During my college years, I reported to a dean who told me, “We don’t make the rules. Students do.”
At our fringe, far-right religious college (where the vice president called us “foot soldiers”), our student handbook held more rules than Leviticus. So, the irony of that statement created a huge space for its inherent truth.
I thought about ol’ Dean Hurst, when I read Deuteronomy 25:11-12. “If two Israelite men get into a fight and the wife of one tries to rescue her husband by grabbing the testicles of the other man, you must cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”
I have so many questions.
- How is that a wrestling move?
- How does one approach mountain oysters in such a scenario?
- Did the Israelites fight naked?
- If not, how many points does the Lithuanian judge give for degree of difficulty on this move? I mean, I couldn’t get my hand up my own robe without wrestling myself.
- Has the WWE ever replicated this?
- If so, how do you fake a gonad grab?
- Did any woman ever think intervention was worth her hand?
- If so, did she offer her right hand or left?
- Why is this a rule only for wives?
- Does this mean anyone other than my wife is still allowed to leverage this tactic?
Dean Hurst would tell us this is a rule because someone tried it. Maybe lots of someones. This was a thing.
But I’m burying the lead. Let’s not gloss over an important part of this rule: it was transcribed in the Bible. Not a fan fiction version of the Bible. The real-deal holy book. I’ve attended more than 5,000 church, chapel, and Bible class sessions and have never heard this addressed once by the person at the front of the room. Religion seems to focus on the more Flannelgraphable passages of the Bible.
That’s part of why I wanted to take a deeper dive this past year. In 2019, for the first time, I absorbed the Bible cover to cover. I know: I’m late to the game. In my search to acquire the context of the whole deal, I stumbled across lots of weird stuff like that real first rule of Fight Club. For instance, Moses commanded his followers not to boil a goat in its mother’s milk. The prophet Malachi promised that God would spread manure on Israelite faces. In other places, weird Old Testament oracles foretold rape and cannibalism.
On top of the prescriptive stuff, the Bible’s scribes recorded instances of slavery, polygamy, genocide, gang rape, human trafficking, forced mass marriage, grotesque dismemberment, child sacrifice, and talking animals. In my favorite Bible story, an unlikely spy kills a morbidly obese king and then escapes down his royal poop chute.
Because of all of this and more, many people—including friends of mine—have jettisoned the Bible altogether. Its perceived imperfections and cultural backwardness contributed to their eventual “Check please.” Many of those people were also wounded by church members and especially by religion’s malignant caretakers. So, this library of odd and violent religious texts provides further validation for their exit from Christianity. I feel a pang when thinking of their lost faith, but I get it. I can see how they got to their worldview.
At the same time, my 2019 journey revealed what people who embrace the Bible love about it. Candidly, most of that came not from my solo reading but from studying passages with close friends—believers and prebelievers alike. I found truth that confronted my dysfunction. I received comfort that landed perfectly on open sores. I saw Sovereignty use old words to do new things.
I’ve listened to scholarly work on what the Bible actually is; and I’ve wrestled with the ramifications of the academic assertions, if true. Maybe some of it is just conquest literature. Its poetry and allegory don’t have to be literal; figurative language still makes the point. Obviously, these narratives and directives are products of very different cultures, and I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that some of the writing is hyperbole. The Bible is definitely more human than I was reared to believe.
That doesn’t make the Bible less valuable, especially as a mirror for our souls. It just means we have to ask ourselves questions after we read Scripture. With whom or what do I identify in this story? What does this reveal about my character and motives and behavior? How does this inform the tentpole mission to love Jesus with abandon and serve our neighbors sacrificially? When I look for God in the Bible’s pages, I find him. He promised that would happen.
While I don’t understand all of what’s in the Bible or why it’s in there, I know we have it because Omniscience knew we needed it. Apparently, we warranted a complicated, sometimes-awkward map to guide our paths. If there were no mystery to God, he wouldn’t be big enough to worship. If we had no questions or concerns, we wouldn’t need faith. If it all made sense in 2020, it probably wouldn’t have made sense for people millennia ago.
The parts of the Bible that aren’t confusing will transform our lives. It has mine. Apparently, we need our whole lives to apply ourselves to just the clear instructions. That being said—if Dean Hurst was right—I will never agree to fight a man whose wife lurks nearby.
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