Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s Book: “God: An Anatomy”–An Extended Book Analysis Series (Part 9: This is the End! What is Biblical Exegesis? How Absurd an Interpretation Can I Come Up With? And What’s Up with the Twitter Hyenas?)

We now come to the end of my extended book analysis of Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s controversial book, God: An Anatomy. Two months ago, I could not have imagined that I would have done a nine-part series on the book. After all, I hadn’t heard of her, and it wasn’t until witnessing the Twitter spat between the Egyptologist and online Biblical scholar (see post 1) that I got interested in the book. In any case, it certainly has been enlightening. In this final post, I want to tie up a few loose ends.

Biblical Studies and the Goal of Biblical Exegesis
Back during my years at Regent College, in my first Biblical Exegesis class, I remember Dr. Gordon Fee telling us that the goal of biblical exegesis was to get to the meaning of the text. The goal was not to try to come up with some kind of edgy or novel interpretation. It was simply to bring out the original meaning of the text. To do that requires knowledge of a text’s historical context and cultural background, as well as a basic literary competency of how the text reads. That means all the various criticisms (source, form, redaction, textual, etc.) have their place as long as they serve that purpose of getting to a better understanding of the text before us.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has done any amount of academic work in Biblical Studies fully knows, that doesn’t always happen. Scholars are human too, and many times they become so enamored of one method or of a pet agenda, they end up running down their own rabbit holes and completely ignore that basic goal of biblical exegesis. Instead of bringing out a better understanding of the text, they end up reading into the text their own biases and agendas.

I first came across this kind of thing later on during my time at Regent College, when I took a Biblical Criticisms class. Much of it was very interesting. Like I said, learning about the various criticisms and how they can contribute to a better understanding of the text is well worth it. Nevertheless, my friends and I couldn’t help but find some of the more extreme examples rather amusing. In reaction to some of the more ludicrous extremes of source criticism, I wrote a joke article in which I claimed to have found the true source of “Q.” I remember showing to one of my best friends as we sat in the back row of a J.I. Packer class, and we both had a hard time containing our laughter.

In any case, at the end of the course, we finally got around to Feminist Criticism. In the article we had to read on it, a certain scholar was arguing for a feminist reading of the Book of Revelation. In it, she argued that the Abyss in Revelation 20 really represented the Vagina Dentata, and therefore John’s depiction of it really was about his own misogynistic fear of women, and yet also his intense, erotic fascination with them. Needless to say, my friends and I got a big kick out of that. It was just so absurdly stupid, we couldn’t believe anyone would take it seriously.

Amazingly, though, it was. Over the next few years, as we went to the occasional SBL meeting or talked about certain articles or presentations we came across, we noted more and more things like the Vagina Dentata article—just absurd takes on the Bible that had absolutely nothing to do with the original, intended meaning of the text. We joked about how the best way to be assured publication was to write an article with an absurdly novel interpretation of something in the Bible—something like “A Queer Reading of the Last Supper” or “Bondage Fetish on the Road to Jericho.” Sadly, what we joked about then has come true to a certain extent.

To be clear, what I’m talking about doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with inerrancy or inspiration. It has to do with what should be a basic concept: If you are going to engage in Biblical Studies, your goal should be to better understand the Biblical text. If you want to spend all your time trying to “get behind the text” in order to speculate on “what really happened” because you are coming to the text with the assumption that the Biblical text is really just an attempted cover-up of the truth, more power to you—but don’t call yourself a Biblical scholar. And if you want to spend all your time undermining the meaning of the text and instead reading into the text your pet political/social agendas, then I’m sorry, you’re really no better that the YECist Ken Ham who tries to read his own bizarre pseudo-science back into the Biblical text. If you do that, you’re not a Biblical scholar.

Therefore, when it comes to Stavrakopoulou’s book, let’s be honest. It really isn’t a Biblical Studies book. It just isn’t. Now I’m not going to say she is bad at what she does. It is just obvious to me that the way she has been taught to approach the Biblical text is totally different than the way I was taught to approach it. So be it. And if she really does represent “mainstream” Biblical Studies these days, so be it—that’s a sad commentary on the state of Biblical Studies. I, for one, though, don’t believe that is entirely true. That being said, it obviously is true to an extent. Back when I was at Regent, I penned this little poem about the abuses in biblical criticism at the time. I still think it is true:

Tell me sir, would you cut open Jesus’ chest
just to find the source of his blood?
Or pound nails into his wrists
just to find the beating of his pulse?
. . .all because his breath on the crisp spring air
isn’t evidence enough for you?
You bastards from demonic lines!

If you are going to purposely ignore the literary context of a given verse or passage, if you are going to claim the biblical writers are covering up what really happened, if you are going to start with the assumption that YHWH was perceived as absolutely no different than any other ANE god, and if you are therefore going to exclusively use all the ANE myths as your context to interpret biblical passages purporting to relate historical events—I’m sorry, you’re not doing Biblical Studies.

Granted, that sort of thing can be extremely entertaining to do. Anyone with a vivid imagination can come up with a lot of this stuff, whether it be God hanging his penis in the sky after the flood, or YHWH’s penis being so big it fills the Temple, or God having sex with Eve, or God raping Mary, or Elisha suffering from erectile dysfunction, or any number of things—that’s pretty funny! What’s not so funny is that some people are serious about such interpretations.

Let’s Try Some Imaginative Biblical Interpretation
That being said, let me offer one of my own! In Exodus 34:29, most translations say that Moses’ face was “radiant,” but word קָרַ֛ן  is used in another stem to be in reference to “horns.” That is why Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses depicts Moses with horns! (After all, we know we can trust Michelangelo, but he depicted Christ in the nude in many of his sculptures). The reason why a horned Moses is so important is because horns represent the virility and sexual prowess of YHWH. Moses had just spent forty days with YHWH, during which time YHWH showed Moses His buttocks (a word shockingly similar to bullock!) and carved the Ten Commandment into two stone tablets (“stones” being a euphemism for testicles). As Dr. S pointed out, Moses had become semi-divine after the encounter…hence the horns and the two giant stones!

Now, obviously, this puts Moses’ (and YHWH’s) reaction to the Israelites’ worshipping of the golden calf in a new light, doesn’t it? YHWH (and Moses) was clearly jealous that the Israelites were worshipping a golden calf who didn’t have any stones—yes, a heifer…a female—and YHWH is a misogynist! This was so shocking to Moses, that he smashed the stone tablets, clearly a reference to his own erectile dysfunction. Yet YHWH was such a macho man, that He was able to cure Moses’ problem by providing him with two new stone tablets. But this was only possible after Moses ordered that the Israelites’ golden heifer be hacked down, ground up, thrown into the water that they had to then drink. How bitter it is to worship a goddess!

Clearly, this was the original worship practice of ancient Israel. And despite the patriarchal, misogynistic attempts of Moses, YHWH, and the later androcentric scribes of the post-exilic period, worship of the golden calf goddess heifer flourished throughout ancient Israel, as can be seen in the Samson story, when he married a Philistine woman. When his groomsmen got the answer to his riddle from her, Samson famously said, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have gotten the answer to my riddle.” This wasn’t a story about a literal marriage, mind you. Clearly, we see evidence of an earlier tradition in which Samson was a male sacred prostitute at one of the shrines to the golden calf heifer goddess, which apparently originated in Philistia. These “groomsmen” were clearly ancient, misogynistic monotheists who were trying to wipe out goddess worship in the area. That is why, when they eventually captured Samson, they shaved his head—it was an attempt to emasculate a man who had been subservient to women. He had to be crushed. Still, in the end the monotheistic, Philistine patriarchy was defeated when Samson, whose hair had grown back in such a luscious manner that only YHWH could hate, was able to push against their “pillars” (clearly a reference to some kind of homo-erotic worship practice in ancient Israel) and crush them all in an orgy of blood and death.

Was that enjoyable to read? I hope so. Does it make any sense? Not in the least! Was it good biblical exegesis? Obviously not.

The Hysterical Vitriol of the Twitter Hyenas
The last thing I want to comment on isn’t so much about Stavrakopoulou’s book itself. Like I’ve said before, your reaction to the book is going to be largely dependent on your fundamental approach to the Bible and Biblical Studies. Clearly, she is coming to the biblical text from an entirely different mindset and completely different assumptions than mine.

That being said, although I’ve been critical of many of her claims, I’ve tried to focus on criticizing those claims, and not her. For all I know, she might be a very nice and pleasant person. She’s obviously successful and doing what she wants to do. I completely disagree with her approach to the Bible and to most of her claims about the Bible, but I haven’t tried to personally insult her engage in character assassination.

The same cannot be said for a certain segment of people on Twitter who seem to be her adoring fans—people I have earlier called the Twitter hyenas. The level of hysterical and vitriolic outrage directed against me for merely laughing at a few of Dr. S’s claims and daring to disagree with her over the past six weeks has been quite a trip to see. There has been little or no actual engagement with any of the points I’ve brought up. Instead, right from the jump, there has been a steady stream of personal attacks and character assassination directed at me.

Over the course of these past six weeks, I have been called ignorant, a plagiarist, a joke, a hack scholar, a dipshit, a Trump-worshipper (despite never having mentioned him), a “Christian apologist” (even though I’ve never claimed to be one), a “pearl-clutching Evangelical” (even though I don’t own pearls, I’m not an Evangelical, and nothing Dr. S said gave me the vapors), a misogynist for even criticizing Dr. S (even though I never once even brought up the fact she was a woman—I mean, who cares?), and even an incel (which, given the fact I am 53, have been married, and have a son, makes absolutely no sense!). But none of these attacks and insults are serious, because they’re not coming from serious people. Instead of actually making a coherent argument defending the claim that, for example, that YHWH had the hots for good-looking guys or that God raped Mary, these people basically said from the start, “Stavrakopoulou is an accomplished scholar! This is mainstream scholarship! How dare you question her, you ignorant, hack academic, misogynistic incel!”

Instead of being intimidated by them, I laugh at them and let them keep exposing themselves for who they are—horrifically manipulative narcissists and ideological fascists who deserve nothing but mockery. I don’t take them seriously, and no one else should either. To be clear, Dr. Stavrakopoulou hasn’t engaged in any of this nonsense. I’m sure she has better things to do. She’s an adult, and if she ever comes across my critique, I doubt it will upset her too much. When she published the book, she probably knew full well not everyone was going to agree with her. I think she can take a little humorous critiquing of some of her claims.

The Twitter hyenas, not so much. One of them actually tried to “educate” me by saying I needed to read one of his articles in which he not only claimed that Revelation 2:20 is about Jesus raping the prophetess Jezebel, but also said in the article that if you disagreed with his interpretation then you were guilty of promoting rape culture. I mean, hey, if that isn’t a sure-fire way to guard yourself against any criticism of your ideas, I don’t know what is! “If you don’t agree with me, you’re a rapist!” Brilliant.

In conclusion, I’m glad I read God’s Anatomy. Even though these posts have focused on what I feel are the more outrageous claims, I learned a few more things about ANE mythology and a number of archeological finds. In addition, it forced me to revisit a number of passages and tease out some of my own thoughts and views a bit more. And that really is what the point of academic study should be—to always be trying to learn more.

What I learned the most, though, was this: There are some absolute crazies on Twitter!