Genesis 14: War Is Hell

Military History Now opens their article about history’s earliest wars in an excellent way: “WARFARE IS AS OLD AS CIVILIZATION ITSELF.” And of course, this is true. Humanity has yet to find a way to get along with one another. A look through the history of warfare reveals that moments of peace are few and far between for humanity and any seeming gaps in the history of violence can likely be attributed to a lack of historical data, and not a true absence of conflict.

In Genesis 14, we get the first biblical war. This isn’t the first war that we have a historical record for, but it’s the earliest war that’s mentioned in the Bible. In short, five kings rebelled against Chedorlaomer, the king they ruled under. Chedorlaomer called upon three other allies to put down the rebellion and this whole conflict became known as the Battle of Siddim. Amongst the kings who rebelled against Chedorlaomer were the kings of Soddom and Gomorrah (who will of course be important later when God torches their cities).

The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were presumably not winning the Battle of Siddim, and so they both fled, leaving all of the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah behind for Chedorlaomer and his allies to take. Amongst all of these goods was Lot, Abram’s nephew, and he was taken away. When Abram learns of this, he wages a war of his own to rescue his friend who has been captured.

The story is pretty remarkable and strange. When I imagine a war between nine kings, I imagine a massive war between very powerful people, and if the five kings that challenged Chedorlaomer were defeated, it’s outlandish that Abram would have defeated Chedorlaomer with an army of just 318 men. But this is the Bible we’re talking about, it’s full of wild underdog stories.

One interesting point for a Christian reader would probably be Abram’s commitment to his nephew Lot. In Matthew Henry’s commentary, he says this about Abram’s war:

We have here an account of the only military action we ever find Abram engaged in, and this he was prompted to, not by his avarice or ambition, but purely by a principle of charity; it was not to enrich himself, but to help his friend. Never was any military expedition undertaken, prosecuted, and finished, more honourably than this of Abram’s.

Now, the historicity of Abram’s war is disputed, but if it is a true event, then this does seem to have been what we might be tempted to call a noble war. This was not an imperial war over resources or money, it was a war Abram fought for the liberation of his friend.

Another interesting point for a Christian reader is Abram’s rejection of Sodom’s goods. Instead of reaping the rewards of his goods, he returns the goods to Sodom. This wasn’t really meant as an act of charity towards the Sodomites but rather it was an act of tremendous principle on the part of Abram. If you’re familiar with the Old Testament, you know that God doesn’t have a good opinion of Sodom which tells us that Abram probably didn’t either. Abram’s stated reason for not accepting the goods is that he didn’t want the King of Sodom to be able to say, “I made Abram rich.” So, in a sense, Abram is defending his reputation here.

There are some broadly applicable life lessons here. Abram’s principled stance against the King of Sodom is certainly admirable and the war he wages against a powerful enemy for the sake of his friend seems pretty inspiring. But reading this from my modern perspective, I can’t help but think that there are quite a few things left out here.

In Wikipedia’s entry on Abraham, Abram’s war against Chedorlomaor is described as a slaughter. Now granted, we’re talking about Wikipedia here, but this seems consistent with scripture, which says that Abram “routed” Chedorlomaor. The trouble here, is that Abram didn’t defeat Chedorlomaor, Abram’s army defeated Chedorlomaor’s army. And we know very little about either army.

One of the things I find disturbing about the way war is reported to us throughout history (and even in the modern day), is that it often erases the real experiences of the human beings who were involved. We talk about Abram defeating Chedorlomaor, but we don’t talk about all of the soldiers that were killed or maimed in the process. The “slaughter” that Wikipedia talks about is not the slaughter of Chedorlomaor, but the slaughter of a group of young men that probably had no stake in Chedorlomaor’s war. The Bible is not unique in this, this is the way war is reported even in the modern day, but I think that the victims of war deserve better. They deserve a more complicated analysis. To say that Abram’s war was noble because he was fighting for the sake of his friend doesn’t seem to be exactly right considering the fact that he probably sacrificed the lives of people who weren’t involved in his conflict in order to rescue Lot.

It’s probably true what Military History Now says about war. War is probably as old as civilization itself, and perhaps we may never find a way to live at peace. But I think the first step in achieving real and meaningful peace is to acknowledge the true costs of war. The real human beings who are lost forever in all the “glorious” battles in history. Perhaps then we’ll see that war is never glorious, it’s never beautiful, it’s never noble. It’s always brutal and horrifying and sad.

Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is one of the more interesting tales in the Biblical canon. The myth was designed to make sense of the fact that humans speak so many different languages. The story is often told like this: in the early days of humanity, some time after the flood, a group of humans decided they were going to build a city and, in that city, there would be a giant tower called Babel. God passively watched from above but when he saw what they were up to, God couldn’t help but become angry with the humans. The humans were trying to build a tower so that they too could sit on the clouds like God. The humans were beginning to fancy themselves Gods. So, God responded by toppling this little tower and forcing all the humans to speak different languages, so that they couldn’t communicate with one another. Without the ability to communicate, the humans presumably gave up on the project and decided to form independent countries and endlessly go to war with each other instead. The end.

If you were raised Christian, you’ve probably heard some variation of this story before. The way the story is often told seems to parallel the story of Icarus. Humanity flew too close to the sun, so God melted their wax wings and sent them plummeting back to Earth. Hubris is the tragic flaw of humanity in this story as it is usually told. But, having read it with a fresh pair of eyes, I think we’ve misunderstood this story.

The story is only 9 verses long, so we haven’t got a lot to work with here. The details of the traditional story are all in agreement with the actual text. Humanity, under one language, does decide to build a city with a tower named Babel in the middle. God does get angry at this and he does destroy the tower and give each of the people new languages. But God’s reasons for doing this, and humanity’s reasons for building the tower are a little bit different than we’re usually taught.

Genesis 11:4 is usually the text cited to justify the position that humanity was building the tower to be arrogant. This verse tells us that humans wanted to build the tower to “make a name for ourselves.” This sounds pretty damning until you read the full quote: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” So, it seems like humans were building a tower to make a name for themselves, but for the purpose of unifying all people under one common banner.

We see further evidence of this in Genesis 11:6. God descends to the city and sees what’s going on and responds, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Notice there’s no mention of hubris here, it doesn’t even seem to be implied. It almost sounds as though God is frustrated with how successful humans are. It almost sounds as though God is the enemy of humanity in this moment.

Could it be that the ancients saw God as an obstacle? Why not? Most gods were personifications of abstract natural forces. Most natural forces, it seems, are working against humans, not with them, so why not assume that God is standing in your way? Why not assume that God is against you?

We tend to assume that the ancients would have believed in a cheerleader god who shows up to all our soccer games and takes us for ice cream whether we win or lose, but that’s only because that’s what we want to believe. The ancients would probably have been expecting a God who didn’t think much of humanity or, quite possibly, even a God that hated humanity and actively worked to undermine them.

Perhaps, then, God didn’t topple the Tower of Babbel because he thought humans were arrogant, perhaps he did it because he couldn’t stand the thought of human beings becoming united and self-sufficient. Perhaps God realized that if there were no wars, no violence, no oppression, there would be no need for humans to run to God for comfort. If there were no suffering, there would be no need for God. And God couldn’t stand such an idea.

This whole story reminds me of a conversation between Russel Brand and Yuval Noah Harari on Brand’s Under the Skin podcast. Harari notes that most sci fi films depict AI as having some sort of flaw. The robots don’t work the way we wanted them to, they turn on us and they try to kill us. But, Harari notes, this is actually not the most terrifying scenario. The most terrifying scenario is that the robots do work the way we want them to. They work so well that suddenly there’s no place for us in this world anymore. Maybe that’s how God felt; humans were working so well together that God felt useless. And it was better, in God’s eyes, to have humans that fight and go to war and kill each other, than to have humans that don’t need God.

Genesis 9:18-29: Peeping Ham and the Curse of Canaan

In one of my previous posts, I talked about the ancient belief that sin could be inherited but I didn’t dig too deep into the multitude of egregious manifestations of this belief throughout history. I didn’t forget about this, I simply figured there would be many opportunities to discuss it, starting with the latter half of Genesis 9.

Recall that in Genesis 6-8, God decided he was going to drown the entire world because the humans were being shitty. But God decided he’d save Noah and his family, so he told them to build a giant boat and put a pair of every single species of animal on that boat. Then God flooded the world and killed everyone.

Afterwards, Noah and his family were tasked with restarting the world. God promised he wouldn’t destroy everything this time (although he provided a neat little loophole in his promise, in case he changed his mind) so the only thing Noah and his family had to do was procreate and everything would be back to normal.

After the flood, Noah did the next logical thing, he planted a vineyard, made some wine and got drunk. After forty days of tending to a literal floating zoo, Noah needed to kick his sandals off and drink away some of that stress. Now, if you’ve ever been to college, you probably know that the craziest people are the people that have never drank before. And as we know, prior to the flood, Noah was God’s favorite student, so we can imagine he was something of a goody two shoes. This means that when Noah got drunk, he got really drunk. We’re told that, when the party was over, Noah was found naked in his tent.

Unfortunately, Noah was found naked in his tent by his son Ham. Genesis 9:22 tells us “Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.” Now, modern readers tend to read this part and think that it’s rather gross. Nobody wants to walk into a tent and find their dad naked (especially if their dad is 600 years old…) but apparently this would have meant something more to the original readers of this text. We know this because, after Ham tells his two brothers (Shem and Japheth), the brothers walk in backwards and cover their father with a blanket. The reason they walk in backwards is to avoid seeing Noah naked like Ham did. Why take such precautions? Apparently, seeing your dad naked wasn’t just gross, apparently it was a mortal sin. When Noah woke up and found out that Ham had seen him naked, Noah cursed Ham’s son Canaan and doomed his entire bloodline to a life of slavery.

If you’re confused, you’re not alone. Why did Noah curse Canaan when it was Ham who he had beef with? Is it really the end of the world that Ham saw Noah naked? The folks at gotquestions.org are also puzzled by this one, they present a couple of possible answers but even they agree that most of them don’t add up and ultimately, they’ve got questions but no answers. Answers in Genesis, on the other hand, always has the answers. And as usual, their answers misread the text in order to justify their preconceived beliefs. They’re response more or less boils down to, “well Canaan must’ve done something wrong, otherwise God wouldn’t have let Noah curse him.” But apparently there are no Answers in Genesis as to what exactly it is Canaan did wrong.

I’m no Bible scholar but maybe the reason it’s so hard to find an answer here is because we’re expecting it to make sense in our time. We assume that their must be a good reason for Noah to curse an entire bloodline of people, so there must be something the Bible isn’t telling us. But maybe the Bible is telling us all the information it wants us to know. Maybe the Genesis writers have given us all the pieces to the puzzle, but we just don’t like the big picture. Is it possible that this Curse on Canaan happened because Noah was embarrassed that his son saw him naked? Then, when he woke up with a serious hangover, he was pissed off (and perhaps a little drunk still). He was so pissed off that he accidentally cursed the wrong person.

Genesis was probably written sometime between 900 and 700 BC. In the centuries preceding Genesis, Canaan apparently had some rough years. Canaan was a colony of Egypt and many Canaanites are included in a list of prisoners of war to Egypt. So, something happened to the Canaanites that might have led one to suggest that the Canaanites were cursed to become slaves. The Bible has its own account of what happens to the Canaanites and it’s rather horrific, but we’ll get to that later. For now, what’s important is that the writers of Genesis would have been trying to explain why Canaan had drawn such a bad lot. In my view, this bizarre tail of Noah’s nudity and peeping Ham was all just a way of explaining the misfortunes of a fallen nation and perhaps even a way of justifying the actions of the Israelites.

But regardless of the justification for these verses, the problem is the way they’ve been used. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries when African slavery became prominent in America, Genesis 9 was used as a justification for the enslavement of blacks. According to this view, the Africans were descended from Ham and Canaan and since Genesis 9:25 says “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers,” this apparently means that God ordained slavery.

Now of course, you could argue, I’m being unfair. There’s nothing in the Bible that explicitly states that the Africans were descended from Ham and Canaan. The slave apologists were being dishonest, and we shouldn’t blame the Bible for the way it’s been interpreted over the years. But my argument is a bit more nuanced. I’m not saying that we should blame an ancient text for having ancient views. What I’m saying is that, when we read the Bible as an infallible, perfect text, we will inevitably just read in whatever views we want to read into it. This is why the Bible has been used to justify slavery, genocide, greed and all sorts of other egregious things over the years. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the book, it’s because there’s something wrong with the way we read it.

What Christians often fail to understand is that nothing can be read objectively. As the old saying goes “there is no view from nowhere.” You cannot simply read the Bible; you have to interpret it and the way you interpret it is greatly impacted by the culture you’re living in. This is why the Bible has always been used to affirm the status quo, because the human mind is always looking for affirmation of the current form of reality. The human mind is always looking to be told that everything is perfectly fine the way it is and that nothing needs to change. Reading the Bible as the inerrant word of God allows us to read our own beliefs into the text and then ordain them as if they had come straight out of God’s mouth. In this way, Biblical Inerrancy hinders progress and change in society. We can’t change because the Bible says so, and if we can’t change we can’t grow.

Genesis 9:6-7: God’s Epicurean Command

How should I live? This is the answer that most people who read Genesis would have been looking for. You could rephrase it of course, How does God want me to live? What is the purpose of my life? Etc. But however you word it, this is an age-old question and we’re still asking it today. In Genesis 9:6-7, the writers of Genesis attempt to answer it. In Genesis 9:6-7 after Noah and his family have survived the flood and are preparing to start the world anew, God gives Noah and his sons the following command: “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” Or, in other words, have sex and don’t kill each other. These are the surprisingly Epicurean commands Noah and his family were to carry on into the new world.

These commands are much more concise when compared to the ten commandments, but I think they are just as effective at establishing a moral framework and they cut out nonsense like “I am the Lord your God” and “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”. These commands seem to be more fitting to a secular person than they are to a religious person.

Have sex and don’t kill each other. Just two commandments, but if we broaden our scope they can be applied to a wide variety of human experiences. Let’s take the first command, the command to have sex. Or, as God put it, “be fruitful and increase in number.” Of course, we could simply take this at face value. Thou shalt fool around with thy neighbor (so long as it’s consensual)! And it’s likely that the Genesis writers would have wanted it to be read that way. In fact, for the writers of Genesis, this God-ordained love making probably only applied to a specific subset of sexual encounters. Namely, a man and his wife. Premarital sex, gay sex, polygamous sex, transamorous sex were pretty much all off the table. But since I’m no longer chained to this book by some religion, I’m going to take some liberties in my interpretation.

For many religious people, sex is a touchy subject and anyone who’s studied the issue can attest to the complicated relationship between religion and sex. So, it’s quite liberating to hear the God of the Old Testament (who is generally the most conservative of God’s many faces) telling us that, contrary to what our preacher might tell us. God apparently wants us to fuck around. Take that GEM Ansco mb e!! So, if God is giving us the liberty to have sex freely, what else are we free to do? When I read this verse, I saw it as a broader endorsement of hedonism. Of course, the God of the Old Testament doesn’t seem like the type to endorse such a thing but then he didn’t seem like the type to endorse sexuality either, so maybe we were wrong about the old guy (we weren’t but play along).

Perhaps, the message here is to enjoy yourself. Indulge a little bit. Eat the tastiest foods, drink the best beers and the finest wines, laugh with your friends, dance with your loved ones, watch reruns of I Love Lucy if that’s what you’re into. Spend the fleeting moments you have on this Earth enjoying every moment because that’s what you were born to do. But there’s a catch, and it comes in the form of the second commandment.

The second commandment, don’t kill each other, is the only thing that should neuter our ability to enjoy ourselves freely. After all, there is a danger in hedonism. We can drink ourselves so drunk that we forget that there is a world beyond our beer. If we do only what’s good for ourselves, we will likely leave behind the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. After all, as we speak, the people of Yemen are starving by the millions because of a Saudi-led Coalition which is endorsed by most western nations including the US, UK and France. And what do these western nations stand to gain? A few billion dollars in defense contracts and more oil to destroy the Earth with? It seems then, that these nations heard the OT God’s first commandment to Noah but conveniently ignored the second commandment.

Surprisingly, I’ve found some agreement here with the writers of Genesis and I think that if more people followed these two commandments to Noah we’d be living in a much nicer world.

Or, as a wiser man than I once said, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” -JRR Tolkien

Genesis 6-8: Noah, the Flood and the Not-So-Good God (Part 2)

God Flip-Flops on Murder

There’s something very awe inspiring about the story of the Noachian Flood. The grandeur and enormity of it hearkens to a mythical age that I wish I actually believed in. It reminds me of the story in the Song of Ice and Fire series about Brandon the Builder crafting an enormous ice wall with the help of giants. The writing is lacking in detail compared to the poetic Epic of Gilgamesh or other ancient epics, but the underlying story is pretty cool as far as myths go.

However, it’s a disturbing tail for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it shouldn’t be ignored that the underlying assumption of the story is that killing animals is no big deal, but I already discussed the Bible’s views towards animals and nature in my post on Genesis 1, so I won’t belabor the point. Second, by the end of the story, after God has flooded the world and killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, God realizes that mass murder won’t solve the problems of the human heart.

In Genesis 8:21, God says to himself “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Which at first glance, might seem like an apology from God, but it really isn’t. Here God is saying he’s just not going to kill humans for being bad anymore since it seems to be in their nature. Of course, as many of us know, he will go on to kill more human beings for being evil, he just won’t destroy the entire Earth again, but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. So, long story short, God was angry because human beings are evil, so he killed all the humans. Then after he was finished, he decided he wouldn’t do that again because human beings are evil, and they can’t really help it. Pretty toxic behavior from the man upstairs.

A Comforting Promise

I’m losing sight of my goal with this whole project so to get back on track, let me try to step in the shoes of an ancient reader. The ancients probably would have perceived God as being unforgiving since they were living in a world prone to famines and drought. A world where, in the blink of an eye, nature could snatch away everything they worked for. Maybe their crops wouldn’t grow, maybe their children would grow sick and die, maybe they would be unable to have children. At the whims of God, everything could be taken away in a matter of seconds and God, it seemed, didn’t need any justification for doing so.

So, this story, where God changes his mind and decides that, even though humanity isn’t perfect, they’re still worth keeping around, is actually quite beautiful, if we look at it through an ancient lens. It also starts to make a little bit more sense when we look at it this way. First of all, if the writers of Genesis had created a God that fit the modern standards of a perfect God, the ancient readers would’ve called bullshit right away. If God had been portrayed as loving and kind, or even rational, the ancient readers would never have believed it. Most of these readers probably lost children and family to starvation or harsh winters, so if the writers of Genesis had portrayed God as being someone who was understanding and patient, it would obviously have been nonsense to readers at the time. The only reason we expect such a thing today is because we are insulated from the harsh reality of nature.

The only way to get readers on board with the promise made in Genesis 8:21 is to first demonstrate that the God who’s making the promise, is in fact God. So, the Flood becomes a necessary device for describing the God that the ancient people would have been familiar with. It wouldn’t seem out of character for God to flood the Earth since he was prone to allowing children to starve and women to die in childbirth. So, an ancient reader would probably think, if nothing else, the writers of Genesis are talking about the right God. Once the writers of Genesis got the ancient people on board with their story by depicting God accurately, they tacked a hopeful promise on at the end. They promised that, no matter how bad things get, God is not interested in destroying you (anymore).

Genesis 8 closes by offering the reader a reassuring mantra. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” I kind of like this verse, it’s a little bit like the old saying that life goes on. If nothing else, the ancient people could know that the sun would rise tomorrow.

Genesis 3 and 4: The Hereditary Stain

In my last post, I talked about the difference between essentialism and existentialism. This theme is probably going to come up a lot, so if you don’t know what those terms mean, I’ll refresh your memory. Essentialism is the belief that essence precedes existence, or in other words, the purpose of your life (essence) was determined before you were born (existence). Existentialism is the belief that existence precedes essence, meaning your purpose is somehow determined throughout your life. While most people probably don’t think about it in these terms, most modern people could probably be defined as existentialists. Today, most people do not think there is a predefined destiny laid out for them but rather that we create our own destiny. However, as you can probably imagine, in the old world, things were different. Your destiny was given to you by God before you were born, and you were powerless to change it. This is why kingdoms were passed down from father to son and this is one of the reasons why genealogies were important to ancient people. It mattered who your parents were because it said something about your destiny.

This point will be important in understanding Genesis 3 and 4. In Genesis 3, we see the final act of the creation story. Namely, the eating of the forbidden fruit which leads to “The Fall” as Christians will call it. Adam and Eve are convinced by a serpent to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, thus committing the first sin. This appears to be a pretty important moment for Christians. According to Paul, it is the moment that both sin and death entered the world (Romans 5:12) and the folks at Answers in Genesis believe that literally nothing died prior to this moment. But the result of this which is undisputed by most Christians is the birth of Original Sin.

According to a Catholic Encyclopedia written by the people at New Advent, Original Sin may be taken to mean “a consequence of [Adam’s] first sin, the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam.” So, Adam, by committing that first sin, left a stain on all of us that requires us all to be dunked underwater as babies in order to cleanse ourselves. Thanks a lot, Adam.

If you’re anything like I was growing up, your first question is “What the hell did I do??” Adam’s the one that ate the apple, why did I get the “hereditary stain”? It’s hard to construct an answer to this question that would be satisfying to the modern person, since we tend to be existentialists. The closest thing to a satisfying answer that I could find was given by St. Augustine. Augustine argued that Adam was acting as a representative for humanity when he sinned. But when did we elect Adam as our representative? When was the referendum? While modern people read this text and feel that it is a bit lacking, to an ancient person, it would probably have been obvious that sin was inherited. In the same way that those who were descended from kings inherited some divine right to rule, human beings inherited Adam’s first sin.

Following Genesis 3 is Genesis 4 which is one of the more confusing and poorly written chapters of the Bible (sorry Moses). It starts with Adam and Eve bearing two children, Cain and Abel. God, who tends to play favorites, seems to like Abel a lot. So naturally, Cain murders Abel. This leads God to curse Cain, but it’s a strange curse. On the one hand, Cain is punished to restlessly wander the Earth but on the other, if anyone tries to kill him, God threatens that person with vengeance.

From there, the Genesis writers go on one of those genealogical rants that they like to do. The writers tell us about Cain’s descendants (though who exactly he procreated with is unclear…) and specifically they focus on a man named Lamech. The only things we’re told about Lamech is that he has two wives, and that he murdered someone. Some have also noted that he’s the Bible’s first polygamist but it’s not clear whether this is something the writers would have disapproved of. What is clear about Lamech, is that he was a murderer and he seemed to be proud of it. He told his wives “if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times,” which presumably means he is a far worse person than Cain and he doesn’t appear to be ashamed of this.

It’s not immediately clear what the purpose of this little anecdote about Lamech is, but there are two commonly cited purposes for these verses. The first is to suggest that Cain’s bloodline was tainted. Lamech, Cain’s descendant, was a murderer just as Cain was. The second cited purpose was to establish that, in the days between the Fall and the Flood, there was a rich culture of sin that stemmed from Cain’s bloodline. To me the verse doesn’t successfully do either of these things, but I could imagine that, had I been living in the time when this text was written, it might have seemed obvious that the sins of Cain were passed down to his children.

When the Bible hints at this inheritability of sin, specifically through the curse on Cain, it is undoubtedly telling us that evil people will produce evil children. That a criminal’s children will be just as awful and evil as the criminal. That Grendel, the descendent of Cain, would be a horrid and grotesque monster. Of course, when put this way, it sounds horrible. How can you hold someone accountable for the shortcomings of their parents? But perhaps there’s something we can learn from this essentialist attitude.

Obviously I’m not saying that people should be held accountable for the actions of their parents, in fact, what I’m saying is quite the opposite. What I’m saying is that the Bible is absolutely right in thinking that who your parents are has an enormous affect on your life. Of course, the Bible went about it entirely the wrong way, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a nugget of truth here. The reality is, who your parents are determines where you will go to school, where you will live, what kind of food you will eat, what kind of teachers and mentors you will have etc. And it is the sum total of these things, in my opinion, that makes up our identity. Ultimately, it’s true that crime is often generational, though not for overly simplistic reasons such as “criminals beget criminals”. As I said earlier, nowadays, people tend to be existentialist, but I think that by ignoring the reality of essentialism we’ve actually limited our potential as humans.

What do I mean by this? I’m talking about socioeconomics of course. In America, where I come from, it has always been our belief that anyone can succeed. But time and time again, it’s been shown that this is not true. That it’s nearly impossible to escape from poverty. Is poverty then, its own kind of Original Sin? What about racism?

But this can be a dangerous belief. By hearkening to these religious metaphors, we run the risk of trying to absolve ourselves of these sins. After all, the point of Original Sin is that you’ve got it whether you like it or not. Descendants of Adam inherit this sin even if they’re flawless human beings. This can lead to a sort of nihilism when applied to the real world. If I refer to racism as “America’s Original Sin” in the way that many have, this removes my role in perpetuating it. Systems like poverty and racism exist partially because of some sort of inherited qualities, but they are also perpetuated by people who benefit from their existence.

They key here is to operate from a middle position between the two. We should be both existentialists and essentialists. We should acknowledge that we have the power to decide what we will do with our lives, while at the same time acknowledging that there are forces beyond our control that influence our lives tremendously. This position opens us up to a radical kind of empathy that we would be incapable of if we remained wholly in either the essentialist or the existentialist camp. The existentialist would look at a grown man working at Walmart for slave wages and say, “he should have applied himself more.” The essentialist would look at the same person and say “he is incapable of anything better because he is inherently inferior to me.” But from this middle position we can look at this person and see extraordinary potential trapped within an unforgiving system. An unforgiving system which we have the power to change.