Stephen
Terry, Director
Education and Redemption
Commentary
for the November 21, 2020 Sabbath School Lesson
"Zillah also had a
son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron." Genesis
4:22a, NIV
Recently, I had the
opportunity to watch one part of a three-part series on primates on the program
"Nature" on a local Public Broadcasting Station (PBS). One segment featured the
Capuchin Monkeys of Brazil and their ability to use tools to carry out tasks,
like the little fellow in our picture using a stone to crack open a nut.
Perhaps one might be tempted to think that this is somehow an innate skill
peculiar to these monkeys. However, the narrator informs us of other examples of
other species using tools similarly and relates how they saw adult monkeys
teaching the skill to their offspring. To pass on such skills, someone had to
first learn them. This presupposes the idea that an intelligent primate first had
to discover that they could open the nut with a stone, and was sufficiently rewarded
by the nut meat to continue the behavior, demonstrating its efficacy to its own
offspring and perhaps also to others. Since this skill broadened the availability
of food and therefore potentially decreased mortality for those using stones as
tools, it can be seen how this would be a skill favored by natural selection, a
skill that would appear to spread through the species until it became a
dominant behavior. In time one would expect those who were able to use the tool
more and more effectively would predominate as nature selected for those individuals.
Perhaps this leads some to believe that a progression of such skill development
lead to the ascendancy of man from the order of primates. If so, perhaps the
desire to obtain food is a powerful motivator for skill development. Pavlov's experiments
with dogs seemed to point in that direction. Our own omnivorous nature, making
us perhaps the most successful exploiter of food sources on the planet may also
be seen to support that view. Our waistlines are evidence of our success, and a
visit to any modern farm will reveal how advanced our tool-making skills have
become in producing abundant food for our species as well as other domesticated
species that have often been bred and trained to enhance our food producing ability.
Our reach with these tools is global, and we can now enjoy, in temperate
climates, bananas and oranges daily, even in the middle of winter, something
unheard of by the average person only a few generations ago. Little wonder then
that when we look for similarities between other species and ourselves, we understand
simple tool making and usage as part of the quest for food like those Brazilian
monkeys. Macaques in India have taken things a step further, having developed the
skill of bartering items purloined from hapless tourists in exchange for food.
While this is not what we might consider tool making, it is a learned behavior probably traceable back to the first
tourist who offered something tasty to a monkey in an effort to get their
sunglasses back, and the monkey realizing that there was a tasty payoff for
their behavior continued to rob tourists and ransom items.
While natural selection
shows why a species might select for beneficial tool making behavior, when we
turn to the Bible, it may be possible to find a case against tool making and education
in such skills. This goes back almost to the very beginning with the contrast
between Abel the shepherd and Cain, the tiller of the soil. Arguably, it may be
seen as much easier to simply watch over sheep as they wander from pasture to
pasture than it is to work the ground for a harvest, especially after the curse
in Genesis, chapter 3.[i] That difficulty farming may
be eased somewhat by the use of tools. The fact that God favored Abel over Cain
may imply God is anti-tool on some level. That prejudice is born out in the
very next chapter when, as quoted at the beginning of this commentary, tool
making was identified with the descendants of Cain rather than those of Seth.
Further support for that conclusion may be found in the Decalogue's
proscription against images which would necessarily be created with tools.[ii] This extends even to the prohibition
against using tools for constructing sacrificial altars.[iii] While this tension between
the pastoral vocation of the wandering shepherds descended from Seth and extending
to Jacob, and the tool making craftsmen descended from Cain, things seem to
take an abrupt turn during the sojourn in Egypt and the subsequent exodus and
conquest of Canaan.
Suddenly, from the
perspective of the condensed biblical narrative, we find craftsmen constructing
the Ark of the Covenant with images of cherubim.[iv] This new form of worship eventually
reached its epitome under King Solomon with the carvings and images in the
temple and the bronze "sea" mounted upon the figures of bulls.[v] It is hard to explain this shift,
but perhaps the context of the conquest of Canaan gives us clues. In the days
of the judges, the Philistines are portrayed as a thorn in the side of Israel
for generations. They were the tool makers the Israelites had to go to to maintain
their farming implements. The Philistine's smithing skill not only allowed them
to craft and repair such tools, but also the weaponry that gave them ascendancy
over the Israelites.[vi]
Experience then, more than divine directive, could have driven the Israelites to
seek such skills as a matter of survival. This is not the only area that seemed
to compromise their faith in response to Philistine aggression. The Israelites
sought to have a human king rule over them instead of God as had been the case
previously. Reluctantly, the prophet Samuel anointed Saul as Israel's first
king.[vii] Later, as if to prove how
mistaken that was, King Saul sought to speak with the dead through the Witch of
Endor to determine the outcome of an upcoming battle with the Philistines,[viii] a battle where both he and
his son. Jonathan, perished.
The Bible paints a
picture of a steady downward trend spiritually for Israel for most of a millennium
until they are taken into captivity in Babylon. Once they return, they appear
to have been cured of making graven images for worship, but they continue to strive
for political and military advantages over those foreigners who would rule over
them, resulting in the Maccabean Revolt in the mid-second century BC, as well
as revolts against the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries
AD. In the midst of that chaotic era, Jesus is born, and escaping the vicious
rule of an Israelite king, he is nonetheless executed at the demands of
religious leaders who have eschewed the worship of carved images for the
worship of money and power. John the Baptist heralded Jesus' ministry, and his
own ministry may have reminded the Jews of their roots as itinerant shepherds
in a world where the words of all were equally respected. But the world they
had then, a world that too often continues with similar values today, killed
him for the effrontery of believing his words could matter in their world.
Jesus enlarged upon John's theme with repeated references to a pastoral lifestyle
with illustrations involving sheep and shepherds. But time marches on, and if the
halls of power offered no room for Jesus' Good Shepherd illustrations two millennia
ago, for many, there is even less now.
We sit on crafted
chairs, before crafted desks, using technological tools like computers, tablets,
and smartphones to access an ephemeral thing called the internet. We carry on
conversations with people we may never physically meet, but who nonetheless
have a profound effect on our ideas, our desires, and our priorities. As human beings
we have stumbled through history, using our tool making abilities, not for the redemption
of the species, but for the consolidation of power and wealth. Those who would
speak against this are vilified, and if it were possible to do so, would have
the same crude nails driven through their hands and feet and the same spear
thrust into their bodies as Christ experienced two thousand years ago. The
words of accusation have changed somewhat. The called him a glutton, drunkard,
demon possessed and a blasphemer. Now he might be called a socialist, Marxist,
communist, fascist, or Nazi. But it is not about the labels. It never was. It
is about the threat to power by those refusing to accept that some should
oppress others. Jesus called us to re-envision life as it could be if we chose
love and service over the desire for power. He modeled this at the Last Supper
through the washing of the disciples' feet. While some today may think his primary
intent was to establish a church ordinance, I believe he was, through metaphor,
showing what life was meant to be and offering that perspective as a redemptive
model for humanity and for each of us personally. Once we understand and accept
what he was trying to teach us, we will be well on our way to redemption.