Kajabago, leave theology to the experts
Apr 20, 2010
EDITOR—On March 31, Kajabago-ka-Rusoke wrote an article entitled, “What does Easter mean?†A friend of mine and I have chosen some issues which deserve correction. Kajabago’s article is written with a theological paucity which ignores the actual text it seeks to engage.
EDITOR—On March 31, Kajabago-ka-Rusoke wrote an article entitled, “What does Easter mean?†A friend of mine and I have chosen some issues which deserve correction. Kajabago’s article is written with a theological paucity which ignores the actual text it seeks to engage. While some of his points have a rhetorical effect, they are substantiated neither by the scriptures nor by archeological evidence.
He writes: “Jesus spent 40 days in an isolated place in Judea contemplating how he would become a spiritual and earthly saviour of humanity in Judeaâ€. Not only does his interpretation miss the theological intent of Matthew 4:1-11, the passage which he is referring to, but he has actually invented a story of his own and inserted it into the text! Where in Matthew 4 do we see Jesus plotting how to transform himself into a spiritual leader or the earthly saviour of the Jews?
The text in the Bible makes no mention of such things, and to insert them into the text is simply to misread it. Since Kajabago lectures others on philosophy, he would do well to learn Aristotle’s famous dictum, which teaches us that “The benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not assigned by the critic to himself.â€
Kajabago is not free to misread the text as he likes and call that “interpretationâ€. He continues, this time inventing whole scenarios unsupported by any evidence: “Time came when the Jews rejected being slaves in Egypt. They developed methods of work for rebellion. One was forming an underground secret organisation for sensitising Jews against the rule by the Egyptian King “Pharaohâ€.
This was characterised by meetings where decisions were made that Jews should leave Egypt.†In all my studies of Hebrew culture and literature and having even translated the Masoretic text of the Exodus, I have never read anything like what Kajabago suggests. The only written records we have of the Exodus are the biblical ones – and this limits our textual record to the Old Testament canon.
We simply have no outside information, nor is there any evidence which has been adduced which supports Kajabago’s claims. Furthermore, his understanding of archaeology is highly suspect. For example, he seems to understand the Kushites to be the rulers under which the Exodus occurred. But there are two major problems with his suggestion.
First, the Kushites came to power in Egypt and began their rule as the 25th dynasty of monarchial Egypt. They did this, not during the time of the Exodus set somewhere between 1400-1200 BC, but around 945 BC during the height of the Solomonic Kingdom. The timing is simply wrong. A further problem with his claim here is that by the time the Kushites had taken over Jerusalem, the Jews had already been taken away in the first great exile.
The Assyrian leader, Tiglath-Pileser III, rolled his armies through Jerusalem in 722 BC and sent the Jews into exile. So we know that the Pharaoh of the Kushite dynasty did not take the Jews south into the Egyptian exile as slaves because the Assyrians had already taken them north in the first great exile.
Again, rather than careful research, Kajabago has simply given his unsupportable opinion, not what history, the texts of scriptures and careful scholarship actually tell us.
My advice to Kajabago is that he should continue to study Marxist theory and philosophy, and leave the interpretation of scriptures and the practice of theology to those who are better trained and suited to do so. Or if he is really interested in this topic, perhaps we should explore it together, dealing with the evidence at hand.
Rev Samuel Murangi
Philadelphia, USA
He writes: “Jesus spent 40 days in an isolated place in Judea contemplating how he would become a spiritual and earthly saviour of humanity in Judeaâ€. Not only does his interpretation miss the theological intent of Matthew 4:1-11, the passage which he is referring to, but he has actually invented a story of his own and inserted it into the text! Where in Matthew 4 do we see Jesus plotting how to transform himself into a spiritual leader or the earthly saviour of the Jews?
The text in the Bible makes no mention of such things, and to insert them into the text is simply to misread it. Since Kajabago lectures others on philosophy, he would do well to learn Aristotle’s famous dictum, which teaches us that “The benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not assigned by the critic to himself.â€
Kajabago is not free to misread the text as he likes and call that “interpretationâ€. He continues, this time inventing whole scenarios unsupported by any evidence: “Time came when the Jews rejected being slaves in Egypt. They developed methods of work for rebellion. One was forming an underground secret organisation for sensitising Jews against the rule by the Egyptian King “Pharaohâ€.
This was characterised by meetings where decisions were made that Jews should leave Egypt.†In all my studies of Hebrew culture and literature and having even translated the Masoretic text of the Exodus, I have never read anything like what Kajabago suggests. The only written records we have of the Exodus are the biblical ones – and this limits our textual record to the Old Testament canon.
We simply have no outside information, nor is there any evidence which has been adduced which supports Kajabago’s claims. Furthermore, his understanding of archaeology is highly suspect. For example, he seems to understand the Kushites to be the rulers under which the Exodus occurred. But there are two major problems with his suggestion.
First, the Kushites came to power in Egypt and began their rule as the 25th dynasty of monarchial Egypt. They did this, not during the time of the Exodus set somewhere between 1400-1200 BC, but around 945 BC during the height of the Solomonic Kingdom. The timing is simply wrong. A further problem with his claim here is that by the time the Kushites had taken over Jerusalem, the Jews had already been taken away in the first great exile.
The Assyrian leader, Tiglath-Pileser III, rolled his armies through Jerusalem in 722 BC and sent the Jews into exile. So we know that the Pharaoh of the Kushite dynasty did not take the Jews south into the Egyptian exile as slaves because the Assyrians had already taken them north in the first great exile.
Again, rather than careful research, Kajabago has simply given his unsupportable opinion, not what history, the texts of scriptures and careful scholarship actually tell us.
My advice to Kajabago is that he should continue to study Marxist theory and philosophy, and leave the interpretation of scriptures and the practice of theology to those who are better trained and suited to do so. Or if he is really interested in this topic, perhaps we should explore it together, dealing with the evidence at hand.
Rev Samuel Murangi
Philadelphia, USA