the part of the story which touched me most. I suppose I felt equally abandoned when I was sent to boarding school at the age of 6.
So, identifying with the boy Samuel, I’m looking for kindness in this story, whether it comes from my guardian Eli, or from the Lord, who speaks to me in the middle of the night. Not yet knowing the Lord’s ways, I run to Eli in my bare feet and nightshirt to say “Here am I; for thou calledst me.” After having his sleep interrupted three times, Eli advises me to say “Speak: for thy servant heareth,” so that the Lord may speak to me. What a bombshell! He starts off like this: “Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle.” He goes on to tell me that the house of Eli is condemned by its iniquity, which “shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.” The reason? “because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.” I lie there sleepless the rest of the night, wondering how I’m going to break the news to Eli when he asks. Is this visitation to tell me something about God? No, it’s a story-teller’s device. I cannot imagine any kind of god introducing itself this way to an innocent child.
Still, I seem to survive the trauma of this ear-tingling visitation, because the tale goes on to say: “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.” From the narrative point of view this is acceptable, because as far as I can see the whole point of the Samuel story is to fill in the details of a succession. It’s about who leads the people of Israel. So Eli is discredited because of his sons and his failure to be a good father, but Samuel is Eli’s godson and a good man, so he establishes legitimacy so that in later years he is worthy to anoint Saul as the king, and David after that. The Lord would have preferred a succession of prophets but the people are clamouring for a king. So they shall have a king. As Samuel points out accusingly, the Lord God of Israel has protected the people till now, especially delivering them out of the hand of the Egyptians: “and [yet] ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations; and ye have said unto him, ‘Nay, but set a king over us’.” Prophets are by definition right, and the people are always wrong, unless they walk in the ways of the Lord, and then they may become prophets themselves.
How Samuel and Saul meet up is described in detail. Saul is a “choice young man, and a goodly”, but that doesn’t mean that God speaks to him directly. That job is reserved for a prophet, although the text explains that the common people didn’t use the term “prophet”, only “seer”—I suppose this meant fortune-tellers. Saul gets lost after travelling far and wide looking for his father’s asses, and (to cut the story short) he and his servant find
young maidens going out to draw water, and [he] said unto them, ‘Is the seer here?’
So Saul goes to meet Samuel, either for help in finding the asses, or in finding his way back home, I’m not sure which. Samuel has been tipped off by the Lord that the man who will be king is going to pay a visit, though he’s a Benjamite, from the smallest of the twelve tribes. Samuel has his cook prepare a shoulder of mutton for Saul, invites him to stay the night. The next morning he gets Saul alone to anoint him and kiss him, on the Lord’s instructions. He tells him where to find the asses, and to expect certain encounters with men carrying various things by way of identification. And he tells Saul that
the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shall be turned into another man.
Then Samuel announces to the children of Israel that Saul is now their king. They take note that Saul is head and shoulders taller than anyone else.
And all the people shouted, and said, ‘God save the king’.
King Saul becomes a popular hero for standing up to the Ammonites and Philistines, smiting and slaying them with tireless energy. But he falls short. He requires a rebuke, and this has to be delivered by Samuel to deliver God’s rebuke for being disobeyed, for example when Saul spares the king of the Amalekites:
Then said Samuel, “Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.”
And Agag came to him delicately. And Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”
And Samuel said, “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women.”
And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
Which is the most shamelessly gruesome thing I’ve ever read.
To me, the book so far has one sole purpose, to tell the continuing history of the Children of Israel, whose greatest asset is their Lord God. If I hadn’t read the book of Genesis, which declares that this same God created heaven and earth, I’d think he was just a local god, who would be unknown to the people except when he speaks via the prophets.
As we have just seen, this same God gives instructions which conflict with the conscience and good sense of his people. Even I was shocked, as a ten-year-old. It didn’t occur to me that my headmaster†, Monty Brummell-Hicks, was Machiavellian in teaching such young children this part of Scripture. Today I’m guessing that it was to prepare us for the arbitrary commands of hierarchical superiors, for the smooth administration of a far-flung Empire; whilst provoking our natural sense of kindness and fair-play, and making us think. And when we rebelled against this representation of God, who seemed so much crueller than most human beings, the trump card was laid before us. Now we would understand that the Old Testament people had the wrong idea about God. That’s why God had to send Jesus Christ, so that God could be redefined as Love!
But reading the story again, in maturity, I see that it’s building up to the reigns of David and his son Solomon, who I understand were the secular heroes ofIsrael’s history, to the point where the Gospel writers were at pains to present Jesus as a “son of David”, through the lineage of Joseph. They must have thought this was important, because it blurs the other lineage, through the Virgin birth. Well, I suppose Jesus could have a biological father and a “God” father. The clear aim is to “sell” Jesus as the Messiah, to as many people as possible. It backfires of course because those who believe that Jesus is of the royal house of David, he who killed Goliath dead with a single stone, will also believe that Jesus will kick out the Romans. They will be disappointed when he gets crucified by them. But never mind those people! They never bought Christianity because it hadn’t yet been invented. St Paul did that, and showed that a crucified Christ was someone to be proud of, not ashamed.
I’m ignorant and no scholar, but it almost seems as if Christianity has laid claim to the Old Testament for purposes of the traditional marketing trick, “Before” and “After”. Old T, New T. Spot the difference.
* My piece is based on I Samuel, Chapters 1—10.
† At Merrion House School, Sedlescombe
a wayfarer’s notes 
The Old Testament God certainly does complicate the Christian concept of the loving heavenly father. I think there was some controversy even in the early churches about whether to include it in their canon, or just part of it, and which parts, and so on. I think in the end they were stuck with it, because Jesus came out of that background and the Gospel writer's, Matthew in particular, leaned heavily on the idea of Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament prophesies. So their New Testament story was too intimately bound up in the Old Testament for them to extricate themselves from it completely. As a result, people new to the Bible get their first heaping dose of bewilderment when they first encounter this Old Testament God, so unlike the traditional concept, and veteran Christians are often at a loss to set their mind at ease.
Imagine getting an internship with a famous radio personality that you've listened to and been a fan of for years. He's this great figure in your mind. Then you show up for work, and find that he's drunk and abusive to his staff. You express your disappointment to his assistant, who stands there with a black eye she's received from his throwing a coffee cup across the office, and she tells you, “No, he really is a great man.” I think the situation seems a little like that.
And yes, I never got the point of providing Joseph's lineage. It seems so contradictory to the whole idea of the virgin birth.
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I like the way you present this line of thinking.Raised outside of (without?) the Christian Church, I was endlessly curious – even happily getting myself enrolled in summer sunday school around the age of 6. I excelled in memorization and won many gold stars, ate many cookies and drank much kool-aid. Other than that, I was confused. So throughout elementary I read the bibles lying around (there were several, my grandfather had been a minister) and checked out books at the library so I could understand what everyone was on about. Never made a lick of sense. When I reached college I immediately signed up for a literature class in the Bible, thinking I'd finally understand – only to find out that I already knew more about the bible than most of my fellow students, including a few who were entrusted with teaching bible class to the kiddies in their own church. What I do not understand to this day is how Christians become so agile at cut 'n paste versions and manage to ignore the things that would directly argue with their various philosophies. So this article, talking directly about the problem of the old testament, is very interesting to me. It seems that it's accepted as “crucial to the belief” but locked up in a closet as if it were a crazy uncle that might embarrass them. The only way I find to understand it is to accept that god has evolved. And that, I am assured, is heresy. A connundrum.
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Bryan, thanks for your illuminating comments. Fortunately you and I don't have the problem of setting our minds at ease that a devout Christian has. We can observe, in wide-eyed wonder.
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Hayden, I think that the agility you mention may be built-in. I know that in matters of politics, for example, I'm quick to make excuses for the party I support, and don't hesitate to scorn the other parties. But am in no way an activist I should add. It's for me as competitive support is for those who have their favourite team.
I'd go further and say it is absolutely necessary to have this agility, for there are all sorts of things in life we cannot change – our parents, our siblings, our past, where we live. I think this is one of the main drivers towards riches, because we can insulate ourselves from a lot of inconvenient realities, if we have the money.
And like a political party, religion comes as a package. If you take it on, you have no choice but to quietly ignore the bits you find toxic.
I like your suggestion that god has evolved. It's very feasible when we accept that what we know as God is not God but something which reaches our consciousness; for example the voice which the boy Samuel is alleged by the story-teller to have heard in the night. I think the story was a fabrication, so what has evolved is not so much the fact, not even the story-teller's art, but the listener's tolerance for such tales.
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the notion of an evolving Creator isn't my own (I wish, it's a creative and confounding thought, or was to me when I first heard it) but is one oft heard in shamanic circles. I like it, but it isn't anything I've directly learned, so it's just gossip between folks. An idea, or a thought experiment.
Certainly the tantrums and bad behavior of the Old Testament need some kind of explanation! It's all rather adolescent, or what we think of as adolescent today. But when you read the tiffs and tantrums in Homer, it's much the same. Grown men behaving badly. Gods behaving badly. Much of the world needing a serious time out! I think that's what shocked me – that God was carrying on in a manner that would have had me sent to my room, and everyone nodding docilely and saying “God is Great.”
I suppose you're right, one needs to want to accept a belief, and since my left brain persists in wanting the whole to hold together and it won't on it's own, I think I'll never be a Christian. Not that this shocks me.
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Yes, and I just put the words “Hack Agag” into Google. There you can see the various excuses made by Christians for Samuel's behaviour. Either they divert attention by using Agag as somehow a metaphor for the sin in a Christian, which must be hacked to pieces; or they explain how sinful Saul was for disobeying God. I didn't find any sermons which gave any thought to poor Agag himself, who spoke in dignity and peace before the hacking commenced.
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A very well written Piece Vincent and very interesting.
I guess the difference between the old and new testament view of God was clarified by Jesus himself when in answer to a question about an old commandment he said “It was because of the hardness of their hearts” I forget the exact verse.
Guess by the time of Jesus humans had evolved enough to love God rather than just fear Him and virtues like forgiveness became more valid than an eye for an eye.
Evolution apparently does not take place at the same pace in all parts of the world. Perhaps in another part of the world they were just getting into an eye for an eye and it seems some parts of the world are still stuck there.
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You have a lot of intellectual energy!
I've been meaning to read Robin Lane Fox's book, “The unauthorised version”…..I have glanced at the book….Fox is quite unequivocal that The Bible is not the Word of God…..scholars have proved that parts of the Bible are definitely untrue.
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The Bible is composed, written, edited and printed by humans. It contains what these humans experienced, thought and imagined about God.
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Robin Lane Fox’s book sounds interesting, Rob (I looked up some reviews), though not for the reasons you state. My Scripture teachers, particularly the later one, had no problem with the findings of scholars who proved that the books of the Bible were authored in the normal human way, with all the normal fallibilities and inconsistencies. Mr Guppy, himself a devout Anglican and lay reader, enjoyed telling us some non-supernatural explanations of the miracles. For example the Gadarene swine may have stampeded because they were bitten by a swarm of stinging flies, not because some man’s evil spirit had been exorcised and took refuge in the pigs.
As for those who believe that the Bible is literally the Word of God, I’m sure I have met them, and have them for relatives even, but would never want to challenge their viewpoint, which I consider like an aberration not to be discussed, but avoided with respectful sympathy.
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Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Ashok. I think the main difference between the old and new testaments lies in their intentions. The Old Testament appears like a history aimed at unifying a disparate collection of Hebrew-speaking tribes, noted for warring with their neighbours, into a single nation based on an invisible Head of State, the Lord God of the Children of Israel.
The New Testament, on the other hand, had the specific aim of showing how Jesus stood apart from Judaism whilst being himself a Jew by birth; and that he wasn’t just starting a new sect. Scholars don’t think that any of the New Testament was written by anyone who actually knew him, though they may have obtained material from one or more of the apostles.
If the New Testament God sounds different, I suggest it’s partly because the authors had a different intention. In particular, they had to make the fact of the crucifixion sound like a triumph and not an ignominious defeat. If the Lord God of the Old Testament was ‘with’ Jesus the Son of David, why couldn’t he have led the Israelites somehow to victory against the Romans, as they had hoped? So there had to be a focus on the virtues of humility, and ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’, instead of an earthly promised land.
It seems to me that if Israel had not been under Roman occupation, Jesus could have been another prophet within the Judaic tradition, castigating the Hebrews as the other prophets had done. Instead of a new break-away religion, called Christianity, there might have been a great Reformation within Judaism.
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You do have a lot of intellectual energy.
I'm bible illiterate. I tried but I just couldn't get into it. For better or worse, I had no religious instruction at home or at school. Going to church and Sunday school was entirely optional and I chose not to go. Whatever little I know comes from reading about the bible, not from it.
I hope it's okay to be autobiographical in comments here. I noticed you said your parents sent you to boarding school at age 6. My parents left me with my grandparents in Portugal at that age for a year, so they could immigrate to France to blaze a trail, so to speak, for the entire family. My grandparents didn't have a phone, so I didn't speak to my parents for what seemed an eternity. That experience jump-started what became a life-long battle with depression. Something that seems perfectly tolerable to adults can have such traumatic consequences for children.
Sorry to not add anything significant to the discussion. I did enjoy your essay, as always. You are an exceptional writer and always leave me with much to think about.
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Hi Gina, I wonder how you found your way here? Your autobiographical comments are always welcome, my dear. We can start a grown-up crèche for abandoned waifs, and tell our tales, and turn our weaknesses into strengths. I wrote a post once, “Going it alone” which turned the feeling of abandonment into a proud boast. Sort of.
Yes, a life-long battle with depression is no joke. Long may you continue to carve those raw materials into something beautiful!
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Thank you, Vincent. 🙂
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