Sunday, July 27, 2008

Biblicalese Mistake

While funny, and even hilarious, this satirical piece of writing, a take down of Obama, includes a paragraph I take affront at.

Gerald Baker writes, inter alia,

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.


What's wrong?

Well, why doesn't he mention Israel? He does mention a state that doesn't exist - 'Palestine'.

If he is manipulating a language called Biblicalese, then (a) Palestine isn;t in the good book whereas (b) Judea and Samaria are.

And if you're thinking that, (c) Arabs aren't in Scripture either, you're wrong:

Joshua 15:52
Arab and Dumah and Eshan,
Nehemiah 2:19
But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard it, they mocked us and despised us and said, “What is this thing you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”
Nehemiah 6:1
Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates,
Isaiah 13:20
It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
Jeremiah 3:2
“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see;
Where have you not been violated?
By the roads you have sat for them
Like an Arab in the desert,
And you have polluted a land
With your harlotry and with your wickedness.

1 comment:

Kae Gregory said...

While were on the subject...

Shemot (Exodus) 22:31,33
And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

They shall not dwell in thy land--lest they make thee sin against Me, for thou wilt serve their gods--for they will be a snare unto thee.