Ancient practices: divine wrath, rescue, wisdom, sacred voices

Va-‘Ethannan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11)

By Irv Jacobs, M.D.

Irv Jacobs

LA JOLLA, California — I have chosen four passages for a comparison with texts from ancient Israel’s pagan neighbors, concerning divine wrath, wisdom, divine rescue, and sacred voices.

I. Deuteronomy  3:25-26 Moses: “Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land…But the Lord was wrathful with me on your account…”

‘Divine wrath’ or retribution is a punishment of (a) person(s) by a deity. Many cultures have such stories. The story of Gilgamesh is a Mesopotamian example. Greek and Roman mythologies demonstrate many more.

Two Greek myth examples: (1) Zeus invited the mortal Ixion to Olympus, whereupon Ixion proceeded to attempt seduction of Zeus’ wife Hera. Zeus, to catch Ixion, made a cloud copy of Hera, whereupon Ixion impregnated the cloud Hera, resulting in the birth of the monster Centaurus. Zeus’ punishment of Ixion was binding to a burning wheel that would spin forever, plus a mandate to repeatedly say, “Repay your benefactor frequently with gentle favors…”

 

(2) Erisychthon was a king with serious hubris. He desired a large banquet table, so proceeded to cut down trees from the goddess Demeter’s grove.  Sje cursed him with insatiable hunger.  As a result, he ate his own flesh until he perished.

I learned that some religions actually have no concept of divine retribution, nor do they posit a god capable of expressing such human sentiments as jealousy, vengeance, or wrath. In Deism and Pandeism, the creator does not intervene in our universe at all. In Pantheism, God is the universe and encompasses everything within it, i.e. has no need for retribution since all things against which retribution might be taken are simply within God! This notion holds in some forms of Hinduism as well.

 

Buddhism also denies divine retribution, even denies an omnipotent creator. Buddhism does accept the existence of beings in higher realms, but they, like humans, are felt to be suffering in samsara, * and are not necessarily wiser than humans. With some inconsistency, Buddhism nevertheless accepts the theory of karma, which posits punishment-like effects, such as rebirths in a tormented being, a consequence of wrongful actions in a prior life. [2] 

 

II. Deuteronomy 4:6 “Observe them (the laws) faithfully…that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples…who will say, ‘Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people.'”

The concept of ‘wisdom,’ an abstract term, is pondered in numerous ancient traditions, including Greece, Rome, Buddhism, Mesopotamia, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Baha’i, and Sanskrit.
They all embrace concepts of acquired judgment beyond the acquisition of knowledge.

Psychologists today explore this elusive concept, distinct from IQ. An agreed definition is that it is “an expertise in dealing with difficult questions of life and adaptation to complex requirements.” In the field of positive psychology, they say it is “the coordination of knowledge and experience and its deliberate use to improve well being.”

The notion that wisdom requires aging is not required. We do maintain such terms as ‘wisdom teeth,’ which appear actually in late adolescence and early adulthood. [3]

III. Deuteronomy 4:19-20 “…you must not be lured into bowing down to them (sun, moon, stars)…These the Lord…allotted to other peoples everywhere…but you the Lord…(rescued) out of Egypt, that blast furnace,** to be His very own people…”
My search of the internet yielded only two pagan rescue events, both by the Greek demi-god Perseus: (1) He rescued demi-goddess Andromeda, who became his wife. To achieve this, he disposed of a sea-monster, then freed her from a rock to which she had been manacled. (2) After this, he proceeded to rescue his own mother at a different site. [4]

IV. Deuteronomy 4:33 “Has any people heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have, and survived?
My internet search in paganism yielded nothing of this sort. Tangentially however, I uncovered the following recent experiment of interest. Scientists placed a mummy in a CT scanner, which allowed them to create a 3D model of its vocal tract, the dimensions of which shape the unique sound of a person’s voice.

The researchers then synthesized the mummy’s voice by 3D printing a model of his airway and connecting it to an electronic larynx, which provides a noise source. Result: They produced a brief utterance, which gives a sense of what this Egyptian may have sounded like.

Based on writings on the mummy’s coffin and the objects he was buried with, researchers know he was an Egyptian priest and scribe who likely sang and spoke to the gods as part of his ritual duties. [5]
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* samsara –The cycle of death and rebirth to which life in the material world is bound

** a metaphor, alternately translated by scholars Richard E. Friedman as ‘ iron furnace‘ and Robert Alter as ‘ iron’s forge.’

[5] https://sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/dead-speak-scientists-re-create-voice-3000-year-old-mummy

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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.