Journalistic malpractice

 Here's a chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just released today:

As you will recall, the corporate media, and a lot of politicians, were all screaming and yelling about inflation right up until the November election. Roaring inflation was ruining American families, forcing the Federal Reserve into draconian interest rate hikes, and dooming the Democrats' prospects.

Do you see what I see? The inflation spike ended, abruptly and completely, in July. So how did CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the gang maintain the fiction that inflation was still out of control? They stopped reporting on monthly increases in prices, which has been the standard for my entire life, and started reporting on the difference between price levels this month and prices one year previously. That meant that the inflation that had already happened from February to June got reported as though it were still happening, even though inflation in July was actually zero. Prices fell in December, you will note, and deflation is supposed to be the greatest economic peril, yet the Fed is committed to continuing to raise interest rates -- even though inflation ended six months ago. They already won.

Why did the corporate media lie to the American people about this, and why are they still doing it?

Wednesday Bible Study: More boasting

The first part of Ch. 9, the visit from the Queen of Sheba, is lifted from Kings. The rest is more ridiculous boasting about Solomon's possessions and the vastness of his empire, all of which comes from a parallel universe. The Chronicler gives a bibliography toward the end, but for some reason does not mention Kings: "Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat." 

 

All of these books are lost. Presumably they are excerpted in Chronicles, but we have no way of knowing which is which. We do not know how the Tanakh was canonized, but it had to happen after Chronicles was compiled in the 6th Century BCE, and the Septuagint in the 4th Century. Since the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text are very similar in their overall structure (though they differ in some details), we can surmise that the Septuagint does represent the Hebrew Bible as it existed in the Fourth Century and came down in Hebrew form through subsequent scholarly tradition. However, we do not have the direct sources of the Masoretic Text from the Second Temple period, other than a few fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls. The Tanakh consists of what survived because its priestly custodians decided to preserve it.

9 When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. Arriving with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones—she came to Solomon and talked with him about all she had on her mind. ² Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for him to explain to her. ³ When the queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon, as well as the palace he had built, ⁴ the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, the cupbearers in their robes and the burnt offerings he made at^[a] the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed.

⁵ She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. ⁶ But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me; you have far exceeded the report I heard. ⁷ How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! ⁸ Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the Lord your God. Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them, to maintain justice and righteousness.”

⁹ Then she gave the king 120 talents^[b] of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. There had never been such spices as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

¹⁰ (The servants of Hiram and the servants of Solomon brought gold from Ophir; they also brought algumwood^[c] and precious stones. ¹¹ The king used the algumwood to make steps for the temple of the Lord and for the royal palace, and to make harps and lyres for the musicians. Nothing like them had ever been seen in Judah.)

¹² King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for; he gave her more than she had brought to him. Then she left and returned with her retinue to her own country.

Solomon’s Splendor

¹³ The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents,^{[d] 14} not including the revenues brought in by merchants and traders. Also all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the territories brought gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵ King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred shekels^[e] of hammered gold went into each shield. ¹⁶ He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three hundred shekels^[f] of gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.

¹⁷ Then the king made a great throne covered with ivory and overlaid with pure gold. ¹⁸ The throne had six steps, and a footstool of gold was attached to it. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them. ¹⁹ Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom. ²⁰ All King Solomon’s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon’s day. ²¹ The king had a fleet of trading ships^[g] manned by Hiram’s^[h] servants. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.

²² King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. ²³ All the kings of the earth sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. ²⁴ Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, and robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

²⁵ Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horses,^[i] which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. ²⁶ He ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. ²⁷ The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. ²⁸ Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from all other countries.

Solomon’s Death

²⁹ As for the other events of Solomon’s reign, from beginning to end, are they not written in the records of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat? ³⁰ Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. ³¹ Then he rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king.

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 9:4 Or and the ascent by which he went up to
2. 2 Chronicles 9:9 That is, about 4 1/2 tons or about 4 metric tons
3. 2 Chronicles 9:10 Probably a variant of almugwood
4. 2 Chronicles 9:13 That is, about 25 tons or about 23 metric tons
5. 2 Chronicles 9:15 That is, about 15 pounds or about 6.9 kilograms
6. 2 Chronicles 9:16 That is, about 7 1/2 pounds or about 3.5 kilograms
7. 2 Chronicles 9:21 Hebrew of ships that could go to Tarshish
8. 2 Chronicles 9:21 Hebrew Huram, a variant of Hiram
9. 2 Chronicles 9:25 Or charioteers

No I didn't make it up

The claim that the Covid-19 vaccine caused Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest was all over wingnut media. It made it onto Tucker Carlson, in fact. These people are not just liars, they are literally trying to kill you.

Sunday Sermonette: Ridiculous boasting

Chapter 8 is absurd. It gives Solomon a vast empire, including numerous tributary kingdoms, a marriage to the daughter of the Pharaoh, and a tribute from Hiram of 50 metric tons of gold. The reality is that Israel at this time was a minor domain consisting of a few villages. There really isn't any more to be said about this, it's complete bullshit.

8 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built the temple of the Lord and his own palace, ² Solomon rebuilt the villages that Hiram^[a] had given him, and settled Israelites in them. ³ Solomon then went to Hamath Zobah and captured it. ⁴ He also built up Tadmor in the desert and all the store cities he had built in Hamath. ⁵ He rebuilt Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon as fortified cities, with walls and with gates and bars, ⁶ as well as Baalath and all his store cities, and all the cities for his chariots and for his horses^[b]—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

⁷ There were still people left from the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these people were not Israelites). ⁸ Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these people remaining in the land—whom the Israelites had not destroyed—to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day. ⁹ But Solomon did not make slaves of the Israelites for his work; they were his fighting men, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and charioteers. ¹⁰ They were also King Solomon’s chief officials—two hundred and fifty officials supervising the men.

¹¹ Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the Lord has entered are holy.”

¹² On the altar of the Lord that he had built in front of the portico, Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord, ¹³ according to the daily requirement for offerings commanded by Moses for the Sabbaths, the New Moons and the three annual festivals—the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. ¹⁴ In keeping with the ordinance of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their duties, and the Levites to lead the praise and to assist the priests according to each day’s requirement. He also appointed the gatekeepers by divisions for the various gates, because this was what David the man of God had ordered. ¹⁵ They did not deviate from the king’s commands to the priests or to the Levites in any matter, including that of the treasuries.

¹⁶ All Solomon’s work was carried out, from the day the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid until its completion. So the temple of the Lord was finished.

¹⁷ Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and Elath on the coast of Edom. ¹⁸ And Hiram sent him ships commanded by his own men, sailors who knew the sea. These, with Solomon’s men, sailed to Ophir and brought back four hundred and fifty talents^[c] of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 8:2 Hebrew Huram, a variant of Hiram; also in verse 18
2. 2 Chronicles 8:6 Or charioteers
3. 2 Chronicles 8:18 That is, about 17 tons or about 15 metric tons

Foobaw and more

Let me start with Damar Hamlin. His physicians haven't said anything publicly about what happened to him, but there are basically two possibilities. First, it is obviously uncommon but not unheard of for apparently healthy athletes to suffer cardiac arrest during exertion. This happened to Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis. I happened to be in Boston Garden watching the first round playoff game against the Charlotte Hornets on April 29, 1993 when Lewis collapsed. All of the spectators were baffled about what  had happened. 

 

Doctors at New England Baptist Hospital later diagnosed him with a heart abnormality called focal cardiomyopathy, and advised him not to play basketball any more. He got a second opinion from cardiologist Gilbert "Punky" Mudge at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Punky told him that essentially, he had just fainted. (I call him Punky because I did in fact make his acquaintance on two occasions regarding and unrelated matter, when I was working as a consultant.) Lewis then went to shoot hoops at the Celtic's practice facility at Brandeis, where as it happens I was a graduate student, and he dropped dead. He had not had a Covid-19 vaccine.

The other possibility is called commotio cordis. This is just really bad luck. A blow to the chest, timed precisely to a point in the heartbeat cycle, can send the heart into ventricular fibrillation, a disorganized beat that doesn't pump blood. This is actually more common in baseball than it is in football, when players are hit in the chest with the ball. A few deaths occur in the U.S. from this cause each year.

Note that neither of these possibilities really has anything in particular to do with football. But Damar Hamlin has attracted so much sober reflection is that football is in fact a particularly dangerous game for other reasons -- head injuries and spinal cord injuries being the foremost concern. Whatever the outcome for Hamlin -- which as of now is looking more hopeful -- the viability of North American football is in question, as parents are  increasingly reluctant to let their sons play.

That said, the incident has also attracted a murderous flock of ghoulish liars, who are claiming it has something to do with the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. I expect the reason I had commenters who believed that the incidence of cardiac arrest among young athletes has increased is because they were deceived by Florida's Quack Surgeon General Joseph Lapado. (I'm linking to Digby to avoid the WaPo paywall.)

 

Joseph A. Ladapo, a professor of medicine at the University of Florida and the state’s surgeon general, relied upon a flawed analysis and may have violated university research integrity rules when he issued guidancelast fall discouraging young men from receiving common coronavirus vaccines, according to a report from a medical school faculty task force. But the university says it has no plans to investigate the matter.

Ladapo recommended in October that men younger than 40 not take mRNA vaccinations for covid, pointing to an “abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death.” Doctors and public health officials swiftly pounced, dismissing the underlying research for its small sample size, lack of detail and shaky methodology.

In its new report, a task force of the University of Florida College of Medicine’s Faculty Council cites numerous deficiencies in the analysis Ladapo used to justify his vaccine recommendation. A summary said the work was “seriously flawed.” The report’s authors say Ladapo engaged in “careless, irregular, or contentious research practices.”

 

But Lapado is just a normal Republican. What they do is lie.  Its essentially the defining characteristic of the party. I'll turn it over to former Republican Timothy Snyder.

One of the more interesting sections of the January 6th report is a graph that demonstrates that Trump, time after time, lied about specific claims of fraud right after being informed that they were false.  His big lie about the election, once believed, summoned forth countless smaller lies or fantasies that seemed to support it.  Trump repeated these more specific lies because it was precisely fiction that he wanted.  He couldn't think them all up himself; he needed help.  He waited for the various inventions to reach him, made sure that they were not true, and then repeated them to millions of people.  . . . 

Newly-elected congressman George Santos took Trump's approach to politics to its logical conclusion.  Trump was a failed businessman and successful entertainer, who then used his entertainer skills to pretend to be a successful businessman and run for office.  But no one could deny that he had careers.  In the case of Santos, everything is just made up.  He is not even a failed businessman (though he is a confessed thief).  He is not even an entertainer (unless you count customer service).  He is just a man who understands that lying for its own sake is a way to do politics, attract money and gain power.  It will not take years to take apart his story; it will take weeks.  (One thing that has emerged is a connection to Russia).  And then the question arises: is alternative reality the future of America, or at least of its Republican Party? 

Trump's Big Lie opened the way for Santos, who repeats it, and who attended the rally to, in his own words, “overturn the election for Donald Trump.” Trump was a model of a man who came to power and gained money on little beyond mendacious schtick.  Santos is following that lead.  But it is also important to understand the new context in which Santos functions.  By lying constantly during the first campaign and during the presidency, Trump set an example, one that is most relevant to members of his party.  For two years now, Trump's Big Lie has functioned the way that the Stalinist line used to function in the communist party.  What Stalin said had to be treated as true, even if party members knew at some level that it was not.  They had to engage constantly in what George Orwell called double-think, living in one lie, and preparing themselves for the next one, all the while imagining that somehow the process served some greater good. 

Trump has trained Republicans, and a large part of the American people, in just these mental habits.  Elected officials can say that elections don't work, and no one really even notices the doublethink.  Republicans claim that Democrats can alter electoral results, even as Republicans win control of the House of Representatives by a tiny margin. We ask ourselves: how can Russians continue to support the war in Ukraine?  How do they handle obvious contradictions, like saying they are fighting a war against Nazis when the country they invade has an elected Jewish president?  This is the answer: they have been trained that there is no truth, only the leader's sheltering fiction, the comforting big lie, the line that comes down from above.  We can all be trained like that, and too many Americans have been. 

 

 

 

 

 

Evidence based medicine and politics

I'm not sure if you can read this -- I have a cookie that gives me access, but the URL doesn't include the proxy server and it appears to be accessible. Let me know. Anyway, it's a discussion in NEJM of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. The USPSTF is a panel of clinical experts convened by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ, which is usually pronounced like ark. It draws on available research to evaluate screening tests and preventive interventions. An A or B grade means they recommend it. A C grade means it might be worthwhile for some people, but you should discuss it with your doctor and make your own decision. 

 

Under current law, anything with an A or B grade has to be covered by insurance, but a recent court decision, based on a fairly arcane technicality about the legal authority of the Task Force, has that in limbo. Basically, conservative judges don't like any form of regulation and they are using ridiculous constitutional theories to try to eliminate the powers of the federal government. That's kind of disturbing, but it's not what I want to focus on right now.

The Task Force members are all generalist clinicians, by design. The main reason has to do with screening tests. If you've been here recently you've come across the Bayes theorem. Without rehashing all that the essential point is that even a very accurate screening test will produce false positives, maybe even most of the time, depending on the underlying rate in the population of whatever you are screening for. False positives can result in a lot of harm. That has to be weighed against whatever good results from early detection. Both of those considerations are usually difficult to measure and weigh accurately, and in fact have a lot of subjective components. 

Specialists in a relevant field have both a financial incentive and a psychological bias to favor screening tests. For example, oncologists like screening tests for cancer because they bring in more business, and because oncologists tend to have an elevated conception of their own importance and powers. The paradigmatic examples are screening for breast cancer and prostate cancer, which is handy because it means equal opportunity for benefit and harm for either sex. In both cases, many of the lesions detected by screening would, if left alone, never go on to cause any problems. The problem is you can't tell for sure, and if you say the word "cancer" to a patient, they'll probably get scared and want to so something about it, and your oncologists is very likely to agree. But there are possible, even likely harms to surgery and chemotherapy. 

The case for breast cancer screening -- mammography -- is better than the case for prostate cancer screening, at least in women age 50 and older and especially between ages 60 and 70. It's even stronger for women with known risk factors, such as family history. But there's still controversy about it. The case for prostate cancer screening is really not good for anybody, but right now it has a recommendation to discuss it with your physician and make your own decision. The main point I want to make is that it's natural just to assume that early detection has to be good and what's the harm in checking? But it's actually not that simple at all. Too much medicine can be just as bad as too little.

Note: I got a flood of disinformation in comments on my last post about the Covid-19 vaccine. No, the incidence of cardiac arrest in young athletes has not increased. That's a pure fabrication. I think I will discuss the issue, since obviously it's on people's minds.

 

 

XBB/XBB 1.5

'In response to a rather complicated question from a reader . . . 

I'm not a real doctor, I'm a doctor of philosophy, and I'm not an expert on the technical ins and outs of Covid-19 mutations and immunity thereto. But the message you need to hear is very simple: the boosters out there right now, today, are very effective at preventing severe disease, even with the newest mutants. So if you don't want to go to the hospital and you don't want to die, get the shot.

They aren't as effective at preventing infection against new variants, and hence less effective at preventing transmission, but the big problem there is that hardly anybody is getting them. The way epidemics work is that if an infected person, on average, infects more than one other person, the epidemic grows; if that number is less than one, it dies out. And obviously, the rate of spread and severity of the epidemic depends on the size of the number. R=1.1 is a lot better than R=5 or 6. So if you want to protect your community, family and friends, get the shot.

Obviously, if we do get a major rise in cases, especially requiring hospitalization, that's bad and even though people are sick of it, we will really need to think about going back to non-pharmaceutical mitigation, in other words wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces if you can't avoid them entirely. But if you'd like to try to avoid that, get the shot.

That is all.

Wednesday Bible Study: I wish Chronicles would be over but we have a long way to go

I warned you that Chronicles is the most boring book of the  Bible. Ch. 7 is consistent with 1 Kings 8 and 9 in that Solomon performs a sacrifice, and has a second vision of God, but the descriptions are quite different. The fire doesn't come down from heaven to consume the sacrifice in Kings, and the description of the sacrifice and festival here is more extensive. The words God speaks to Solomon in the vision are different here and in 1 Kings 9, although the general idea is similar. Other than that, I got nothin' to say. 

7 When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. ² The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it. ³ When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying,

“He is good;
    his love endures forever.”

⁴ Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. ⁵ And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the people dedicated the temple of God. ⁶ The priests took their positions, as did the Levites with the Lord’s musical instruments, which King David had made for praising the Lord and which were used when he gave thanks, saying, “His love endures forever.” Opposite the Levites, the priests blew their trumpets, and all the Israelites were standing.

⁷ Solomon consecrated the middle part of the courtyard in front of the temple of the Lord, and there he offered burnt offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, because the bronze altar he had made could not hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat portions.

⁸ So Solomon observed the festival at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him—a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. ⁹ On the eighth day they held an assembly, for they had celebrated the dedication of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days more. ¹⁰ On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their homes, joyful and glad in heart for the good things the Lord had done for David and Solomon and for his people Israel.

The Lord Appears to Solomon

¹¹ When Solomon had finished the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the Lord and in his own palace, ¹² the Lord appeared to him at night and said:

“I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.

¹³ “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, ¹⁴ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ¹⁵ Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. ¹⁶ I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

¹⁷ “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, ¹⁸ I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to rule over Israel.’

¹⁹ “But if you^[a] turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you^[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them, ²⁰ then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. ²¹ This temple will become a heap of rubble. All^[c] who pass by will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ²² People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them.’”

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 7:19 The Hebrew is plural.
2. 2 Chronicles 7:19 The Hebrew is plural.
3. 2 Chronicles 7:21 See some Septuagint manuscripts, Old Latin, Syriac, Arabic and Targum; Hebrew And though this temple is now so imposing, all

My two cents

The ubiquitous topics of discussion everywhere and always in the moment are the University of Idaho murders and George Santos. What could I possibly say that's somehow an original contribution and relevant to the (admittedly blurry) focus of this blog? Let's see what I can come up with.

Sure, the U of I murders got the OJ treatment in the corporate media partly because the victims were white, young, good looking, and at least modestly privileged as full-time college students. Reporters and editors could identify with them as their younger selves and also their own children. But in fairness, the mystery -- the horrific and inexplicable nature of the crime -- is what really kept the story alive. Sure, there have been hundreds of murders since that have gotten little or no attention, but I have to admit I was very curious about this one. On the other hand, until the authorities made an arrest there was really nothing new to report about the case, but they managed to fill airtime anyway.

As for George Santos, the story is ubiquitous for the totally legitimate reason that it's a) totally outrageous and b) compellingly demonstrates abject failures of journalism, the Democratic campaign apparatus,  and our political culture. The guy's entire existence is a fabrication, much of which was actually reported by a small local newspaper weeks before the election, which was entirely ignored by major media, the Democratic candidate's campaign, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as the RNC and their committee of course although you wouldn't expect them to drop the dime. In addition having run for office as a fictitious character, he was totally impecunious, subsisting on menial jobs, sponging off of friends and acquaintances, and according to an ex-boyfriend petty theft, until suddenly, a year before the election, he had or claimed to have an annual income of several million dollars a year, and loaned his own campaign $700,000, the source of which he has not explained.

 

A further outrage in the Santos story is that no Republicans in congress, with the exception of a few who will be leaving office tomorrow, have said anything about him at all. He will take his seat tomorrow and start voting, and that's all they care about. But that's not what I want to talk about here. As for the U of I murders, assuming the authorities have the right guy -- and believe me, if they don't, there will be hell to pay -- the most likely surmise anybody can come up with is that this was a thrill killing. The alleged murderer had no apparent connection to any of the victims, but he was obsessively interested in the inner experience of criminals, so it appears this was, to him, essentially a scientific experiment to find out what would happen in his own head if he committed an atrocity. We aren't 100% sure this is true, but let's go with it. Per accounts of his fellow criminology students, his demeanor after the murders was pretty much unaffected, although he might have been a bit more animated than usual. 

 

So, all this is a long way of getting around to the point that the human brain is unfathomably complicated. It has capabilities we are barely beginning to understand. But that also means it has nearly infinite ways to go malfunction. What constitutes proper functioning is of course open to debate, and is fiercely debated, within broad limits. 

 

But it is is undeniable that we are a social species. Our evolutionary success depended on our cooperative nature. It is essential that for the most part, we can trust each other, that we mostly tell the truth and we're mostly helpful, friendly, courteous, kind . . .  Major exceptions happen between and among tribes, when groups of people rule some people in to the trust and cooperation sphere, and rule others out. The results can range from mutual hostility to slavery, war and genocide. It is a major theme here that people should stop doing that, and include everyone. 

 

But these cases are not about that. They're about brains that malfunction socially within the tribe. The malfunctions are rather different. We don't know that Santos is capable of violence and we don't know that Bryan Kohberger is prone to lying about anything except that he murdered four people (allegedly).  But that's the point -- there are a multitude of possible ways that brains can go wrong. It doesn't really work to try to stuff them in to diagnostic buckets. If you had to do it according to the DSM5, you'd presumably diagnose them both with sociopathic personality disorder, but obviously it's absurd to claim that they both have the same "disease." That just isn't a helpful way of thinking about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Sermonette: Blotting the copy book

Chapter 6 is largely lifted from 1 Kings 8, but it ends differently -- not notably different in sentiment, just different wording. On the whole, I find the purpose of the Chronicler's project puzzling. He has basically cut and pasted from versions of Samuel, Kings and some lost books, perhaps made a few alterations or added some comments of his own, although it's hard to tell. The first part is tethered to events in Genesis and Exodus, but consists mostly of nothing but (mostly male) genealogies. Once he gets to the history in Samuel and Kings, he skips a lot, and just picks fragments. You can see why he thought this one was important, but some of the decisions are hard to figure other than a general tendency to leave out stuff that reflects poorly on David and Solomon. 

My best guess is that this was kind of a school textbook, to give students a quick history of Judah without making them read the entire Torah and Deuteronomistic history. That means Joshua and Judges don't matter because Judah hadn't been founded yet. There is probably an assumption that the students have read Genesis and Exodus, so what matters is just the genealogy tying the present Judeans to the mythical past. The Chronicler isn't much interested in the religious laws, so we don't get any rehash of Leviticus through Deuteronomy -- in fact enforcement of all that nonsense was likely lax when he wrote. But he is interested in more abstract theology, which is why we get Solomon's speech here and similar kinds of declarations and prayers. That's the best I can explain it.

6 Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; ² I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”

³ While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them. ⁴ Then he said:

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hands has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David. For he said, ⁵ ‘Since the day I brought my people out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built so that my Name might be there, nor have I chosen anyone to be ruler over my people Israel. ⁶ But now I have chosen Jerusalem for my Name to be there, and I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.’

⁷ “My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel. ⁸ But the Lord said to my father David, ‘You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. ⁹ Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood—he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.’

¹⁰ “The Lord has kept the promise he made. I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹¹ There I have placed the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with the people of Israel.”

Solomon’s Prayer of Dedication

¹² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. ¹³ Now he had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high,^[a] and had placed it in the center of the outer court. He stood on the platform and then knelt down before the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven. ¹⁴ He said:

“Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. ¹⁵ You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—as it is today.

¹⁶ “Now, Lord, the God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants are careful in all they do to walk before me according to my law, as you have done.’ ¹⁷ And now, Lord, the God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David come true.

¹⁸ “But will God really dwell on earth with humans? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! ¹⁹ Yet, Lord my God, give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence. ²⁰ May your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, this place of which you said you would put your Name there. May you hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. ²¹ Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.

²² “When anyone wrongs their neighbor and is required to take an oath and they come and swear the oath before your altar in this temple, ²³ then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, condemning the guilty and bringing down on their heads what they have done, and vindicating the innocent by treating them in accordance with their innocence.

²⁴ “When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you and when they turn back and give praise to your name, praying and making supplication before you in this temple, ²⁵ then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to them and their ancestors.

²⁶ “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and give praise to your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, ²⁷ then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance.

²⁸ “When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, ²⁹ and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of their afflictions and pains, and spreading out their hands toward this temple— ³⁰ then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive, and deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know the human heart), ³¹ so that they will fear you and walk in obedience to you all the time they live in the land you gave our ancestors.

³² “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, ³³ then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

³⁴ “When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you toward this city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, ³⁵ then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

³⁶ “When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; ³⁷ and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly’; ³⁸ and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name; ³⁹ then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you.

⁴⁰ “Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

⁴¹ “Now arise, Lord God, and come to your resting place,
    you and the ark of your might.
May your priests, Lord God, be clothed with salvation,
    may your faithful people rejoice in your goodness.
⁴² Lord God, do not reject your anointed one.
    Remember the great love promised to David your servant.”

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 6:13 That is, about 7 1/2 feet long and wide and 4 1/2 feet high or about 2.3 meters long and wide and 1.4 meters high