A friend recently inquired of me:
“Hey, [Ehud], on Deuteronomy 23:3, does that have anything to do with race? I was reading on stormfront where someone mentioned it but I’d like to get your commentary.”
Here’s my brief response:
Absolutely. The word “Illegitimate” in Deut. 23:2 used to be translated “Bastard”. In the Septuagint (Grk.) the word is “Nothos”, meaning generally, “a mongrel”. So too did the Vulgate (Latin) use the related term “Nothus”, meaning “Mongrel”. And In the Masoretic text (Heb.) its “Mamzer”, meaning, among other things, “a mongrel” as well.
Even Luther picked up on this by translating it as “Mischling” (German), which has only one definition: “A Mongrel, one of mixed race”. And I think he very appropriately translates “assembly” as “the body politic” because mongrels weren’t banned from heaven, only from the Israelite nation.
If one studies enough he sees that this is really the only position one can take on the topic of the Mamzer because the bible itself forces you into a corner on this subject:
First, if someone hopes to say a Mamzer is one born of an un-wed union or other forms of illicit sex, we find that though Jephthah was born of a harlot (Judges 11:1), the Law in nowise impeded his ascension to the highest office in Israel. And no one suggests that it should have.
And on the other side of the issue we find that the Prophets Ezra and Nehemiah banished the mixed-children along with the foreign wives from the body politic. Matthew Henry says that this can only be explained by the case Law of Deuteronomy 23:2 and that the Prophets have given us the perfect interpretation of that Law by divine authority.
So if the Law didn’t lock out children of harlots but DID lock out mixed-race children, we are forced to accept that ‘Mamzer’ is in fact correctly defined as ‘a mixed-race Mongrel’.
And the truth is that most translators know this … but are unwilling to admit the fact. How do we know that they know it? Look at Zechariah 9:6; the same word (Mamzer/Nothos) is therein translated by our modern bibles as “mixed-race”, “mongrel-people”, etc. Its the SAME WORD but they translate it in a radically different way when the matter of ethnic exclusion is on the line.
And besides, the Septuagint (Grk.) gets pretty specific about what was going on in Ezra 9 where we read: “…they have not separated themselves from the allogenes (‘other races’) of this land, nor the akatharsia (‘both physical and mental impurity’) from the ethnoi (‘ethnicities’): the Canaanites, and Hittites, and Pheresites, and Jebusites, and Moabites, and Egyptians, and Edomites. For both they and their sons have lived with their daughters, and the separated seed is mixed with this ethne (‘ethnicity’) of allogenes (‘another race’) of this land…”
Ezra goes on and on in this sort of language, denouncing mixture with “allogenes”. Its important to note that Linguists agree that the word ‘allogenes’ is a composite of two other Greek words, allos (“other”) and genos (“races, lines of descent”).
and its also important to note that the list of ethnicities with which they are said to have mixed themselves includes many non-Canaanite peoples. This is important because people often argue that Israel was only supposed to remain separate from people “under the ban” of Canaan but that clearly isn’t true. Ezra states that Israelites mingling (maritally or nationally) with ANY other race was illicit.
That’s the best I can do off the top of my head – I hope it helps.
According to His Law, by His Grace,
~Ehud would
"And the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses: so they pitched by their standards, and so they set forward, every one after their families, according to the house of their fathers." (Num.2:34)
Though he cling to the Altar, the Apostate will find no refuge from God's Law.
Some good points, Ehud.
My only question is, how broadly do we define the word “race”? Are other descendants of Shem of the same “race” as Israel?
Or, how far can one look for a mate? Is it all right for a German to marry a Slav or a Mediterranean, but not for a Japhethite to marry a Negro?
Good questions, Siegfried.
Yes, the idea, in its broadest sense, would place Israelites inside the umbrella of the Shemite race. On that basis, Israel did, at times, admit other Shemites into the fold of their body politic.
But I would argue that any such naturalization/assimilation likely required the prospective inductee of the covenant to have been a Hebrew (one speaking the language of Israel) as well as a being a Shemite. Presumably then, such a one would’ve been descended from Heber, antecedent of Abraham.
Beyond this, there would’ve been various other social, age-related and familial rungs of relative compatibility to consider inorder to safeguard against the possibility of an unequal-yoking. That is, there was a general pursuit of commonality to ensure better compatibility.
The question of “exactly how far” one may look afield for a mate is usually employed as a deconstructive reductio ad absurdum but it always misses the intended mark and instead lands squarely in the informal fallacy of a “Loki’s Wager”: Just because we may have difficulty discerning where the shore ends and the sea begins it in no way can lead us to conclude that its impossible to tell sea from shore. The two categories exist and when we are commanded to stay “ashore” its easy enough to keep away from the water’s edge.
In America, Germans, English, Scots, and Slavs have all proven themselves assimilable one to another without any particular problem. Really, the only outstanding exceptions have been Italians and Irish (for a time) and that was based upon the Catholic/Protestant divide more than anything else.
And I tend to agree with Belloc, Chesterton and Lewis when they all argued that Europe essentially boils down to three mega-tribes, the Germanic, the Celtic and the Romanic (Italic). And that England represented the composite of all three in one land long before America was founded.
That’s why our young country instituted a generic white identity for America with the Act of 1790 which restricted citizenship to “free white men”. That generic white identity was the same formula that had formed the English nation long before. Really, it was a very conservative and reasonable policy.
That said, if you were an American living during the Revolution, I’d call it a sin to marry an English woman – not because they were so different but because of the inescapable divide between them which the time created. That is afterall the point of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Montagues and Capulets an unequal-yoking do certainly make.
Simply put, if a Christian white man in America seeks to follow the template which God has provided for marriage he looks for a woman of his own race, religion, language, class, age (relatively speaking, Adam was alittle older than Eve) as well as commonality of culture, tastes, etc.
Just imagine what a cohesive and unified society such a practice would promote!
Bravo- excellent exegesis, and commentary.
Glad to know you have helped others, Siegfried included!
LOL
Thanks a lot for the in-depth response, Ehud. Very valuable and appreciated.
I wonder if the ease with which the differing tribes of Europe have been able to assimilate is the result of individualism and the preponderance of the nuclear family?
Recently I stumbled across an interesting article by Kevin MacDonald, in which he demonstrates that the tendency toward exogamy, individualism, and single-household social structures have resulted in the European race being largely non-ethnocentric and less concerned with extended Kinship ties.
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/West-TOQ.htm
As I read the article, I could help thinking that the traditional and Medieval European social structure contradicts the Kinist program. MacDonald suggests that the Christian medieval period saw the decline of Kinist tribal identities and the creation of more monolithic regimes.
Would you agree that the Medieval period saw a loss of ethnic awareness? And do you see the Middle Ages as representing a time of ideal social arrangements?
Excellent material, Ehud. And I am very glad to see you publishing again; a blessing to all of us.
Laurel
Thanks, Laurel. Time for writing is strained these days but I’m still in the fight.
Well, Siegfried, I see the Medieval age as rather complex. The fall of Rome allowed for the rise of Feudalism and Feudalism nurtured the Nationalism that was endemic to our tribes. The old Chieftans became Nobles and Monarchies were established.
But the Roman Church, at the apex of her power became quite dictatorial over not just the consciences of individuals but the life of nations as well. Samuel Rutherford argues that the Popish Prelate claims the power to arbitrarily seat foreign kings in the thrones of sovereign nations. The Reformers of course opposed this arbitrary power because they took the biblical view: “… one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.” (Deut.17:15)
So though the Medieval period was an age of rather explicit hierarchy and Kinism, there was ever a specter of Babel being suppressed throughout it.
As for the inclination toward exogamy, its pretty well accepted that Whites, as a race, are just about the most self-effacing and ingratiating of all folk; and we thereby enjoy a high level of assimilability one to another but this “aw, shucks, c’mon over, neighbor” attitude is a great liability when we are in close proximity to alien races. In such instances we really need the force of law on our side — atleast so as to reserve the right to defend ourselves.
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Ehud- Part of the problem Siegfried mentions, and that MacDonald doesn’t even take into account, is the rise of the ‘filioque’ as a philosophical/theological heresy, which made man qua ‘Man’ take the place of God, (i.e., the H.S.) and basically created a ‘hole in the Trinity’ that the Pope (and eventually Enlightenment attitudes – including their attitudes towards race as a ‘social construct’ and not the Biblical ‘given’ of the O.T.) and/or others like him (one thinks smilingly of Henry VIII, who used the Pope’s own gambit on him, to declare Henry ‘head of the Church’) gratefully stepped in, to solidify his/their power and position. From there, it was but a ‘hop, skip, and a jump’ to deifying Manin the abstract – think Francis Schaeffer’s works, and the example of the French Revolution.
Then, when White Man realized that his race was an unfit deity to worship (because, being created ‘in God’s image’ we KNOW we are engaging in idolatry, whether we want to stop or not!) we still wanted to ‘slap God’s face while standing in His lap’) we
(and) they turned their sights on the ‘dusky savage’ – and all of Cambria’s posts are germane to illustrating this issue as the ‘sin of modernity’, at the point where worship of the Negro’s body supplanted worship of the White Man’s intellect. It may have been a heretical ‘incarnationalism’, but at least it wasn’t Gnostic any longer!
True Conciliar Christianity, however, both glorifies God, AND gives a nod to the race from which that worship of God arises- think of Orthodox Russia in her heyday. Eastern Orthodoxy never approved of the filioque, and THEIR ‘Rome’ (Byzantium) lasted 1000 years LONGER than OURS. [AD 476 vs. AD 1453] There was a reason for that- they saw a multi-racial empire, where ‘everyone was equal,’ as NOT co-terminous with the City of God, that Augustine (even as he lay the groundwork for the filioque) wept over, in his “City of God.”
– Fr. John
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