Tony Benn reinvents Moses the Lawgiver

Not that I personally have much involvement with Christmas, but it's a shame to let the season pass without noting one particularly hilarious example of this religious event used by a self-regarding politician as an opportunity for some particularly absurd posturing.

Tony Benn used proudly to proclaim his origins in the Christian Socialist movement. That movement historically used to know both the Hebrew and the Christian bibles well. But here's this extraordinary "burning question" which this hero of the Stop the War movement and assorted radicals-and-marxists-of-Chelm causes wishes to put to Moses the Lawgiver:

'Dear Moses, I wanted to talk to you because you are accepted as a prophet by all three great religions of the world - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and because you believed in one God.

'I wanted to talk to you about the teachings of the prophets, because the Ten Commandments, for which you are most famous, indicate how we should live.

'There was a covenant which you signed, given by God, which apparently allocated Palestine to the Jews. I can't really believe that's what you intended, so if I may ask you the question, it would be how you interpret the way in which the teachings have been used to control people.

'Perhaps you could help me on that point?

Er, Moses signed a covenant? Sorry, Tony, Moses didn't sign anything. The orthodox Jewish view is that the Almighty dictated the words of the Torah, the Jewish bible, to Moses. There are two covenants referred to. One is between the Almighty and Abraham and his descendants Isaac and Jacob. The other is between the Almighty and the Jewish people.

Er, Moses didn't intend what Tony calls "Palestine" to be allocated to the Jewish people? Firstly, the name "Palestine" didn't exist at the time of the giving of the Torah, or during the existence of ancient Israel.

But what Tony could find repeated quite a few times in the Torah, given through Moses the Lawgiver, are statements like these:

"Hear, O Israel! You are now about to cross the Jordan to enter in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than yourselves, having large cities fortified to the sky,

2

the Anakim, a people great and tall. You know of them and have heard it said of them, 'Who can stand up against the Anakim?'

3

Understand, then, today that it is the LORD, your God, who will cross over before you as a consuming fire; he it is who will reduce them to nothing and subdue them before you, so that you can drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD promised you.

4

After the LORD, your God, has thrust them out of your way, do not say to yourselves, 'It is because of my merits that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; for it is really because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you.

5

No, it is not because of your merits or the integrity of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land; but the LORD, your God, is driving these nations out before you on account of their wickedness and in order to keep the promise which he made on oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

6

Understand this, therefore: it is not because of your merits that the LORD, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people

Well, it's hardly the nomination speech for the award for Best Nation, is it? But clearly Moses tells the people of Israel that they are going to be given what became the Land of Israel not because of their merits, but because of the sins of their predecessors.  And because of the covenant, or promise, to Abraham and his named descendants.

There aren't many people currently living in Israel who attribute their presence there to these particular statements in the Torah. But when people like Tony Benn choose to use references to Moses as a cover for their own prejudices and political agendas, it is worth going back to the original to demonstrate just how absurd their statements are. And how even more absurd it is that the BBC gives him a platform to travesty the greatest prophet of Judaism like this.

Comments

[jfrancishill]

you write well and interestingly.

[Yehudit]

It's amazing how stupid most bigots are. Fortunately it makes them less effective.

One of the many anti-Israel professors was teaching a few years ago that the official languages of Israel are Hebrew and Yiddish. Well, it takes 5 min. to check on the web that they are Hebrew and Arabic. Well, the NYTimes doesn't fact-check any more than college professors do.

[Neal]

If only the allegations of the Jew haters were really true and Jews were all-powerful, all-knowing and entitled to land by God's fiat. Perhaps then, the haters would be too frightened to criticize.

[ML1]

Good spot and nice demolition job.

Karen Armstrong's question is priceless too; if she's a "leading religious historian" I'm the Queen of Sheba.