Since e-mail servers are also treacherous--

This new blog will give me the hope of safeguarding some of my online columns which are distributed under the name "Empowered For Freedom." Here is something I wrote quite recently...


A SNAKE IN THE LITERARY GRASS

Literary skills, like firearms, can be used for good OR evil. My local newspaper's book-review section has lately provided an example of bad use: another case of what Isaiah 5:20 warned about, people _calling_ evil good and good evil.

Bear with me, here: Imagine that I set out to write a history of, say, America's Revolutionary War. I do lots of research on the era, and it shows in my descriptions of 18th-century weapons and military discipline, of how the Continental Congress deliberated, of how civilians endured the war years, etc. All very impressive. But then, suppose I rely on this to convince my readers that my research achievements give me a right to draw conclusions which are not supported by _anything_ in my data. Suppose I say, in effect: "These collected facts about Revolutionary War conditions prove that George Washington was regularly cheating on his wife, Benjamin Franklin enjoyed torturing little kittens, and Patrick Henry was the real founder of the Nazi Party."

Kind of dishonest? Yeah, but there are America-bashers who would pretend to believe that the reasoning was valid, because they WANT to believe that the United States is bad at the very root.

The same thing has just been done (for the zillionth time) to the Biblical record of history. A woman named Lesley Hazleton, lavishly praised by the hard-leftwing Denver Post, has written a book titled "JEZEBEL: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen." Note that it is classified as NON-fiction. To prepare for this project, Ms. Hazleton did extensive research into the archaeology of Israel and Phoenicia, the commercial and military relationships that existed among ancient countries. Well and good, but all of this does not by itself establish the personalities of historical individuals. What establishes _those_ in this book is what Ms. Hazleton _wants_ to believe.Ms. Hazleton wants to believe that the Biblical account of Jezebel trying to kill all prophets of Israel's God is only propaganda, a slander fabricated by those mean, intolerant monotheists. In her version of events, Jezebel is an enlightened pagan heroine, who meant no harm at all to the monotheists, while Elijah is the villain--you know, just like the Taliban. The Denver Post book reviewer is eager to endorse Hazleton's view that polytheism is tolerant and openminded, while belief in one Supreme Being Who actually has some requirements is one and the same thing as bigotry and hate. To do all this, Hazleton has to do something which none of her archaeological research would really have warranted: she has to presume a priori that the Biblical record _cannot_ have been divinely inspired, that it _must_ have been a forgery, and that Jezebel _couldn't_ have been capable of robbing and murdering the innocent landowner Naboth.

Part of this author's cunning is in her timing. Now that "The DaVinci Code" has enjoyed success, she can see that there is a vast readership ready to swallow _anything_ that lets them off the hook of owing obedience to the real God. Fans of Ms. Hazleton, as of Dan Brown, are demonstrating what Jesus said to unbelievers in John 5:43: "I have come in My Father's name and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive."

Neo-pagans who may see my words here are sure to tell themselves that I'm "only against Lesley Hazleton because she's a woman." This is nonsense, and they themselves will know it's nonsense even while they're saying it; but that's the very trend that Ms. Hazleton is promoting: the post-modern trend of simply inventing any "truth" which appeals to your emotions. But if Ms. Hazleton wants to see just how much more tolerant polytheism is than monotheism, let her go to certain regions of the polytheistic nation of India and tell the locals that she has come to preach the gospel of Jesus. If, after doing this, she lives to write anything else, she will perhaps write more truthfully.
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JOSEPH RAVITTS