Ahab and the Bible as Story. June 13, 2010

Today’s lessons offer us two really cool stories to choose from: Both of them are about bad woman, though in the gospel, the bad woman is forgiven and in the lesson from Hebrew Scriptures,  the bad woman is punished. In the gospel, bad woman is bad because she is a prostitute, but she is forgiven because she recognizes and responds to  unconditional love of Jesus. In the Hebrew scriptures, the bad woman is bad for a whole variety of reasons. In fact, she is so bad, that her name, Jezebel, has come to be a nickname for bad women in general. When I was choosing which one to focus on, the Wednesday noon Bible Study met, and the story that came up on our chapter by chapter progress through scripture was--lo and behold--First Kings 21--the very story assigned for our first lesson. I don’t get many signs, so I thought I should grab this one, for two reasons: 1) It gives me a chance to talk about the history in general and Israel’s history in particular and 2) It gives me a chance to talk about reading the Bible.

The story you already heard--Ahab, a king, wants a vineyard that adjoins his property. Unfortunately for him, it belongs to a ordinary citizen named Naboth. Ahab offers him a fair price, but Naboth refuses. The king goes on a sulk, but his wife, Jezebel, steps in and takes over. She devises a plan to have Naboth killed so that the king can claim the vineyard as his own. The story implies that Ahab knew what his wife was doing In any case, he certainly approved. The plan works--Ahab gets his vineyard, but Elijah the prophet is sent by the Lord to predict that the king and his wife will both come to bad ends.  That’s the lesson in a nutshell. Even in that summary fashion, you can probably think of similar stories: Nathan prophesying to David after David had Bashsheba’s husband killed. Or the ambitious Lady Macbeth urging her husband to seize the throne of Scotland.  

I want to dig a little deeper into the story, but first I want to share with you a historical framework that helps some people read the OT. It’s called the “500 year” rule. In Western history, things seem to pass through an upheaval about every 500 years. Abraham is usually dated about 2000 B.C. , even though most scholars take Abraham to be legendary. The Bible dates Moses about 1500 B.C. though some scholars would date him later, and there’s little independent confirmation of him in Egyptian history. David is on the throne on about 1000 B.C. Do you see the pattern?  The exile to Babylonia is about 500 B.C., also the approximate date of Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.  Jesus is born about zero, Rome falls about 500, beginning the Dark Ages. The Normans invade England about 1000, which is about  the same time as the Crusades, Charlemagne and Alfred  the Great, which is why we date the Middle Ages from roughly 1000.  The Renaissance and Reformation come along in 1500. This would mean that we are now due for a major upheaval, and some claim that to see that happening now, as more and more people default to a secular set of assumptions about the origin and meaning of the universe. This theory is set forth in more detail in Phyllis Tickle’s book.   

Once you have this framework in place, you can place different events within it. Ahab comes along about 875 B.C., after David and before the Exile. The Kingdom divided under David’s son Solomon. The south, which included Jerusalem was called Judah and the North was called Israel. First Kings tells the story of how Ahab ruled in the north. Sometimes he the north and south waged war against each other, and at other times they were allies against the growing power of the Assyrians. Even by Biblical accounts he is not such a bad king (In fact he repents for the vineyard business), but the South wrote the history and cast him into a pretty bad light. His tendency to depression and obsession led Herman Melville to give his name to the monomaniacal whaling captain in Moby Dick. In the Bible, his besetting sin is his wife, Jezebel, who was the daughter of a Phoenician King and used to getting her own way. She brought with her to the court her dedication to the Canaanite fertility god Baal,  and Ahab allowed her keep a staff of Baal’s  priests on site. This led to the famous confrontation between Elijah, the prophet of the lord, and the priests of Baal on mount Carmel, a story you probably know. And you know, too, the story of how Elijah had to flee from the wrath of Jezebel to Mt. Sinai where he heard the voice of God, not in the storm and not in the earthquake but in the silence. That is the OT lesson for next week.  Later (II kings) Elijah passes his mantle to Elisha, and is taken up to heaven in a dramatic vision of chariots, making him the first person in the Bible  who does not die. If he did not die, then he can come back, which is why the gospels tell of Jews  responding to the stories of Jesus healing by saying that Elijah has returned. (Mark 6:15 and John 1:21) and why the Jewish Seder sets an empty chair for Elijah.  This is also why we have a wonderful song at the end of our service today, reminding us that all the dead are coming back, that we do live in the last days, in days of Elijah. 

But let’s get back to Ahab. Because Ahab stole Naboth’s vineyard, Elijah predicted that Ahab and Jezebel would both die violent deaths and that dogs would eat Jezebel’s remains, which did happen: Ahab was killed in a battle against the Assyrians, and dogs licked up the blood that was washed from his chariot. As for Jezebel, she went on trying to use her beauty and charm on the leadership that came after her but her servants threw her down from a second story window, chariots ran over her, and dogs ate the rest of her, so that nothing was left but her skull and the bones of her hands and feet.  That story is later, in II Kings 9.     

What are we to make of all this. Well, we can draw the obvious conclusions: do not worship foreign gods or even let your wife worship them. Powerful leadership  should not use its power to take away the inheritance of ordinary citizens. But I am here to tell you that the vividness and drama of these stories is at least as important as the morals we draw from them. Unless we can enjoy the Bible on the level of story, the morals we draw from them will be trivial or obvious. The goal of reading scripture is to feel ourselves part of these stories and part of them and part of the larger drama of salvation which the scriptures tell. But if we fail to respond to the Bible on the level of story, our moral and theological responses will be superficial. The story is the foundation on which all other understandings build. When we read the Bible we must somehow learn to relax. We have to sink into these robust, exciting stories. We must enjoy their humor, their narrative skill, their dramatic effect, their vivid detail.   How can we do that? How can we learn to read the Bible as enjoyment, not as duty. Perhaps we can talk about that another time. For now let us be grateful that we have such a wealth of story to work with. Amen.