Michael Hudson needs to leave biblical exegesis to others

I've called out Hudson before for his apparent belief that the biblical year of jubilee, or the seven-cycle culmination of sabbath years with an extra year to make 50, was actually real. The truth is that, as Edward Chancellor details in "The Price of Time," kings in the ancient Near East (anachronism, but still often used) would occasionally, upon their accession, have a debt jubilee, but only then, and only for certain types of debt. And, the reason they did them was not because of divine mandate but (derp!) to quell social unrest. It was a one-off of Rome's bread and circuses. No ancient kingdom or empire had anything like the biblical ideal, and the 7x7 numerological artifice should alone indicate this isn't real.

But, Hudson still thinks he's an academic biblical exegete, and his latest proffering (link is to Counterpunch, but it's also at Naked Capitalism, and problably Alternet, TruthOut or other places) is based on the current Israel-Gaza war. Many people, not just academically trained (if not in actual academia, like me) exegetes, but people in the general populace, know about I Samuel 15, where Yahweh orders Saul to commit a holocaust (I used that word specifically, not just "genocide," precisely because of the current situation) against Amalek, the Amalekite people. In fact, via the prophet or judge Samuel, Yahweh tells King Saul to kill not just all the people but even all their livestock.

Hudson, perhaps in part acting Jesuitically or Pharasaically (take your linguistic poison) on parsing the verbiage, claims it ain't so:

Netanyahu has evoked what he claims to be a Biblical excuse for Israeli genocide. But what he pretends to be a covenant in the tradition of Moses is a vicious demand by the judge and grey eminence Samuel telling Saul, the general whom he hopes to make king: “Now go and smite Amalek [an enemy of Israel], and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Samuel 15:3). 

These were not the Lord’s own words, and Samuel was no Moses.

Really?

Let's quote the start of 1 Samuel 15, specifically, verses 1-3, not just verse 3:

And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction[a] all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

’Tis so indeed, Hudson.

But wait! Hudson gets better:

It was not the Lord offering that command to destroy Amalek, but a prophet anxious to place a king on the throne.

Really? So, in essence, Hudson is calling Samuel a false prophet. And, lying about the run-up to Saul being anointed on top of it.

That also ’taint so, as selected verses from 1 Samuel 9 and 10 tell us. We start with 9:15-16:

15 Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 16 “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince[c] over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen[d] my people, because their cry has come to me.”

Then to chapter 10: 1-2:

Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince[a] over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince[b] over his heritage.

Now, later in chapter 10, in what is surely another "hand," we have this, in 10:17-19:

17 Now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah. 18 And he said to the people of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’ 19 But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, ‘Set a king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.”

This is preceded by another "bookmark," the full chapter of 1 Samuel 8, also having Yahweh telling Samuel it's the people's fault, not his. But, opening verses there show this was partially Samuel's fault that the people wanted a king. We read in 8: 1-5:

When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. 3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. 4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”

So, it seems clear there are two narratives. Chapter 9 and the first half of 10 have an enthusiastic embrace of a king, it seems, sandwiched between warnings. Proof of this? A bad transition from from the end of 8 to start of 9. 8:22 has:

And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

Followed by 9:1-2:

There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. 2 And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man.

But it gets better. 9:15-16 says:

15 Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 16 “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince[c] over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen[d] my people, because their cry has come to me.”

Note the footnote there, that Saul here is not called "king." That's another example we're dealing with two hands. Indeed, one thread appears to end at 1 Samuel 12 with Samuel's death, with him missing entirely in chapters 13-14 before popping up again in chapter 15. Somewhat Joshua, but definitely, Judges and the two books of Samuel of the Former Prophets, as shown in various Greek versions and also at Qumran, have a torturous history.

I Samuel 13:1, Masoretic Text version:

Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel

Is proof positive of this torturous history.

The positive thread starts Chapter 10, then, as noted above.

Clearly, the previous narrative not only has Samuel being told by Yahweh to anoint Saul, but it being presented as a good thing in Yahweh's eyes, overall.

But, Hudson nowhere at all wrestles with how this evolved. 

Also, contra Hudson, in neither of the two threads (setting aside the possibility there were originally more than two) does it say that Samuel wanted Saul to be king. That's Goalpost Shifting 101. Also, Saul is not mentioned as being a general when crowned. In I Samuel 9-10, he's simply a young man looking for lost donkeys.

The rest of Hudson's piece is more crapola.

He is clueless about just how torturous the text-developmental history of 1 and 2 Samuel in general were, first of all. Second, whether Saul was a real person or not, or even David, for that matter, later kings who perceived themselves as David's heirs needed to in some way justify what seemed to be a usurpation.

Next, Hudson gets on his debt hobbyhorse:

The Jewish Bible is remarkable in criticizing the kings who ruled Judah and Israel. It is in fact a long narrative of social revolution, in which religious leaders sought – often successfully – to check the power of a selfish and aggressive oligarchy that was denounced again and again for its greed in impoverishing the poor, taking their land and reducing them to debt bondage.

’Taint so, Michael.

First, there is no "theology of the Tanakh" any more than there is a "theology of the New Testament." And, given the torturous history of 1 Samuel in particular and all four of the Former Prophets/Deuteronomic history in general, there's no unifying theology of the four books, or even the one book. As for him citing Ezra in that piece? That was the same Ezra who commanded IMMEDIATE divorce of non-Jewish wives.

As I said on Twitter, Hudson needs to talk to a good modern exegete of the Tanakh, say an Idan Dershowitz, before writing any more dreck like this.

(Sidebar: If Hudson does want to go hunting for a background to the issue of debt that stands on better ground than his attempt to base it on biblical jubilee years? Per comments by David Graeber in "Debt," it's the old hunter-gatherer world he needs to look at, and, like the Inuit, preferably looking at a hunter-gatherer world with limited interaction with the agriculturalist world. The fact that he doesn't, along with this, reinforces my thought that he is in part acting as an apologist for Judaism as seen through certain eyeballs, as a "good" Jewish socialist Trot would do.) 

As for his attempting to rescue Judaism from the Jews? He reminds me of Walter Kaufmann. Kaufmann had the exact same problem of pontificating about biblical Yahwism without talking to actual scholars.

Beyond that, I've called out politicizing biblical criticism many, many times on this site.

The biggie? Apparent politicization of biblical archaeology, namely in attempting to prove an early-age kingdom of Edom existed, and that in the name of modern Zionism, naturally.

More recently, on the r/AcademicBiblical subreddit, there was what I called "goysplaining," Gentiles (I presume) attacking a comment with a quote from Amy-Jill Levine saying there are things in the Talmud Jews DO need to be apologetic about. Elsewhere, there, commenters plumping for a historic King David, in the service of modern Zionism, too.

Beyond that, there's the whole question of Jewish identity, which I discussed in detail in my review of Shlomo Sands' book.

Walter Kaufman vs John Rawls: Without guilt and justice in Texas courtrooms

The title's second half, first part, should be in quotes, as I am referring to Walter Kaufman's "Without Guilt and Justice."

Without Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy by Walter Kaufmann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kaufmann, Nietzsche's foremost expositor, and best English translator, brings his own considerable philosophical skills to play in this volume.

It is true that some of his specific references, such as the "alienation" of mid-20th century psychology, or his riffs on Solzhenitysn, may be dated.

But his core arguments certainly are not.

Kaufmann spends a fair amount of time turning a withering moral eye to retributive justice, and another withering logical and existential eye to the idea of proportional justice, and various related ideas.

Hence his title "Without Guilt and Justice." Kaufmann argues convincingly that neither idea can be logically generated within an overarching system of morals. One can almost see John Rawls being ground to grist between the millstones of Kaufmann's cogitating.

But, this is small confort to humanists who would argue that an enlightened system of morality exists without religion. Instead, Kaufmann is saying that ALL systems of morals, no matter their metaphysical base or antimetaphysical base, are existential in nature. As for particular moral terms like "guilt" and "justice," without specifically referencing Wittgenstein, or any philosopher of language, Kaufmann's argument appears to be that they are part of the language games we play.

Speaking of language, while Kaufman's "humbition" comes off as clunky, it seems to be his translation of the Greek ἀρετή, although he never expressly says so, as I recall.

View all my reviews

So, where does the Texas courtroom come in?

Last month, at my current newspaper location, a teacher pled guilty to two counts of "improper relationship with a student."

She got five years probation, a fine, and of course, loss of her teacher certification. No jail time.

Had it been a male teacher and female students? The book probably would have been thrown. Absolutely, if we had had a male-male or female-female situation. This is Texas. And rural Texas is still where the wingers fly high.

But, it's not just that.

Two newspapers back, five years ago, had a similar situation. Female teacher, male student. Complicated by the teacher's oldest son being at the same high school.

Case went to trial and the teacher got several years.

In the first case above, the later, current case? One of the hookups involved, in part, Snapchat. Now, "snaps" are supposed to disappear by default, but I think you can make them non-disappearing. You can also, of course, do screengrabs. Reportedly, parents just wanted the case to go away, too. But, maybe the DA was being a red ass. Until he was told, "Look, if this goes to trial ..."

The earlier case? The kid had a Twitter account. It was mentioned — not just that he had one, but WHAT the account was — during the trial. During lunch break, the first thing I did back at my office is look it up.

His feed looked like a wannabe "playa." And, no, not the Spanish word for a salt flat.

Did the hookup turn him into that?

Well, I had the approximate date for the start of the sexual part of the hookup, so I scrolled back that far in his Twitter feed.

It may have made him more of a playa wannabe than before, but, he was somewhat that way before that. 

Why the defense attorney didn't introduce this? Especially as said kid had just signed a college sports scholarship, and to a private college to boot?

If the judge ruled it inadmissible, just to make doubly sure my appeal was well grounded, I think I would have tried to introduce it anyway.

Besides that, that can't have been the case. After all, the assistant DA was the person who mentioned the Twitter account.

That said, this was a teacher, not some indigent. And, the lawyer wasn't from Shelby County. the family hired someone, I don't even think from Nacogdoches; I think they went to Tyler.

Just shows you that you can blow money on a lawyer and still get a bad one.

And, it goes to illustrate Kaufman's premise, too.

Is it "fair" for the one teacher to get only probation, the other not? Is it "fair" for the earlier teacher to have spent more money on a lawyer from a more "regional" community (Tyler, Texas, is about 100,000, and the "capital" of East Texas, and the communities themselves in both cases are under 2,000; the attorney in the latter teacher's case was from Denton, bigger, but with more local focus). Is it "fair" for the one student's parents to just want the case to go away, with "justice" being less exposure of their kids, and in the other case, wanting the teacher to "get justice served"?

Arguably not, in any of the cases. The recent case, in Muenster, involved TWO students, which arguably made it MORE heinous. The previous case, in Shelbyville, arguably had the teacher actually kind of interested in the student.

Let us also remember that "guilt and justice" theoretically exist outside of courts of law and the laws that said courts are supposed to uphold. The Shelbyville teacher? Besides married, to boot, her oldest kid at the same small high school where she taught and where her sex target also attended. The Muenster teacher also married and with kids, but none at the same school.

So, was it "justice" for the Shelbyville teacher to get the hammer, then? Why? Her family, her husband, and their oldest son had been gossiped about before the case went to trial, possibly before the event came to legal attention and she was arrested.

In other words, just in cases like this, we have the question of what's "just" changing if we ask what's just, or unjust, for the perpetrator, the victim, the victim's parents, and general society. And, setting aside age of consent laws, we haven't asked about guilt and whether it could be apportioned at all to the victim, or to the perpetrator's family or origin, or many other things.

Liberal ignorance about ev psych raises its political head

Well, I haven’t had to shoot down any right-wing eugenicists or sexists in a while. No, now it’s a mainstream liberal wanting to refight Richard Lewontin’s political ax-grinding against E.O. Wilson 30-plus years ago. Hilzoy, co-host of Washington Monthly these days, bemoans, and Atlantic Monthly putting Wilson’s “The Biological Basis of Morality” online. (Thanks, Atlantic — it’s bookmarked!) And, it’s right here for you.

First, comes the snideness, hinting that Wilson is little more than an Alan Sokol with his spoof on PC lit crit. I never did tackle that in my back-and-forth with her, but to me, that was sign No. 1 we were going to get a political discussion of Wilson, not a scientific one, or even a philosophical one.

Next, comes the politically driven non-skeptical liberal approach of putting John Rawls and his ideas of “justice as fairness” and “distributive justice” on a pedestal, clueless that Walter Kaufmann blew Rawls out of the water 40 years ago, before Wilson ever tackled him scientifically. (Hilzoy rejects the idea, but she’s not read Walter Kaufmann’s “Without Guilt and Justice,” which does just that.)

Third is the omission of the fact that Wilson was the target of a politically-inspired, not scientifically-motivated, vendetta after publishing “Sociobiology” in 1976.

So, here’s selected passages from the long earful I gave her:

First, I don't KNOW if this is the case with Hilz in person, and I've distinguished that sociobiology, while in some sense a godfather to ev psych, is not exactly the same....

BUT, BUT, BUT...

I get the feeling that for many here, Wilson is all about "what's wrong with 'reductionistic science.' "

First, read Dan Dennett and distinguish between reductionism and greedy reductionism.

Second, given that Wilson started writing about this 30 years or so ago, Hilz, I assumed you had an ax to grind. I looked at what I saw was the most logical ax.

Third, many non-skeptical liberals put Rawls on a pedestal. That's why I pointed out Rawls has been shot down from within the world of philosophy. Based on this post, I'm also inferring you're one of those non-skeptical liberals.

Kaufmann does an excellent job of showing that distributive justice, a horse ridden hard by Rawls, actually isn't just.

He then goes beyond that, in "Without Guilt and Justice," and notes that justice is NOT some Platonic ideal but very much a socially based convention. And, on that grounds, Rawls IS a transcendentalist, so you got that part of your critique wrong. (And, I've read Rawls as well as Kaufmann, and Kaufmann's right. From a somewhat different angle, Dennett also pokes holes in Rawls.)

Third, you opened the snideness door yourself, with the Sokol crack, Hilz, and I'm just firing back.

More seriously,though, try reading more of Rawls, more skeptically, as well as some critiques of him.

(So), Rawls was wrong, justice is not fairness. He was a transcendentalist for offering that claim without empirical evidence. (One need not be religious to be a transcendentalist.)

From this, it is arguable that there is no such thing as a just society. Some societies may be more just, others less just. But, to claim justice as perfection is another transcendentalist claim from where I sit.

Next, just because I reject Rawls as a political philosopher on ethics doesn’t mean I have to accept Nozick, and I don’t.

But, on Wilson at this point…

If there are no transcendent principles which we can label “justice” then we had better find some empirical underpinnings lest we enter a Hobbsian world.

From here, sociobiology says, evolutionary biology is the logical place to start looking for empirical underpinnings, along with empirical causes, etc.

That said, Wilson has himself pulled back from stronger statements of later Ev Psychers and even some ev psycher. He is definitely NOT a “œnature = destiny”� person.

Next, let’s look at the “other side of the street.”

It’s not as if Gould and Lewontin were free from bias in their critiques of Wilson. (And a s left-liberal Green voter, don’t try to claim I’m politically biased from the right.

Next, if you’ll Wiki, the word ‘sociobiology’ was around 30 years before Wilson’s book of that name.

And, as Wiki also notes on the article of that name, Wilson himself has been a noted liberal, and visible one, on many issues.

OK, more on what Wilson actually says.

First, “contrivance of the mind” does not necessarily mean “conscious contrivance.”� In the case of ev psych, or its sociobiology godparent, it explicitly does NOT mean that.

Second, as for the “naturalistic mind,”� what’s wrong with that? Although I disagree with Steve Pinker on a lot, to the degree the human mind is not only from the brain, but has been influenced by the evolution of the brain, he’s right — deal with it. Live with it.

Finally, an aside … I didn’t start reopening one side of a 30 Years War, Hilz, which is what your post seems like from here; if my inferences on any of your reasons for this post are wrong, maybe you should articulate them. Maybe you should have done so in the first place.

As for the “dumping water” incident, it was stupid, childish and reinforcing of the “liberal academia” �stereotypes of many conservatives, many of whom themselves didn’t like Wilson’s ideas.

And, that war was politicized from the start. John Maynard Smith, a dean of evolutionary biology at the time Wilson’s book came out, expected them:
“It was also absolutely obvious to me--I cannot believe Wilson didn't know--that this was going to provoke great hostility from American Marxists, and Marxists everywhere.”

But, it apparently has no problem finding resources and agents to investigation ACORN.

Of course, it’s not all the FBI’s fault. It’s been asking for more money to investigate financial crime since 2004, but our MBA president just hasn’t been forthcoming. According to former law enforcement officials, that would be anti-business and “overdeterrence.”

In fact, Hilz said she considered her post the equivalent of the water dumping, so I know that I can’t go anywhere with her on scientific grounds, and given the starry eyes for Rawls, not far on philosophical grounds.

As I also told her, I don’t care if Rawls is the most influential political philosopher (in the U.S., or the western democracies) of the last 50 years. Karl Marx was the most influential single political philospher for the world as a whole for most the 20th century, so appeals to the crowd don’t fly.

Beyond that, I think Hilzoy has another assumption that lies behind her post.

And, that is?

That only conservatives can politicize science.

And that just ain't so.