(See also: Prostitution Debate Part 2: New Zealand)
As promised, here’s the first part of a little series of posts on prostitution.
Back in The Thread That Won’t Die, I explained here and here what I have in mind:
First of all, I’m going to start a new post in a couple of days, or rather series of posts, to compare approaches to prostitution. I think a series because we need to distinguish between radically different situations — imprisoned sex slaves in Thailand versus Cicely’s lesbian friends, to take one extreme…The reason being that most debates revolve around the big Theory of Prostitution, with people arguing the same point using references to completely different situations. Hence anybody can prove anything. My idea is to take an atomic approach for a change. That might allow us to work back up to a Big Picture analysis, but one that hopefully is more informed by an appreciation of the diverse circumstances involved.
As a first case study, let’s talk about Thailand. I don’t suppose we’re going to come up with the magic bullet solution, but I’m interested in comparing how pro- and anti-prostitution feminists approach the problem.
Modern-day prostitution in Thailand seems to be essentially a continuation of that country’s age-old practice of female sex slavery. Before slavery was outlawed in the 19th century, low-class and “surplus” women were routinely sold as slave-wives. When slavery was abolished, the slave-wives transmuted into prostitutes.
Young girls are kidnapped in the rural villages or sold by their families as sex slaves; once they are imprisoned in brothels they are beaten, raped, physically prevented from leaving, and burdened with debt slavery so that the girls owe their owners for their food, medicine, and their own purchase price.
Foreign women are increasingly trafficked into Thai brothels as well, almost always under false pretenses (the women being told that they are going to jobs as waitresses, etc.).
Prostitution is almost universally engaged in by Thai men and has been for centuries, though the American military presence seems to have clearly contributed to Thailand’s modern emergence as a sex destination for foreigners.
Prostitution has been technically illegal in Thailand for the past few decades, though it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Child prostitution and slave trafficking are also illegal, and again, it makes no difference. The Thai government is interested now in re-legalizing the sex industry, undoubtedly tempted by the enormous potential tax revenues.
Legalization advocates argue that legalizing adult prostitution would give the prostitutes workers’ rights, labor protection, and so forth. I am frankly skeptical of this because what we’re looking at is a form of sex slavery that’s been going on for centuries and which has endured through various forms of legality and illegality. It is abundantly evident that Thai men — and the male-dominated Thai power structure — are not the slightest bit interested in the rights of female sex workers.
By the same token, this indifference also suggests the reason that anti-prostitution laws (both adult and child) and anti-trafficking laws have no effect.
But, I’m no expert on Thailand. And my little post here is not intended as an exhaustive description of the problem, since I’m sure we’ll flesh that out in the comments.
What I’ve read over the past few days has left me frankly depressed and feeling rather hopeless. The only thing I’m sure of is that Thai law needs to be adjusted so that the none of the women who are trafficked or enslaved are themselves liable to criminal prosecution. These people are victims, not criminals. It’s obscene and infuriating for these women — beaten, raped, and enslaved — to be treated like they’re the ones who have committed a crime.
Here are links to some of the material I’ve read on Thailand:
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Factbook: Thailand
A Modern Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand — Asia Watch/Human Rights Watch
Prostitution in Thailand: What’s the Solution?
Moderation Update — Please read:
I’ve decided that I need to establish some ground rules for this discussion, rules that will also apply to further installments of the prostitution debate.
What I would like to do in these threads is explore various approaches to prostitution, from both anti-prostitution feminists and pro-prostitution feminists. I want both sex-positive feminists and anti-pornstitution radical feminists to feel welcome here. But the only way that’s going to happen is if everyone feels that their views will be given a respectful hearing and that they themselves will not be subjected to ad hominem attacks.
That means I don’t want to see radfem anti-pornstitution feminists attacked as being self-righteous man-hating puritans who are just out to control other people’s sex lives. I don’t want to see sex-positive feminists attacked as being selfish hedonists who are just out for their own gratification at the expense of others’ suffering. Unfortunately, there’s such a history of antagonism that it’s amazingly difficult to have a discussion around the issues without this kind of mud getting thrown. People who might wish to comment in this thread are not doing so because they don’t want to be slimed.
So, though I’m not usually the Moderation Queen, I’ve decided to establish rules of engagement for these threads:
- Assume that each person is arguing from a genuinely pro-woman feminist stance.
- Do not impugn each other’s motives. If you can’t see how someone else’s idea will help women, then ask, or very politely express your doubts. Perhaps the other person isn’t seeing the whole picture? Perhaps she hasn’t thought of aspects you are aware of? Don’t instead imply that the other person doesn’t really want to help women and is just on a personal power/gratification trip, yadeyadeyade. Just don’t.
- Accommodate each other’s rhetoric. Radical feminists often speak in general terms of class analysis: “Men” do this, “women” do that. Sex-positive feminists often speak in personal terms: “what about my liberty?” We know that, so let’s not get bogged down in it. Radfems are not essentialists who are unaware of personal variation, and sex-positives are not navel-gazers who are unaware that the patriarchy exists. Just take each other’s language in stride and move on.
- If all else fails, assume that the other person has the brains of Einstein and the integrity of Nelson Mandela, even if she doesn’t see things quite your way.
Good luck.
Posted by Violet under Prostitution on May 31, 2006, 9:31 pm EST
143 Comments »
I vaguely remember the coverage of the My Lai massacre. I remember Lt. Calley’s picture on the cover of Time magazine. I understood that a horrible thing had been committed, an “unAmerican” thing, an atrocity.
A new My Lai has happened, this time in Iraq, in the town of Haditha. You’ve heard about it. It sounds a lot like My Lai, actually, though there were fewer victims. Unarmed men, women, and children. People shot in the back, in the head. A mother and child shot in the act of praying.
People are shocked now, for a little while. That is, they’re shocked in between reading about the Brangelina spawn and American Idol. In between forgetting about Abu Ghraib and hurrying to excuse our young soldiers who are just following orders/just a few bad apples/just reacting to the stress of battle, they’re shocked. For a little while.
Why do so many Americans just not really give a shit about this war?
Writing on the CBS News website, Dotty Lynch asked yesterday, Why So Little Protest On Iraq? A generation ago, an entire generation mobilized against Vietnam. Now…eh.
Lynch rejects up front the theory that the Vietnam anti-war movement was primarily fueled by young men’s fear of the draft. She believes that doesn’t account for the strong anti-war stance of so many young women (herself included), nor does it allow for the profoundly moral convictions of the male anti-war protesters.
Instead, she suggests a few other possibilities for the lack of a significant anti-war movement today in comparison to the Vietnam era:
The modern demographics of the military. Only 1% of Americans have any personal connection to the war in Iraq. Very few college students (the population that fueled Vietnam-era protests) are involved in the military in any way, whereas more than half of the 1956 Princeton graduating class signed up for a tour of duty. I agree that this distancing from the military probably has an effect, but I’m not sure it’s the effect Lynch imagines. After all, it seems like today’s military families are the ones most blindly pro-war and pro-Bush.
Inadequate leadership from the politicians. Well, there was inadequate leadership from the politicians in the 1960s, too. Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy were the only Presidential candidates in ‘68 to come out against Vietnam; one was murdered and the party apparatchiks railroaded the other.
Desensitization to the images from Iraq. Lynch suggests that people are simply numb now to the pictures.
That last one is where I disagree most strongly with her analysis. In fact, I think she’s got it exactly backwards. We’re not numb to the pictures; we hardly see them. We don’t see the body bags, we don’t see the combat, we have no clue.
Listen: I was a little girl in 1968 when my father was in Vietnam during the Tet offensive. You’ve heard how Vietnam was “the war in America’s living rooms”? Believe me, it was. Every night I would watch Walter Cronkite and see the footage from Vietnam, the trucks driving off with injured men hanging off the back, the choppers, the bodies. I can see it in my mind’s eye as clearly as if it were on the television in front of me right now. Every night I would look for my father, straining to see if he was one of the bodies or one of the injured being hauled away in a truck. Every night.
It’s not like that now. War is still war over there where it’s happening, but back here at home it’s theme music and snazzy graphics and talking heads. It’s bullshit. It’s like a fucking movie of the week, or a game show maybe.
This Haditha thing is already being spun along familiar lines: Support our troops. Just a few bad apples. The real traitor is that Democrat Murtha. And coming up after the commercial break, an update on Natalee Holloway. Cue drumtrack!
Will Haditha become the My Lai of Iraq? Will it live on in memory as the emblematic atrocity of the war? Thirty-five years from now, will some little kid remember seeing the cover of Time magazine and understanding that soldiers for her country had committed unspeakable evil?
Yeah, right.
Posted by Violet under War on May 31, 2006, 2:09 am EST
19 Comments »
Trish Wilson (the Countess) and her husband have run into severe financial difficulties and could use a hand. Here’s a post over at Trish’s blog explaining what’s happened: Help Us! Trish And Bill Are In Trouble!!
They’re going to be evicted from their home if they can’t scrape a little money together soon. Trish has already hit up family and friends, and now has no choice but to reach out to the blogging community. Please help if you can.
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on May 30, 2006, 8:51 pm EST
2 Comments »
For Torture President, the whole point of Memorial Day isn’t really to remember our honored dead, to quote a phrase. It is, instead, yet another opportunity to shamelessly conflate the opportunistic, greed-motivated invasion of Iraq with the mythical and neverending War On Terror, all against a backdrop of red, white, and blue bunting.
It ought to be obvious to everybody what the Mass Murderer in Chief is up to, but it’s not — largely because our morally bankrupt press corps never bothers to point it out.
Today’s article in the New York Times is emblematic of the problem. I’ve reproduced it below, removing only a couple of paragraphs of color and detail about what else the president was doing today. The main reportage is intact. I’ve bolded the references to “terror” and “Iraq”; see for yourself how seamlessly they are melded:
President Bush paid homage to fallen members of the nation’s military on Monday, using his annual Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery to draw a link between those who fought in an earlier era and those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I am in awe of the men and women who sacrifice for the freedom of the United States of America,” Mr. Bush said, a remark that brought more applause than any other in his eight-minute speech. “Our nation is free because of brave Americans like these, who volunteer to confront our adversaries abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.”
Mr. Bush spoke at the cemetery’s marble-columned amphitheater after placing a floral wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac. The president vowed to honor those who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan “by completing the mission for which they gave their lives: by defeating the terrorists, by advancing the cause of liberty and by laying the foundation of peace for a generation of young Americans.”
Seeking to draw a connection to wars past, the president quoted from two similar letters written more than half a century apart, the first by Second Lt. Jack Lundberg, who died two weeks after D-Day, the other by First Lt. Mark Dooley, killed by a bomb last September in Ramadi, Iraq. Lieutenant Lundberg wrote his parents to say, “The United States of America is worth the sacrifice.”
“That same feeling,” Mr. Bush said, “moves those who are now fighting the war on terror.”
Though polls suggest the public is uneasy about the war in Iraq, none of that unease was evident in Arlington on Monday. More than 4,500 people gathered in sweltering sun to catch a glimpse of the president, who was introduced by Defense Secretary as “an historic leader, a selfless leader.”
-snip-
Of more than 300,000 people buried at Arlington, more than 270 have been killed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Mr. Bush singled them out for particular praise. Nearly 2,500 Americans have died in Iraq, according to Pentagon statistics, and more than 18,000 have been wounded there since the invasion in March 2003.
“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly: because we know the costs of war,” Mr. Bush said. “We have seen those costs in the war on terror we fight today.”
Later, more than 600 members of the military who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan marched in a Memorial Day parade down Constitution Avenue in Washington. This was the first time that personnel returning from either of those two zones had participated in the event, which also featured veterans of other wars, high school bands, representatives of American Legion posts and banners promoting corporate sponsors.
-snip-
It’s remarkable, really. This is our nation’s “paper of record,” supposedly the best paper in the country, one of the best papers in the world. Yet they swallow and regurgitate the White House’s propaganda whole.
It must seem fantastic to young people today that for my generation, journalists once represented a force for truth and justice. After Watergate we thought of reporters as our frontline troops in the fight against totalitarianism and corruption. Journalists had never enjoyed such high public esteem — traditionally they’d been considered snoops and liars — and it now seems clear that the post-Watergate high was an aberration. Like water seeking its own level, the great bulk of the press corps has returned to its natural occupation: Sleaze Merchant, Corporate Lackey, Credulous Mouthpiece. Too bad about the country.
Posted by Violet under Just Impeach the Stupid Freak, War on May 29, 2006, 11:59 pm EST
5 Comments »
I’m involved in top-secret activities today that preclude me from taking the time to write much of a post, so I’m just going to cannibalize this piece by Kevin Sweeney in Salon. He’s writing about the decision by the Duke women’s lacrosse team to take the field wearing sweatbands that say “innocent,” thus choosing uncritical school loyalty over either a commitment to justice or solidarity with other women. (I’m posting an unusually large extract since some folks don’t have Salon subscriptions.)
In court, the specific term lawyers seek from the jury is “not guilty.” I don’t know enough of the facts to opine on whether that phrase will be read aloud by jury foremen. I do know enough to say it is a stretch to use the term “innocent” to describe the men of Duke lacrosse. Hiring strippers, excessive alcohol use, disorderly public conduct — those aren’t activities one generally describes as innocent…
Duke officials repeatedly told observers to withhold judgment of the players and the university. When a third player was indicted on May 15, senior vice president John Burness said, “It is worth repeating again today that these latest charges do not mean the accused are guilty. That is for a jury to decide.” That lesson didn’t quite take: The women’s lacrosse team decided they are the ones who should determine guilt or innocence…
Reports commissioned by the Duke administration noted the men’s team’s pack mentality. In fact, the incident became a national scandal largely because of this attitude. A serious allegation was made, and an investigation commenced. Rather than taking all steps to help reveal the truth, the Duke men’s lacrosse team chose to act as one. The district attorney was confronted with a Blue Devil Wall of Silence, built by a team that apparently placed greater emphasis on unity than on surfacing the facts. In the weeks since the scandal broke, lawyers for the accused (and one of the accused and his father) have spent full days working out of the offices of lawyers hired to protect other players who have not been charged…
Lawyers of players who have not been accused are offering a steady stream of challenges to the accuser’s credibility — it’s the equivalent of “checking” in a lacrosse game. And what lesson has the women’s team taken? They apparently have learned that pack behavior is a good thing. They are speaking as one, and are proclaiming the entire men’s team, as one, to be innocent. Team unity trumps all…
Finally, there is another element to this story, one that I find heartbreaking. For women who step forward to file an accusation of rape, it is often the hardest thing they will ever do in their lives. By making such a public stand of unity before the facts come out, by saying so clearly that the accused is a liar, the women of Duke’s lacrosse team won’t make it any easier for other women to step forward. I can only hope that none of them will ever be in such a position — where they may be a victim, want to step forward, but sense ultimately that it just isn’t worth it.
Posted by Violet under Gender Issues on May 27, 2006, 6:58 pm EST
36 Comments »
Isn’t one of the goals of this trip to soothe lingering resentment over the war?
THE Pope has upset the Jewish community in Poland by not stopping to pay tribute to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis.
The heavily guarded Popemobile sped from Warsaw airport towards the Old Town district and the former ghetto area but barely slowed when it passed the memorial to the Jewish fighters.
Chief Rabbi of Warsaw Michael Schudrich, the Israeli ambassador and a handful of Jewish dignitaries were left standing as Benedict XVI flashed past with a wave.
Church officials said there had been no space in the schedule for a spontaneous stop.
Another consideration is that the ultra-nationalist Polish Government might have considered it a slight if the Pope had singled out slaughtered Jews rather than Polish partisans for special tribute on the first day of his visit.
Because, of course, the Jews who died in Warsaw weren’t citizens of Poland or anything.
Posted by Violet under Godbags on May 26, 2006, 11:55 pm EST
28 Comments »
You’ve probably heard by now that Poland has banned tampon commercials for the duration of the Pope’s visit, along with ads for lingerie, contraceptives, and booze. They’ve also banned ice cream, since apparently Polish ice cream is some lethal shit in summer what with the food poisoning and all and they don’t want people just keeling over in front of the Pope. (One imagines globetrotters all over the world making mental notes not to order the hot fudge sundae next time they’re in Krakow.)
I can’t possibly improve on Twisty’s commentary: Poland Terrified Pope Will Find Out About Menstruation. What I can do, however, is offer this long-forgotten memory that arose, unbidden and unwelcome, at news of Poland’s terror.
My ex-husband, the former Catholic missionary, was raised in a god-soaked Catholic household where women’s “sanitary things” were considered not fit for male eyes. He was himself a liberated dude with feminist sympathies, but like most of us, he carried around childhood assumptions he’d never questioned. The first year we were married we lived in a little apartment with one bathroom, and my “sanitary things” were stored on the shelf with the other supplies. When my ex-husband’s teenaged brother came for a visit, my ex assumed that I would hide my things away. He was very surprised when I didn’t.
“I just don’t think he should be exposed to that stuff,” said my ex, referring to his brother.
“There’s nothing wrong with ‘that stuff,’” I replied tartly. Menstrual supplies, I said, should be no more shameful than rolls of toilet paper or anything else in the bathroom. “Besides,” I pointed out, “you have three sisters. I think your little brother knows about Our Monthly Visitor by now.”
To his credit, my ex-husband instantly saw the error of his ways. But it was, for me, a glimpse into a mindset that I had been largely spared: a world where women’s things are “dirty” and “shameful” and must be hidden away. Gah.
Posted by Violet under Godbags on May 25, 2006, 11:36 pm EST
37 Comments »
From my friend T_m, who is a covert member of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy (his super-duper covertness being the reason I have to encrypt his name), comes this action alert to write your Senators about the proposed Same-Sex Marriage Amendment.
I think most people see the proposed amendment as a right-wing diversionary tactic that’s doomed to fail, and I agree. But it’s worthwhile to actually let our Senators know that this particular shit sandwich is not going over well at the picnic.
Posted by Violet under Politics on May 24, 2006, 10:02 pm EST
22 Comments »
Barbie’s been a veterinarian, an astronaut, a teacher, a singer — and now she’s a prostitute!
The new collectible French Maid Barbie features Barbie in a fuck-me fantasy outfit complete with fishnet stockings. The doll is said to “celebrate the working woman.”
I ask you: if this doll were a real person, what would her job be? She most certainly would not be a real “maid,” as in “servant who dusts the parlor.” This costume is a sex-fetish version of the black smock/white apron uniform worn by real maids in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These women — the real maids, that is — did not wear fishnet stockings and flouncy miniskirts. They also didn’t wear Mary Janes with 4-inch heels; low-heeled buttoned boots were the ticket. (Of course, if you’ve ever seen a Barbie doll in real life you know that Barbie’s foot is molded in a permanent arch, so all her shoes have to be high-heeled. But they don’t have to be Mary Janes.)
So, this Barbie is a “working woman” who’s wearing a sex-fetish costume. Hmm…could it be? Why, yes, I think it must. Barbie’s a whore! She appears to be the kind of prostitute who specializes in dressing up as a French maid for those johns willing to pay a little extra for the thrill of pronging a servant. Well, as any prostitution advocate will tell you, it’s just another career option. Hey, her client is probably Charlie Sheen!
What’s that? Something about how most of her clients are probably fat-bellied chicken-fleshed old lechers with piss-stains on their clothes and breath that smells of Thunderbird and Eau D’Ashtray? Some nonsense about how most prostitutes are virtual slaves who’ve been sold into sex bondage and are regularly beaten and raped? Oh for heaven’s sake, that’s just silly. Can’t you see how happy Barbie is? She totally loves her new job. This is way better than being an astronaut.
Posted by Violet under Gender Issues, Recommended on May 23, 2006, 9:20 pm EST
42 Comments »
I keep getting this Viagra spam from a site that looks to be Russian, though who the hell knows since the link doesn’t actually work:
It’s all charmingly hilarious, in the great tradition of “Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension,” but the one I can’t figure out is #3. I think that “beating your time” must be a literal translation into English of some Russian idiom, but what?
I’m guessing that it’s something like “singing your praises,” though that wouldn’t be quite right in English (it should be the girlfriend singing the praises of the guy to her friends). But I’m not satisfied with vague assurances that the activity, whatever it is, will be positive and ego-boosting. I want to know what, exactly, her friends will be doing. Does anybody know?
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on May 23, 2006, 12:13 am EST
29 Comments »
Here’s another radical college professor spewing bilge into the minds of our young people. Writing on the left-wing crypto-communist History News Network, James C. Cobb sneers at the concerns of a hapless young Republican forced to listen to his America-hating propaganda:
After 34 years of college teaching, I thought I had heard just about every imaginable student complaint. Last week, however, a freshman in my 300-seat US History Since 1865 course came in to discuss her exam with one of the graders and proceeded to work herself into a semi-hissy over the fact that we had spent four class periods (one of them consisting of a visit from Taylor Branch) discussing the civil rights movement.
“I don’t know where he’s getting all of this,” she complained, “we never discussed any of this in high school.” One might have let the matter rest here as simply an example of a high school history teacher’s sins of omission being visited on the hapless old history prof. had the student not informed the TA in an indignant postscript, “I’m not a Democrat! I don’t think I should have to listen to this stuff!”
Mr. Cobb — excuse me, Dr. Cobb — obviously finds this terribly amusing. The student in question is, of course, absolutely right: the reason she didn’t learn about the so-called civil rights movement in high school is because, as David Horowitz has noted, institutional racism is a “fantasy of the left.” The real history, as all Republicans know, is that in the 60s some uppity Negroes, led by Martin Luther King, began lobbying for government handouts so they wouldn’t have to get off their lazy butts and actually work. Then they used their national megaphone to criticize this country’s brave, patriotic soldiers who were fighting and dying in Southeast Asia so people like “Dr.” King could live in freedom and peace.
But do you think that’s the history Dr. Cobb is going to teach? Hardly! Our campuses are full of washed-up brain-dead morally bankrupt leftists like Cobb whose rabid anti-Americanism renders them incapable of functioning in the real world, so they hide in their ivory towers and lob fetid spitballs of treason at the hapless students trapped in their classes. If we’d killed all these people back in the 70s, instead of letting them get Ph.D.s, jobs, and tenure, we wouldn’t have this problem.
Fortunately David Horowitz is committed to exposing these traitors and shining the spotlight of truth on the leftist network that supports them. I don’t see Cobb listed yet on the network, but I’m writing to Horowitz today so he can be added.
Via The Poorman.
Posted by Violet under Wingnut Watch on May 21, 2006, 12:04 pm EST
22 Comments »
Just curious. Who do you think should be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008? Assuming you want the Democrats to win the election, that is.
This is, of course, a highly scientific poll, and because of my high-powered contacts within the Illuminati, the results can be expected to have a significant impact on planning for the 2008 campaign. So vote responsibly!
Poll is on the flip side. Sorry, if I put it on the front page everything gets messed up. (And I’m not sure the poll works with Firefox.)
Update: This guy’s walking away with it. Say hello to our next president!
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Violet under Politics, Various and Sundry on May 20, 2006, 5:43 am EST
16 Comments »
At long last! Part 1 on Christianity and Part 2 on Islam were ages ago — the Planck era, I think — and I apologize for the unaccountable delay in delivering Part 3. Let’s just blame it on alien abduction and leave it at that.
Part 3 is much longer than Parts 1 and 2, largely because I feel obligated after such a long wait to offer a little more than bullet points. Actually it’s too long — way, way too long, despite several attempts to edit it down to blogular dimensions and remove academic language. At any rate, what I’m focusing on here is actually the origin and history of Israel up to the period when the books of the Bible began to be written. The subsequent development of Judaism as a religion I’ll leave aside. (And I beg the indulgence of those who know this subject well; I’m writing here for a general audience.)
You know, of course, the biblical version of events: The patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob). The Twelve Tribes (descended from the twelve sons of Jacob). The bondage in Egypt and the Exodus. Moses and the Ten Commandments. The Conquest. The rise of the monarchy — Saul, David, Solomon — followed by the split into two separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The fall of Israel to Assyria; the fall of Judah and Babylonian Captivity.
Of that sequence of events, only the last sentence and a half corresponds to what modern scholars consider history. Everything before that is legend, with the transition from folklore to fact occurring somewhere during the monarchy.
This should not be surprising, since none of the Bible was actually written until the 7th century B.C.E., shortly before the little kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon. In other words, the Bible came to life as the last gasp of a people, a nation, on the edge of oblivion. The priests and scribes who wrote and compiled these books were deliberately fashioning a sacred mythology to unify the nation, and they pulled in everything floating in the cultural consciousness — folklore, hero legends, etiological myths, scraps of historical annals from the court, even their own Temple regulations. Like all pre-modern people, they created a simplified fantasy-version of history that matched their own contemporary sensibilities of how things must have been. Most particularly, they retrojected their own monotheistic worship of Yahweh deep into the past, when in fact that was a very late development.
It was this literary masterstroke that ensured that the people of Israel (really just Judah by that time) would maintain a strong sense of themselves as an ethnic, religious entity, despite the inevitable death of their nation-state. It’s a remarkable story they put together. Most of it just isn’t true.
On to the deconstruction!
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Violet under Random Pedantry, Religion, Recommended on May 19, 2006, 4:30 am EST
39 Comments »
Thanks to John A. Davison, I’ve figured out how to deal with my spam problem. Every time I want to write another post, I’ll just start a new blog.
Posted by Violet under Reclusive Leftist, Various and Sundry on May 18, 2006, 9:49 pm EST
8 Comments »
