It's been entertaining lately to see so many Republicans come up with new meanings for basic words. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) doesn't know what "compromise" means; Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) doesn't know what "hypocrisy" means; Indiana's Richard Mourdock doesn't know what "bipartisan" means; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) doesn't know what "divisive" means; and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) doesn't know what "threaten" means.
And then there's religious right's pseudo historian, David Barton, who doesn't know what "verbatim" means.
For those unfamiliar with Barton, he's an interesting character. A Republican activist in Texas and twice a guest on "The Daily Show," Barton has positioned himself as a wannabe American history scholar -- despite not having real academic credentials or training -- who sets out to prove the nation's founders wanted the United States to be a "Christian Nation." Unfortunately for Barton, his materials are filled with claims that don't stand up well to scrutiny.
The far-right celebrity's speeches aren't any better. Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch flagged this gem yesterday, showing a presentation Barton did last month:
Note, in the clip Barton claims the Constitution's provision regarding treason "is a verbatim quote out of Ezekiel 18:20." That's plainly false. Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution reads, "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
Ezekiel 18:20 reads, "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself."
Since Barton has struggled with the meaning of the word "verbatim" before, I'm left to assume he doesn't know what it means.
Of course, there's a larger point to all of this: the religious right wants to find constitutional language that doesn't exist.
As much as the David Bartons of the world resist, the United States Constitution is a secular document, which created a secular government. The Constitution includes no references to God, Christianity, Jesus, the Ten Commandments, or the Bible. It mentions religion twice: once to prohibit religious tests for public office, and again in the First Amendment, which separated church and state.
The purely secular Constitution was, for generations, a source of outrage and frustration for the religious right's forbearers. In the 19th century, some even blamed the Civil War on the fact that our Constitution didn't mention God.
But in the 21st century, folks like Barton and those who celebrate him have decided to do the opposite, arguing that we can't really see the references to Christianity in the Constitution, but they're there if only we read between the lines, and notice that the document quotes scripture "verbatim."
Except, it doesn't, and legitimate scholars tend to find Barton's pseudo-history pretty silly.
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Read between the lines and send me lots of money. God would want it that way. Render unto me what is yours.
And look at the picture of the people in the audience who hand over their money and believe everything this guy says without confirming anything for themselves. I wonder how many of the so called believers have actually spent significant time studying the scriptures, so they would know God's Word when they hear it and know lies when they here it ? So who are the sheeple now?
They don't even know where it came from or how it was put together or even when...that requires thinking. Indoctrinated early and refuse to question what they are told to believe...much less ever understand the difference between thinking and awareness. They cover their ears when questioned and lie just to be right.
"Except, it doesn't, and legitimate scholars tend to find Barton's pseudo-history pretty silly."
Oh Steve, there you go again. Barton isn't talking to "scholars" he's talking to the "faithful GOP base" - a group that doesn't even read that bible they thump on! A group that doesn't do the logical thinking and believe every word he says.
Trying to get the sheeple to see facts and come to logical conclusions is akin to putting a lion and a sheep in the same cage at lunch-time - guess who's gonna be left?
See, Steve's whole problem is when he hears Barton cite a biblical passage, he fails to suppress his ungodly doubts and actually reads that passage! When David Barton tells you what the Bible says, you are supposed to just accept it, which is exactly what Galatians 5:12 says verbatim. (Go on. I dare you.)
John 8:6 !
Didn't somebody in "Through the Looking Glass" say "Verbatim means exactly what I say it means, nothing more, and nothing less."
(That is not a verbatim quote, because, like Barton, I am too lazy to look it up.)
You are spot on in spirit. As I keep the quote on my wall I reproduce it below:
Delightful!! DAY-3905329 and NextMSNBCStar, you have made my day. This is a great treat to add to my mental imagery of the Master Barton mythology. It will be added to the stewpot to be stirred into previous ruminations involving 'Don Quixote', the 'Cisco Kid', and 'The Wizard of Oz' (atheists, agnostics and deists...Oh my!). Who would have ever thought a putz like Barton could be such a catalyst.
Thank you for this stimulating tidbit!
duplicate message, disregard
Not only is it NOT verbatim, I fail to see any correlation between the topics of the two!
But then again, my King James Bible never uses the words United States; maybe his does.
Whomsoever believeth in the United States..
I like it!
We'reI'm going to make some money!Anyone who believes the King James Bible, the most political bible ever written, is an idiot. The "work" was done at the behest of an idiot who wanted to keep the Protestants of England under his Catholic thumb (he only "converted" to become king). In fact the King James version should be known as the "anti-Christian bible" for its complete intellectual failure. Any "word of God" to be found in there is purely coincidental. No wonder the southern fundies love it so.
As Sir Richard Burton once observed: "the more I study religion, the more I realize that Man worships himself."
If Barton doesn't like what his Bible says, he'll just write his own version. Simple. He believes in truthiness (the truth is what I want it to be), not truth that scholars can agree on.
I love the post that equates Barton with Humpty Dumpty. It truly fits him.
Now...if he'd just fall off that darned wall...and show us just how fragile his arguments are. A little egg on his face too. I love the imagery.
Even the meager crowd in this video proves that P. T. Barnum was right.
i think it was justice hugo black who observed that there are a lot of people who are absolutely convinced in their hearts that the u.s. constitution allows only what they want allowed, and prohibits all that they want prohibited. he didn't mention it, but the same thing could be said about the way they think about jesus christ.
See what happens when we let people (and not just conservatives!) get away with misusing "literally" without being punched in the face?
He does have the meaning of verbatim wrong. He also has his sources wrong.
That quote is not from Ezekiel; it is from Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15 and Numbers 35:30. A form of the "two witnesses" code is in the New Testament in Matthew 18:16. John 7:51 and 8:17, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 5:19 and Hebrews 10:28.
His citation is wrong, but do deny the source of that passage is flawed. But what were the Founding Fathers to draw upon? Of course they would turn to the source documents they know. As a pastor, as I was listening to the clip, I knew he was wrong. Ezekiel is written by a prophet, it isn't a law book. But I knew it would be in the law texts. Similarly, the Founders would have referred to documents they were familiar with. I'm not a lawyer, but their are probably portions of the Constitution that were lifted from other legal documents.
His sources are a lot more wrong than that. In the clip he talks about going back to the "original documents," but what does he cite? The Constitution and the Bible. What kind of historian gives a presentation on the meaning of the Constitution without even mentioning the Federalist Papers?
So THIS is where Jerry Falwell's "Liberty" University gets its text books.
And Texas!
Great, more Hans Christian Quackery..
Enough with the under gawd crap already!
I had started a post similar to Brian Campbell's, only including a recommendation to check out Bible Gateway, which includes 31 searchable English translations, as well as translations into an incredible number of other languages, some of which I've never heard of. (Illongo? Kekchi? Uspanteco?)
In fact, the quotes he refers to deal only with the question of convicting someone of a crime, any crime. Two refer to the death penalty, the third (from Deut 19) goes farther and states:
I do want to thank Barton, though. Like the quotes we mentioned, Exekiel 18 (the whole chapter) is one of the reminders that -- as much as I, as an atheist, enjoy pointing out the absurdities to the literalist crowd -- there is a lot of solid stuff, mostly a consistent preaching of social justice, in the OT in particular. If we are going to Bible-hunt for passages relevant to today, I much prefer the approach of Max Dimont (JEWS, GOD AND HISTORY, and THE INDESTRUCTIBLE JEWS).
Not only does Dimont show two qualities that Barton lacks, honesty and scholarship, I believe there is a much stronger case to be made for Dimont's thesis that the Jewish Bible, as a whole, aims in the direction of liberal Democracy and 'the brotherhood of man' than for Barton's pathetic quote-mining to find verses out of context that support his form of Christian Conservatism.
Thanks Prup...
You are consistently informative.
I started to read a "bible" I found in my hotel room one night. Too many characters, and too many plots.
Hey, Day, it ain't a novel, but a collection of short stories by different writers from many different years and centuries. Some is great, some is funny, and some, well, so no editor or editorial board is perfect. Next time your stuck with nothing but that to read, a couple of hints. Read past the death scene in the Onan story (Genesis 38) for a brilliantly funny 'sting' of a hypocrite. And when you dig into the two oddities of Daniel and Revelation, remember they were examples of a very common form of political literature of the time, using the wild imagery the way "Aesopian language" was used in Samizdat. They were never meant to be 'prophecies of coming events' rather reflections on then current ones -- so much so that we can tell when Daniel was written to the month because up to one part it follows the real history exactly, but then diverges as the author conjures up his own form of death for his villain -- which happened differently in reality.
And yes, Day, i know you were being sarcastic. Sometimes its fun to ignore facts like that to make a point.
My favorite part of the David Barton clip is the fact that he is talking to a large, but nearly empty, auditorium.
And the people there have large but empty hats over large but nearly empty heads.
Wouldn't it be great if someone who had been at the Constitutional Convention had written a whole series of essays analyzing the document they produced? Or what if, say, James Madison had kept careful notes throughout the proceedings? Those sort of materials might be useful for a historian to consult. You wouldn't be stuck using the Old Testament to try to figure out what it all means.
Boorstein and Tuchman are turning over in their graves.
Ezekiel, I remember that book.
Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon you."
I believe it was by the prophet Samuel L. Jackson by way of the prophet Tarentino, as revealed to him by Sonny Chiba.