UNIT 2:

ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS and CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Unit Overview

Primary Assessment: In a minimum of 750 words, analyze and evaluate one or more creation story, and one of more modern theory.

Essential Questions for Class Discussion:

Examine these three major world religions through the lens of critical consciousness. How do key figures in each text see what
others fail to see? Consider the stories of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. Compare them with models of false vision, in
Adam, Eve, Cain, Nimrod, Judas, and the deniers. What do the theorists want us to see? What do the texts help you to see in the
world, and in humankind, that is otherwise hidden?

What do you make of the stories of rebellion in Genesis? What can we learn from the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel,
Sodom and Gomorrah, Nimrod and the tower? What are these stories saying about human nature and Gods law?

What do you make of the stories of faithfulness in Genesis? What do the stories of Noah, Lot and Abraham teach us? Why is
Abraham the seminal figure for each of these religions? Analyze the dawn of monotheism, the ultimate trial in the sacrifice of Isaac,
and the marking out of the chosen people. What do these key moments mean for each of the three Abrahamic traditions?

Analyze and evaluate the stories of liberation in the texts. Examine Exodus and the delivery from bondage in Egypt. How does Jesus
work to free his people from Roman domination, and from themselves? How does the Quran work to save man from his own tyrant
nature, forgetfulness, and from persecution by the enemies of the faith? How do the theorists see religion and liberation, in terms of
class, region, race, and gender? How do you?

Analyze and evaluate the stories of restriction in the texts. What do you make of the story of Moses and the laws handed down by
God? What about Jesus take on law in the gospel? What of the stories of judgment and punishment in Genesis, Exodus, Matthew,
and the Quran? What do you make of the controversial suras from the Quran that Sells doesnt address? How do they compare to
controversial passages from the Bible? How should a modern reader interpret ancient scripture?

Analyze and evaluate the violence present in the texts, in the Jewish Gods judgment, in the Christian apocalypse, in Islams day of
reckoning, and in Cones theology of racial justice? Where should peace prevail over violence, and where is violence sanctified? Where
do you stand on the question of violence vs. peace?

Whats your personal connections to faith, rebellion, critical consciousness, and the quest for human freedom and social justice?

Unit Literature

Year Author Text Genre Pages

c. 950-450 BCE Moses Genesis, The Story of Creation Religious 5
c. 950-450 BCE Moses Genesis, The Story of Abraham Religious 7.5
c. 950-450 BCE Moses Exodus, The Story of Moses Religious 13
60 CE anonymous The Gospel according to Matthew Religious 14
1844 Karl Marx A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel Non-Fiction: Modern Theory 0.5
c. 1948 F. A. Ridley Socialism and Religion Non-Fiction: Modern Theory 5
1971 Gustavo Gutirrez A Theology of Liberation Non-Fiction: Modern Theory 6
1970 James H. Cone A Black Theology of Liberation Non-Fiction: Modern Theory 8
1982 Marta Weigle Women and Mythology Non-Fiction: Modern Theory 3
1999 Michael Sells Approaching the Quran Non-Fiction / Religious 18
610 CE various Quran Religious 4

World Literature with Mr. Brennan: Unit 2

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
What do you think you know about these religions?
What do you want to know?
What might further study accomplish?
How can we create a safe space to analyze texts,
while also honoring peoples living faiths?
HISTORY OF IDEAS
Dawn of monotheism.
Development of national God, favoring Jewish people
Encoding of immutable, absolute laws in religious thought
God as ultimate concern
whose demands come before even family
A God that is both moral and
transcendent to human understanding of morality
Transforming received tradition:
o in Judaisms reworking of Mesopotamian narratives,
o in Christianitys transforming Jewish narratives of
sacrifice and deliverance, and
o Islams transforming traditional Arabic poetry
of longing for the beloved, the desert journey, and
the heros generous sacrifice
Political resistance in religious contexts:
o Jews v. Egypt and Philistines,
o Christians v. Rome,
o Islam v. hostile tribes
Days of reckoning:
o the defeat by God of nations, in Judaism;
o the judgment by God of each sinner, in Christianity;
o the day of reckoning by Allah of each individual, in Islam
Atonement:
o law and ritual in Judaism;
o faith and sacrament in Christianity;
o duty and remembrance in Islam
Modern struggles for liberation where contemporary
political struggles in regional, racial, and gender terms put
ancient texts in modern contexts.
KEY TERMS
Critical Consciousness: the ability to perceive social, political,
and economic oppression and to take action against the
oppressive elements of society.
Oppression: prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control
Hierarchy: a system or organization in which people or groups are
ranked one above the other according to status or authority
Liberation: the act or process of freeing someone or something
from another's control
Rebellion: the action or process of resisting authority, control
Polytheistic: the belief in two or more gods
Monotheistic: the belief that there is only one God
Patriarchy: a system of society or government in which men
hold the power and women are largely excluded from it
Matriarchy: a system of society or government in which women
hold the power and men are largely excluded from it
World Literature with Mr. Brennan: Unit 2
ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES and CRITICAL THEORY
Psychology: the study of consciousness and he human mind,
specifically as a function of awareness, feeling, or motivation
Anthropology: the study of humans, their origins, physical and
cultural development, biological characteristics, and social
customs and beliefs
Sociology: study of social behavior, its origins, development,
organization, and institutions.
***
Psychoanalytic literary criticism, argues that literary texts, like
dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of
the author, and manifest the author's own neuroses.
Marxist literary criticism, applies the theory of Karl Marx by
analyzing the role of class, class relations, as well as social
conflict, and oppression
Feminist literary criticism, exposes how literature reflects
masculine ideology; examines gender politics and traces the
subtle construction of masculinity and femininity, and their
relative status, positionings, and marginalizations..
LITERARY TERMS
Antagonistany force that is in opposition to the main character, or
protagonist. (e.g. Tybalt is antagonist to Romeo in Romeo and Juliet)
Archetyperecurrent patterns of action, character types, themes or
images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature; for
instance, the femme fatale, that female character who is found
throughout literature as the one responsible for mans downfall.
Duality an instance of opposition or contrast between two
concepts or two aspects of something; a state of being divided
Imagerybroadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work;
more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling,
to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object. Basically, imagery
involves any or all of the five senses.
Metaphorone thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting
a likeness or analogy between them. It is a comparison or
identification of one thing with another unlike itself without the
use of a verbal signal such as like or as. (e.g. Juliet is the sun.)
Personificationtreating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it
were a person by endowing it with human qualities. (e.g. The tree
lifts her leafy arms to pray.)
Protagonistthe main character in a work (e.g. Macbeth in Macbeth)
Settingthe time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play.
(e.g. Star Wars opens in A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away)
Stylea distinctive manner of expression; each authors style is
expressed through word choice, tone, degree of formality,
figurative language, rhythm, grammar, structure, sentence length,
organization, and every other feature of a writers use of language.
Symbolisma person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary
work that figuratively represents or stands for something else.
 Abrahamic Religions
The Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible, c. 950-450 BCE
From the First Book of Moses: Called Genesis
A selection from the New American Standard Bible
The Story of Creation
1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was
over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God
was moving over the surface of the waters.
1:3 Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light.
1:4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated
the light from the darkness.
1:5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called
night. And there was evening and there was morning,
one day.
1:6 Then God said, Let there be an expanse[area] in the
midst[middle] of the waters, and let it separate the
waters from the waters.
1:7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters which
were below the expanse from the waters which were
above the expanse; and it was so.
1:8 God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening
and there was morning, a second day.
1:9 Then God said, Let the waters below the heavens be
gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear;
and it was so.
1:10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the
waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
1:11 Then God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation,
plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth
bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them; and
it was so.
1:12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed
after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in
them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
1:13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
1:14 Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the
heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them
be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
1:15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the
heavens to give light on the earth; and it was so.
1:16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to
govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the
night; He made the stars also.
1:17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to
give light on the earth,
1:18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the
light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
1:19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
Genesis
1:20 Then God said, Let the waters teem with swarms of
living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in
the open expanse of the heavens.
1:21 God created the great sea monsters and every living
creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed
after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind;
and God saw that it was good.
1:22 God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill
the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.
1:23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
1:24 Then God said, Let the earth bring forth living
creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things
and beasts of the earth after their kind; and it was so.
1:25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the
cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the
ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
1:26 Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the
fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over
the cattle and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God
He created him; male and female He created them.
1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky
and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
1:29 Then God said, Behold, I have given you every plant
yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every
tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;
1:30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky
and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life,
I have given every green plant for food; and it was so.
1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was
very good. And there was evening and there was
morning, the sixth day.
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all
their hosts.
2:2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He
had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all
His work which He had done.
2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it,
because in it He rested from all His work which God
had created and made.
2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when
they were created, in the day that the LORD God
made earth and heaven.
1
The Garden of Eden
2:5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no
plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD
God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was
no man to cultivate the ground.
2:6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the
whole surface of the ground.
2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life; and man became a living being.
2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden;
and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
2:9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow
every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for
food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
2:10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden;
and from there it divided and became four rivers.
2:11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the
whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
2:12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the
onyx stone are there.
2:13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows
around the whole land of Cush.
2:14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of
Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into
the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
2:16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, From
any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it
you will surely die.
2:18 Then the LORD God said, It is not good for the man
to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.
2:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of
the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to
the man to see what he would call them; and whatever
the man called a living creature, that was its name.
2:20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds
of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for
Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
2:21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon
the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs
and closed up the flesh at that place.
2:22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which
He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
2:23 The man said,
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.
2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his
mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall
become one flesh.
2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were
not ashamed.
2 Genesis
The First Sin
3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the
field which the LORD God had made. And he said to
the woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat
from any tree of the garden?
3:2 The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the
trees of the garden we may eat;
3:3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of
the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it
or touch it, or you will die.
3:4 The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die!
3:5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your
eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.
3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree
was desirable to make one wise, she took from its
fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with
her, and he ate.
3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they
knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
3:8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his
wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD
God among the trees of the garden.
Sin Brings a Curse
3:9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to
him, Where are you?
3:10 He said, I heard the sound of You in the garden, and
I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.
3:11 And He said, Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded
you not to eat?
3:12 The man said, The woman whom You gave to be
with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.
3:13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, What is
this you have done? And the woman said, The
serpent deceived me, and I ate.
3:14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life;
3:15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.
3:16 To the woman He said,
I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.
3:17 Then to Adam He said, Because you have listened to
the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree
about which I commanded you, saying,
You shall not eat from it;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
3:18 Both thorns and thistles[flowers] it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
3:19 By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.
3:20 Now the man called his wifes name Eve, because she
was the mother of all the living.
3:21 The LORD God made garments[clothes] of skin for
Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
3:22 Then the LORD God said, Behold, the man has
become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and
now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also
from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever--
3:23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the
garden of Eden, to cultivate[nurture] the ground from
which he was taken.
3:24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden
of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming
sword which turned every direction to guard the way
to the tree of life.
Caine Murders Abel
4:1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she
conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, I
have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.
4:2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was
a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
4:3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought
an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground.
4:4 Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his
flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had
regard for Abel and for his offering;
4:5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So
Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.
4:6 Then the LORD said to Cain, Why are you angry?
And why has your countenance fallen?
Genesis
4:7 If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?
And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door;
and its desire is for you, but you must master it.
4:8 Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when
they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel
his brother and killed him.
4:9 Then the LORD said to Cain, Where is Abel your
brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my
brothers keeper?
4:10 He said, What have you done? The voice of your
brothers blood is crying to Me from the ground.
4:11 Now you are cursed from the ground, which has
opened its mouth to receive your brothers blood
from your hand.
4:12 When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer
yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a
wanderer on the earth.
4:13 Cain said to the LORD, My punishment is too great to bear!
4:14 Behold, You have driven me this day from the face
of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden,
and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth,
and whoever finds me will kill me.
4:15 So the LORD said to him, Therefore whoever kills
Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.
And the LORD appointed a sign for Cain, so that no
one finding him would slay him.
4:16 Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD,
and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
4:17 Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived,
and gave birth to (Multiple generations are listed)
4:25 Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave
birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said,
God has appointed me another offspring in place of
Abel, for Cain killed him.
4:26 To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name
Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD.
Decedents of Adam
5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day
when God created man, He made him in the likeness
of God.
5:2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them
and named them Man in the day when they were
created.
5:3 When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he
became the father of a son in his own likeness,
according to his image, and named him Seth.
(Multiple generations are listed leading to Lamech)
5:28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and
became the father of a son.
5:29 Now he called his name Noah, saying, This one will
give us rest from our work and from the toil of our
hands arising from the ground which the LORD has
cursed. []
5:32 Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became
the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
3
The Lord Will Send a Flood
6:1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the
face of the land, and daughters were born to them,
6:2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men
were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves,
whomever they chose.
6:3 Then the LORD said, My Spirit shall not strive[struggle]
with man forever, because he also is flesh;
nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and
twenty years.
6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also
afterward, when the sons of God came in to the
daughters of men, and they bore children to them.
Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of
renown.
6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was
great on the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6:6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the
earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
6:7 The LORD said, I will blot out man whom I have
created from the face of the land, from man to
animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for
I am sorry that I have made them.
6:8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
6:9 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah
was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah
walked with God.
6:10 Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham,
and Japheth.
6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and
the earth was filled with violence.
6:12 God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt;
for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
6:13 Then God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has
come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence
because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy
them with the earth.
6:14 Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; []
6:17 Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water
upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the
breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is
on the earth shall perish.
6:18 But I will establish My covenant[agreement] with you;
and you shall enter the arkyou and your sons and
your wife, and your sons wives with you.
6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring
two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive
with you; they shall be male and female. []
6:21 As for you, take for yourself some of all food which
is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for
food for you and for them.
6:22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God had
commanded him, so he did.
4 Genesis
The Flood
7:1 Then the LORD said to Noah, Enter the ark, you and
all your household, for you alone I have seen to be
righteous before Me in this time. []
7:4 For after seven more days, I will send rain on the
earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out
from the face of the land every living thing that I
have made.
7:5 Noah did according to all that the LORD had
commanded him. []
7:12 The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty
nights. []
7:19 The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so
that all the high mountains everywhere under the
heavens were covered. []
7:22 of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils
was the breath of the spirit of life, died.
7:23 Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon
the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping
things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted
out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together
with those that were with him in the ark.
7:24 The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and
fifty days.
The Water Goes Down
8:1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all
the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God
caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water
subsided.
8:2 Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the
sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was
restrained;
8:3 and the water receded[retreated] steadily from the earth,
and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the
water decreased. []
8:14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the
month, the earth was dry.
8:15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying,
8:16 Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons
and your sons wives with you.
8:17 Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that
is with you, birds and animals and every creeping
thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed
abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply
on the earth.
8:18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his
sons wives with him.
8:19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird,
everything that moves on the earth, went out by their
families from the ark.
The Lords Promise for the Earth
8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of
every clean animal and of every clean bird and
offered burnt offerings on the altar.
8:21 The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the
LORD said to Himself, I will never again curse the
ground on account of man, for the intent of mans
heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again
destroy every living thing, as I have done. []
Gods Promise to Noah
9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them,
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
9:2 The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every
beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with
everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish
of the sea, into your hand they are given.
9:3 Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you;
I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.
9:4 Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
9:5 Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast
I will require it. And from every man, from every
mans brother I will require the life of man.
9:6 Whoever sheds mans blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.
9:7 As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. []
Noah and His Family
9:18 Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were
Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father
of Canaan.
9:19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these
the whole earth was populated.
9:20 Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard.
9:21 He drank of the wine and became drunk, and
uncovered himself inside his tent.
9:22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his
father, and told his two brothers outside.
9:23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon
both their shoulders and walked backward and
covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces
were turned away, so that they did not see their
fathers nakedness.
9:24 When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his
youngest son had done to him.
9:25 So he said,
Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants
He shall be to his brothers.
Genesis
9:26 He also said,
Blessed be the LORD,
The God of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.
9:27 May God enlarge Japheth,
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant.
9:28 Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood.
9:29 So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty
years, and he died.
The Descendants of Noah
10:1 Now these are the records of the generations of
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and
sons were born to them after the flood.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Japheth fathered various individuals.
Ham fathered Cush, Mizraim, Put, Canaan
Cush fathered many, including Nimrod who
became a mighty one on the earth [] the
beginning of his kingdom was Babel.
Mizraim fathered many, including Casluhim
from which came the Philistines.
Canaan fathered many families and afterward the
families of the Canaanite were spread abroad.
Shem fathered all the children of Eber
_______________________________________________________________________________
10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah []
11:1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the
same words.
11:2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found
a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. []
11:4 They said, Come, let us build for ourselves a city,
and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let
us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be
scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.
11:5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower
which the sons of men had built.
11:6 The LORD said, Behold, they are one people, and
they all have the same language. And this is what
they began to do, and now nothing which they
purpose to do will be impossible for them.
11:7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their
language, so that they will not understand one
anothers speech.
11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over
the face of the whole earth; and they stopped
building the city.
11:9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there
the LORD confused the language of the whole earth;
and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over
the face of the whole earth.
5
 Abrahamic Religions
The Story of Abraham, from Genesis, 950-450 BCE
A selection from the New American Standard Bible
11:10 These are the records of the generations of Shem. []
(Multiple generations are listed leading to Abram)
The Lord Chooses Abram
12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram,
Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your fathers house,
To the land which I will show you;
12:2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
12:3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.
12:4 So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him;
and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five
years old when he departed from Haran.
12:5 Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all
their possessions which they had accumulated, and the
persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they
set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the
land of Canaan. []
12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your
descendants I will give this land. So he built an altar
there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
12:8 Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the
east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the
west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to
the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.
12:9 Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.
Abram in Egypt
12:10 Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went
down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was
severe in the land.
12:11 It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he
said to Sarai his wife, See now, I know that you are
a beautiful woman;
12:12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, This
is his wife; and they will kill me, but they will let
you live.
12:13 Please say that you are my sister so that it may go
well with me because of you, and that I may live on
account of you.
12:14 It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the
Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
6 Abraham in Genesis
12:15 Pharaohs officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh;
and the woman was taken into Pharaohs house.
12:16 Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and
gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and
female servants and female donkeys and camels.
12:17 But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his house with
great plagues because of Sarai, Abrams wife.
12:18 Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this
you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that
she was your wife?
12:19 Why did you say, She is my sister, so that I took her for
my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go.
12:20 Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and
they escorted him away, with his wife and all that
belonged to him.
Abram and Lot Separate
13:1 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his
wife and all that belonged to him, and Lot with him.
13:2 Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and
in gold.
13:3 He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as
Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the
beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
13:4 to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly;
and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.
13:5 Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and
herds and tents.
13:6 And the land could not sustain them while dwelling
together, for their possessions were so great that they
were not able to remain together.
13:7 And there was strife between the herdsmen of
Abrams livestock and the herdsmen of Lots
livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were
dwelling then in the land.
13:8 So Abram said to Lot, Please let there be no strife
between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and
your herdsmen, for we are brothers.
13:9 Is not the whole land before you? Please separate
from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if
to the right, then I will go to the left.
13:10 Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the
Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere--this
was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and
Gomorrah--like the garden of the LORD, like the
land of Egypt as you go to Zoar.
13:11 So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan,
and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated
from each other.
13:12 Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot
settled in the cities of the valley, and moved his tents
as far as Sodom.
13:13 Now the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly
and sinners against the LORD.
Abram Moves to Hebron
13:14 The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated
from him, Now lift up your eyes and look from the
place where you are, northward and southward and
eastward and westward;
13:15 for all the land which you see, I will give it to you
and to your descendants forever.
13:16 I will make your descendants as the dust of the
earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the
earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.
13:17 Arise, walk about the land through its length and
breadth; for I will give it to you.
13:18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by
the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there
he built an altar to the LORD.
Abram Rescues Lot
14:1 And it came about in the days of Amraphel king of
Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of
Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim,
14:2 that they made war with Bera king of Sodom, and
with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of
Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king
of Bela (that is, Zoar).
14:3 All these came as allies to the valley of Siddim (that
is, the Salt Sea).
14:4 Twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but the
thirteenth year they rebelled.
14:5 In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings
that were with him, came and defeated the Rephaim
in Ashteroth-karnaim and the Zuzim in Ham and the
Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim,
14:6 and the Horites in their Mount Seir, as far as El-
paran, which is by the wilderness.
14:7 Then they turned back and came to En-mishpat (that
is, Kadesh), and conquered all the country of the
Amalekites, and also the Amorites, who lived in
Hazazon-tamar.
14:8 And the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah and
the king of Admah and the king of Zeboiim and the
king of Bela (that is, Zoar) came out; and they arrayed
for battle against them in the valley of Siddim,
14:9 against Chedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king
of Goiim and Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch
king of Ellasar--four kings against five.
14:10 Now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the
kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell into
them. But those who survived fled to the hill country.
14:11 Then they took all the goods of Sodom and
Gomorrah and all their food supply, and departed.
14:12 They also took Lot, Abrams nephew, and his
possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom.
14:13 Then a fugitive came and told Abram the Hebrew.
Now he was living by the oaks of Mamre the
Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner, and
these were allies with Abram.
Abraham in Genesis
14:14 When Abram heard that his relative had been taken
captive, he led out his trained men, born in his house, three
hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.
14:15 He divided his forces against them by night, he and
his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them as
far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.
14:16 He brought back all the goods, and also brought back
his relative Lot with his possessions, and also the
women, and the people.
Abram is Blessed by Melchizedek
14:17 Then after his return from the defeat of
Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the
king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of
Shaveh (that is, the Kings Valley).
14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread
and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.
14:19 He blessed him and said,
Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
14:20 And blessed be God Most High,
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.
He gave him a tenth of all.
14:21 The king of Sodom said to Abram, Give the people
to me and take the goods for yourself.
14:22 Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have sworn to the
LORD God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth,
14:23 that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or
anything that is yours, for fear you would say, I
have made Abram rich.
14:24 I will take nothing except what the young men have
eaten, and the share of the men who went with me,
Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their share.
The Lords Promise to Abram
15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to
Abram in a vision, saying,
Do not fear, Abram,
I am a shield to you;
Your reward shall be very great.
15:2 Abram said, O Lord GOD, what will You give me,
since I am childless, and the heir of my house is
Eliezer of Damascus?
15:3 And Abram said, Since You have given no
offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.
15:4 Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
This man will not be your heir; but one who will come
forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. []
15:12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell
upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness
fell upon him.
15:13 God said to Abram, Know for certain that your
descendants will be strangers in a land that is not
theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed
four hundred years.
15:14 But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve,
and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
7
15:15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace;
you will be buried at a good old age.
15:16 Then in the fourth generation they will return here,
for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.
15:17 It came about when the sun had set, that it was very
dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and
a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.
15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram,
saying, To your descendants I have given this land,
From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the
river Euphrates:
15:19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite
15:20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim
15:21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the
Girgashite and the Jebusite.
Hagar and Ishmael
16:1 Now Sarai, Abrams wife had borne him no children,
and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar.
16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, Now behold, the LORD has
prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to
my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.
And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
16:3 After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan,
Abrams wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her
maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife.
16:4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when
she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was
despised in her sight.
16:5 And Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done me be
upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when
she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her
sight. May the LORD judge between you and me.
16:6 But Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your maid is in your
power; do to her what is good in your sight. So Sarai
treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence.
16:7 Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of
water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.
16:8 He said, Hagar, Sarais maid, where have you come
from and where are you going? And she said, I am
fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.
16:9 Then the angel of the LORD said to her, Return to
your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.
16:10 Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, I will
greatly multiply your descendants so that they will
be too many to count.
16:11 The angel of the LORD said to her further,
Behold, you are with child,
And you will bear a son;
And you shall call his name Ishmael,
Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction.
16:12 He will be a wild donkey of a man,
His hand will be against everyone,
And everyones hand will be against him;
And he will live to the east of all his brothers. []
16:15 So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the
name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. []
8 Abraham in Genesis
Gods Promise to Abraham
17:1 Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the
LORD appeared to Abram and said to him,
I am God Almighty;
Walk before Me, and be blameless.
17:2 I will establish My covenant between Me and you,
And I will multiply you exceedingly.
17:3 Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
17:4 As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
17:5 No longer shall your name be called Abram,
But your name shall be Abraham;
For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
17:6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make
nations of you, and kings will come forth from you.
17:7 I will establish My covenant between Me and you
and your descendants after you throughout their
generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to
you and to your descendants after you.
17:8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you,
the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan,
for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
17:9 God said further to Abraham, Now as for you, you
shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants
after you throughout their generations.
17:10 This is My covenant, which you shall keep,
between Me and you and your descendants after you:
every male among you shall be circumcised.
17:11 And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your
foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant
between Me and you.
17:12 And every male among you who is eight days old shall
be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant
who is born in the house or who is bought with money
from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants.
17:13 A servant who is born in your house or who is
bought with your money shall surely be circumcised;
thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an
everlasting covenant.
17:14 But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised
in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut
off from his people; he has broken My covenant.
17:15 Then God said to Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you
shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
17:16 I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by
her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother
of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.
17:17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said
in his heart, Will a child be born to a man one
hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety
years old, bear a child?
17:18 And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might
live before You!
17:19 But God said, No, but Sarah your wife will bear you
a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will
establish My covenant with him for an everlasting
covenant for his descendants after him.
17:20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will
bless him, and will make him fruitful and will
multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father
of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
17:21 But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom
Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.
17:22 When He finished talking with him, God went up
from Abraham.
17:23 Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the
servants who were born in his house and all who
were bought with his money, every male among the
men of Abrahams household, and circumcised the
flesh of their foreskin in the very same day, as God
had said to him. []
18:1 Now the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of
Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the
heat of the day.
18:2 When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three
men were standing opposite him; and when he saw
them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and
bowed himself to the earth,
18:3 and said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in
Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by.
18:4 Please let a little water be brought and wash your
feet, and rest yourselves under the tree;
18:5 and I will bring a piece of bread, that you may
refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since
you have visited your servant. And they said, So
do, as you have said.
18:6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said,
Quickly, prepare three measures of fine flour, knead
it and make bread cakes.
18:7 Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a tender and
choice calf and gave it to the servant, and he hurried
to prepare it.
18:8 He took curds and milk and the calf which he had
prepared, and placed it before them; and he was
standing by them under the tree as they ate. []
Abraham Prays for Sodom
18:16 Then the men rose up from there, and looked down
toward Sodom; and Abraham was walking with them
to send them off.
18:17 The LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I
am about to do,
18:18 since Abraham will surely become a great and
mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth
will be blessed?
18:19 For I have chosen him, so that he may command his
children and his household after him to keep the way
of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so
that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He
has spoken about him.
18:20 And the LORD said, The outcry of Sodom and
Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is
exceedingly grave.
Abraham in Genesis
18:21 I will go down now, and see if they have done
entirely according to its outcry, which has come to
Me; and if not, I will know.
18:22 Then the men turned away from there and went
toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing
before the LORD.
18:23 Abraham came near and said, Will You indeed
sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
18:24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city;
will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the
place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?
18:25 Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the
righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and
the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You!
Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?
18:26 So the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty
righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole
place on their account. []
18:33 As soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham the
LORD departed, and Abraham returned to his place.
The Evil City of Sodom
19:1 Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening
as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot
saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down
with his face to the ground.
19:2 And he said, Now behold, my lords, please turn
aside into your servants house, and spend the night,
and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go
on your way. They said however, No, but we shall
spend the night in the square.
19:3 Yet he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to
him and entered his house; and he prepared a feast
for them, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
19:4 Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of
Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old,
all the people from every quarter;
19:5 and they called to Lot and said to him, Where are
the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to
us that we may have relations with them.
19:6 But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut
the door behind him,
19:7 and said, Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.
19:8 Now behold, I have two daughters who have not
had relations with man; please let me bring them out
to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do
nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come
under the shelter of my roof.
19:9 But they said, Stand aside. Furthermore, they said,
This one came in as an alien, and already he is
acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than
them. So they pressed hard against Lot and came
near to break the door.
19:10 But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot
into the house with them, and shut the door.
19:11 They struck the men who were at the doorway of the
house with blindness, both small and great, so that
they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.
9
19:12 Then the two men said to Lot, Whom else have you
here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your
daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring
them out of the place;
19:13 for we are about to destroy this place, because their
outcry has become so great before the LORD that the
LORD has sent us to destroy it.
19:14 Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were
to marry his daughters, and said, Up, get out of this
place, for the LORD will destroy the city. But he
appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
19:15 When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot,
saying, Up, take your wife and your two daughters
who are here, or you will be swept away in the
punishment of the city.
19:16 But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the
hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters,
for the compassion of the LORD was upon him; and
they brought him out, and put him outside the city. []
Sodom and Gomorrah Are Destroyed
19:23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
19:24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven,
19:25 and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all
the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the
ground.
19:26 But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she
became a pillar of salt.
19:27 Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went
to the place where he had stood before the LORD;
19:28 and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah,
and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and
behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the
smoke of a furnace.
19:29 Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of
the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent
Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He
overthrew the cities in which Lot lived. []
Moab and Ammon
19:30 Lot went up from Zoar, and stayed in the mountains,
and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to
stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two
daughters.
19:31 Then the firstborn said to the younger, Our father is
old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us
after the manner of the earth.
19:32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us
lie with him that we may preserve our family through
our father.
19:33 So they made their father drink wine that night, and
the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he
did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
19:34 On the following day, the firstborn said to the
younger, Behold, I lay last night with my father; let
us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in
10 Abraham in Genesis
and lie with him, that we may preserve our family
through our father.
19:35 So they made their father drink wine that night also,
and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did
not know when she lay down or when she arose.
19:36 Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by
their father.
19:37 The firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab;
he is the father of the Moabites to this day.
19:38 As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called
his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of
Ammon to this day. []
Sarah Has a Son
21:1 Then the LORD took note of Sarah as He had said,
and the LORD did for Sarah as He had promised.
21:2 So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his
old age, at the appointed time of which God had
spoken to him.
21:3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to
him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. []
Hagar and Ishmael Are Sent Away
21:9 Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian,
whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.
21:10 Therefore she said to Abraham, Drive out this maid
and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an
heir with my son Isaac.
21:11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son.
21:12 But God said to Abraham, Do not be distressed
because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah
tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your
descendants shall be named.
21:13 And of the son of the maid I will make a nation
also, because he is your descendant.
21:14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took
bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar,
putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy,
and sent her away. And she departed and wandered
about in the wilderness of Beersheba. []
A Peace Treaty
21:22 Now it came about at that time that Abimelech and
Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to
Abraham, saying, God is with you in all that you do;
21:23 now therefore, swear to me here by God that you will
not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with
my posterity, but according to the kindness that I
have shown to you, you shall show to me and to the
land in which you have sojourned.
21:24 Abraham said, I swear it.
21:25 But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the
well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.
21:26 And Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this
thing; you did not tell me, nor did I hear of it until today.
21:27 Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to
Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. []
21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and
there he called on the name of the LORD, the
Everlasting God.
21:34 And Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines
for many days.
The Lords Request
22:1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested
Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! And he said,
Here I am.
22:2 He said, Take now your son, your only son, whom
you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and
offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the
mountains of which I will tell you.
22:3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his
donkey, and took two of his young men with him and
Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and
arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 23:19 After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave
22:4 On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw
the place from a distance.
22:5 Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the
donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we
will worship and return to you.
22:6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid
it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire
and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
22:7 Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, My
father! And he said, Here I am, my son. And he
said, Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the
lamb for the burnt offering?
22:8 Abraham said, God will provide for Himself the
lamb for the burnt offering, my son. So the two of
them walked on together.
22:9 Then they came to the place of which God had told
him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged
the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on
the altar, on top of the wood.
22:10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to
slay his son.
22:11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from
heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham! And he said,
Here I am.
22:12 He said, Do not stretch out your hand against the
lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you
fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your
only son, from Me.
22:13 Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold,
behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns;
and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him
up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.
22:14 Abraham called the name of that place The LORD
Will Provide, as it is said to this day, In the mount
of the LORD it will be provided.
22:15 Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a
second time from heaven,
Abraham in Genesis
22:16 and said, By Myself I have sworn, declares the
LORD, because you have done this thing and have
not withheld your son, your only son,
22:17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly
multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as
the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed
shall possess the gate of their enemies.
22:18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.
22:19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they
arose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham
lived at Beersheba. []
Sarahs Death and Burial
23:1 Now Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven
years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.
23:2 Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the
land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for
Sarah and to weep for her. []
of the field at Machpelah facing Mamre (that is,
Hebron) in the land of Canaan. []
A Wife for Isaac
24:1 Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the
LORD had blessed Abraham in every way.
24:2 Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his
household, who had charge of all that he owned,
Please place your hand under my thigh,
24:3 and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of
heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a
wife for my son from the daughters of the
Canaanites, among whom I live,
24:4 but you will go to my country and to my relatives,
and take a wife for my son Isaac. []
24:9 So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of
Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning
this matter.
24:10 Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of
his master, and set out with a variety of good things
of his masters in his hand; and he arose and went to
Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.
24:11 He made the camels kneel down outside the city by
the well of water at evening time, the time when
women go out to draw water.
24:12 He said, O LORD, the God of my master Abraham,
please grant me success today, and show loving
kindness to my master Abraham.
24:13 Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the
daughters of the men of the city are coming out to
draw water; []
24:15 Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah
who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife
of Abrahams brother Nahor, came out with her jar
on her shoulder.
11
24:16 The girl was very beautiful, a virgin, and no man had
had relations with her; and she went down to the
spring and filled her jar and came up.
24:17 Then the servant ran to meet her, and said, Please
let me drink a little water from your jar.
24:18 She said, Drink, my lord; and she quickly lowered
her jar to her hand, and gave him a drink.
24:19 Now when she had finished giving him a drink, she
said, I will draw also for your camels until they
have finished drinking.
24:20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, and
ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his
camels.
24:21 Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence, to
know whether the LORD had made his journey
successful or not.
24:22 When the camels had finished drinking, the man took
a gold ring weighing a half-shekel and two bracelets
for her wrists weighing ten shekels in gold,
24:23 and said, Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is
there room for us to lodge in your fathers house?
24:24 She said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the
son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.
24:25 Again she said to him, We have plenty of both
straw and feed, and room to lodge in.
24:26 Then the man bowed low and worshiped the LORD. []
24:28 Then the girl ran and told her mothers household
about these things.
24:29 Now Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban;
and Laban ran outside to the man at the spring.
24:30 When he saw the ring and the bracelets on his
sisters wrists, and when he heard the words of
Rebekah his sister, saying, This is what the man
said to me, he went to the man; and behold, he was
standing by the camels at the spring.
24:31 And he said, Come in, blessed of the LORD! Why
do you stand outside since I have prepared the house,
and a place for the camels?
24:32 So the man entered the house. Then Laban unloaded
the camels, and he gave straw and feed to the camels,
and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men
who were with him.
24:33 But when food was set before him to eat, he said, I
will not eat until I have told my business. And he
said, Speak on. []
[The servant summarizes the events that preceded.]
24:50 Then Laban and Bethuel replied, The matter comes
from the LORD; so we cannot speak to you bad or good.
24:51 Here is Rebekah before you, take her and go, and
let her be the wife of your masters son, as the
LORD has spoken.
24:52 When Abrahams servant heard their words, he
bowed himself to the ground before the LORD.
24:53 The servant brought out articles of silver and articles
of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; he
also gave precious things to her brother and to her
mother. []
12 Abraham in Genesis
24:57 And they said, We will call the girl and consult her
wishes.
24:58 Then they called Rebekah and said to her, Will you
go with this man? And she said, I will go.
24:59 Thus they sent away their sister Rebekah and her
nurse with Abrahams servant and his men.
24:60 They blessed Rebekah and said to her,
May you, our sister,
Become thousands of ten thousands,
And may your descendants possess
The gate of those who hate them.
24:61 Then Rebekah arose with her maids, and they
mounted the camels and followed the man. So the
servant took Rebekah and departed.
24:62 Now Isaac had come from going to Beer-lahai-roi;
for he was living in the Negev.
24:63 Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward
evening; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and
behold, camels were coming.
24:64 Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac
she dismounted from the camel.
24:65 She said to the servant, Who is that man walking in
the field to meet us? And the servant said, He is my
master. Then she took her veil and covered herself.
24:66 The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.
24:67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarahs tent,
and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and
he loved her; thus Isaac was comforted after his
mothers death.
Abraham Marries Keturah
25:1 Now Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.
25:2 She bore to him [many children].
25:5 Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac;
25:6 but to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave
gifts while he was still living, and sent them away
from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east.
The Death of Abraham
25:7 These are all the years of Abrahams life that he
lived, one hundred and seventy-five years.
25:8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age,
an old man and satisfied with life; and he was
gathered to his people.
25:9 Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the
cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of
Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre,
25:10 the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of
Heth; there Abraham was buried with Sarah his wife.
25:11 It came about after the death of Abraham, that God
blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac lived by Beer-lahai-roi.
[]
The Birth of Esau and Jacob

25:19 Now these are the records of the generations of

Isaac, Abrahams son: Abraham became the father of
Isaac;
25:20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah,
the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-
aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his
wife.
25:21 Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife,
because she was barren; and the LORD answered
him and Rebekah his wife conceived.
25:22 But the children struggled together within her; and
she said, If it is so, why then am I this way? So she
went to inquire of the LORD.
25:23 The LORD said to her,
Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.
25:24 When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold,
there were twins in her womb.
25:25 Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy
garment; and they named him Esau.
25:26 Afterward his brother came forth with his hand
holding on to Esaus heel, so his name was called
Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave
birth to them.

Esau Sells His Rights as the First-Born Son

25:27 When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful

hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful
man, living in tents.
25:28 Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for
game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
25:29 When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the
field and he was famished;
25:30 and Esau said to Jacob, Please let me have a
swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.
Therefore his name was called Edom.
25:31 But Jacob said, First sell me your birthright.
25:32 Esau said, Behold, I am about to die; so of what use
then is the birthright to me?
25:33 And Jacob said, First swear to me; so he swore to
him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he
ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus
Esau despised his birthright.

Abraham in Genesis 13
 Abrahamic Religions
The Book of Exodus, 950-450 BCE
A selection from the New American Standard Bible
The People of Israel Suffer
1:1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who
came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with
his household: [] [Names follow.]
1:5 All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were
seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt.
1:6 Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
1:7 But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased
greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly
mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
1:8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know
Joseph.
1:9 He said to his people, Behold, the people of the
sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.
1:10 Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they
will multiply and in the event of war, they will also
join themselves to those who hate us, and fight
against us and depart from the land.
1:11 So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict
them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh
storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.
1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they
multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they
were in dread of the sons of Israel.
1:13 The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor
rigorously;
1:14 and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in
mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the
field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed
on them.
1:15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew
midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the
other was named Puah;
1:16 and he said, When you are helping the Hebrew
women to give birth and see them upon the
birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to
death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.
1:17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the
king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys
live.
1:18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and
said to them, Why have you done this thing, and let
the boys live?
1:19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew
women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are
vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to
them. []
1:22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying,
Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile,
and every daughter you are to keep alive.
14 The Book of Exodus
Moses is Born
2:1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married
a daughter of Levi.
2:2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she
saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.
2:3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got him
a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and
pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among
the reeds by the bank of the Nile.
2:4 His sister stood at a distance to find out what would
happen to him.
2:5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the
Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile;
and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her
maid, and she brought it to her.
2:6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold,
the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and
said, This is one of the Hebrews children.
2:7 Then his sister said to Pharaohs daughter, Shall I
go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women
that she may nurse the child for you?
2:8 Pharaohs daughter said to her, Go ahead. So the
girl went and called the childs mother.
2:9 Then Pharaohs daughter said to her, Take this child
away and nurse him for me and I will give you your
wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him.
Moses Escapes from Egypt
2:10 The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaohs
daughter and he became her son. And she named him
Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water.
2:11 Now it came about in those days, when Moses had
grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked
on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating
a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
2:12 So he looked this way and that, and when he saw
there was no one around, he struck down the
Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
2:13 He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews
were fighting with each other; and he said to the
offender, Why are you striking your companion?
2:14 But he said, Who made you a prince or a judge over
us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the
Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and said, Surely
the matter has become known.
2:15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill
Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and
settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.
2:16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and
they came to draw water and filled the troughs to
water their fathers flock.
2:17 Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but
Moses stood up and helped them and watered their
flock.
2:18 When they came to Reuel their father, he said, Why
have you come back so soon today?
2:19 So they said, An Egyptian delivered us from the
hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even
drew the water for us and watered the flock.
2:20 He said to his daughters, Where is he then? Why is
it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to
have something to eat.
2:21 Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he
gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses.
2:22 Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him
Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a
foreign land.
2:23 Now it came about in the course of those many days
that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel
sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out;
and their cry for help because of their bondage rose
up to God.
2:24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered
His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
2:25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of
them.
God Speaks to Moses
3:1 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his
father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the
flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to
Horeb, the mountain of God.
3:2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing
fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and
behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush
was not consumed.
3:3 So Moses said, I must turn aside now and see this
marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.
3:4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look,
God called to him from the midst of the bush and
said, Moses, Moses! And he said, Here I am.
3:5 Then He said, Do not come near here; remove your
sandals from your feet, for the place on which you
are standing is holy ground.
3:6 He said also, I am the God of your father, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at
God.
3:7 The LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of
My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to
their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware
of their sufferings.
3:8 So I have come down to deliver them from the
power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from
that land to a good and spacious land []
3:9 Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come
to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with
which the Egyptians are oppressing them.
The Book of Exodus
3:10 Therefore, come now, and I will send you to
Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons
of Israel, out of Egypt.
3:11 But Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go
to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel
out of Egypt?
3:12 And He said, Certainly I will be with you, and this
shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you:
when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you
shall worship God at this mountain.
3:13 Then Moses said to God, Behold, I am going to the
sons of Israel, and I will say to them, The God of
your fathers has sent me to you. Now they may say to
me, What is His name? What shall I say to them?
3:14 God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM; and He
said, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM
has sent me to you. []
3:19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit
you to go, except under compulsion.
3:20 So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with
all My miracles which I shall do in the midst of it;
and after that he will let you go. []
The Lord Gives Great Power to Moses
4:1 Then Moses said, What if they will not believe me
or listen to what I say? For they may say, The
LORD has not appeared to you.
4:2 The LORD said to him, What is that in your hand?
And he said, A staff.
4:3 Then He said, Throw it on the ground. So he threw
it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses
fled from it.
4:4 But the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand
and grasp it by its tail--so he stretched out his hand
and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand--
4:5 that they may believe that the LORD, the God of
their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.
4:6 The LORD furthermore said to him, Now put your
hand into your bosom. So he put his hand into his
bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand
was leprous like snow.
4:7 Then He said, Put your hand into your bosom
again. So he put his hand into his bosom again, and
when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was
restored like the rest of his flesh.
4:8 If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the
first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign.
4:9 But if they will not believe even these two signs or
heed what you say, then you shall take some water
from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the
water which you take from the Nile will become
blood on the dry ground.
4:10 Then Moses said to the LORD, Please, Lord, I have
never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time
past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for
I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. []
15
4:14 Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses,
and He said, Is there not your brother Aaron the
Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And
moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you;
when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
4:15 You are to speak to him and put the words in his
mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his
mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do.
4:16 Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and
he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God
to him.
4:17 You shall take in your hand this staff, with which
you shall perform the signs.
Moses Returns to Egypt
4:18 Then Moses departed and returned to Jethro his
father-in-law and said to him, Please, let me go, that
I may return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and
see if they are still alive. And Jethro said to Moses,
Go in peace.
4:19 Now the LORD said to Moses in Midian, Go back
to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life
are dead.
4:20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted
them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt.
Moses also took the staff of God in his hand. []
Zipporahs Son is Circumcised
4:24 Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that
the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.
4:25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her sons
foreskin and threw it at Moses feet, and she said,
You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.
4:26 So He let him alone. At that time she said, You are a
bridegroom of blood--because of the circumcision.
Aaron is Sent to Meet Moses
4:27 Now the LORD said to Aaron, Go to meet Moses in
the wilderness. So he went and met him at the
mountain of God and kissed him.
4:28 Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD with
which He had sent him, and all the signs that He had
commanded him to do.
4:29 Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the
elders of the sons of Israel;
4:30 and Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had
spoken to Moses. He then performed the signs in the
sight of the people.
4:31 So the people believed; and when they heard that the
LORD was concerned about the sons of Israel and
that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed
low and worshiped.
16 The Book of Exodus
Moses and Aaron Go to the King of Egypt
5:1 And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to
Pharaoh, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel,
Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to
Me in the wilderness.
5:2 But Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD that I should
obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the
LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go.
5:3 Then they said, The God of the Hebrews has met
with us. Please, let us go a three days journey into
the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the LORD
our God, otherwise He will fall upon us with
pestilence or with the sword.
5:4 But the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and
Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their
work? Get back to your labors!
5:5 Again Pharaoh said, Look, the people of the land
are now many, and you would have them cease from
their labors!
5:6 So the same day Pharaoh commanded the
taskmasters over the people and their foremen,
saying,
5:7 You are no longer to give the people straw to make
brick as previously; let them go and gather straw for
themselves.
5:8 But the quota of bricks which they were making
previously, you shall impose on them; you are not to
reduce any of it. Because they are lazy, therefore
they cry out, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.
5:9 Let the labor be heavier on the men, and let them
work at it so that they will pay no attention to false
words.
5:10 So the taskmasters of the people and their foremen
went out and spoke to the people []
The Lords Promise to Moses
5:22 Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, O
Lord, why have You brought harm to this people?
Why did You ever send me?
5:23 Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your
name, he has done harm to this people, and You have
not delivered Your people at all.
6:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Now you shall see
what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he
will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive
them out of his land. []
The Lords Command
6:29 [T]he LORD spoke to Moses, saying, I am the
LORD; speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I
speak to you.
6:30 But Moses said before the LORD, Behold, I am
unskilled in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me?
7:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, See, I make you as
God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be
your prophet.
7:2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your
brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the
sons of Israel go out of his land.
7:3 But I will harden Pharaohs heart that I may multiply
My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.
7:4 When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay
My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My
people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by
great judgments.
7:5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD,
when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out
the sons of Israel from their midst.
7:6 So Moses and Aaron did it; as the LORD
commanded them, thus they did.
7:7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three,
when they spoke to Pharaoh.
A Stick Turns into a Snake
7:8 Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
7:9 When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, Work a
miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, Take your
staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may
become a serpent.
7:10 So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they
did just as the LORD had commanded; and Aaron
threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants,
and it became a serpent.
7:11 Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the
sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did
the same with their secret arts.
7:12 For each one threw down his staff and they turned into
serpents. But Aarons staff swallowed up their staffs.
7:13 Yet Pharaohs heart was hardened, and he did not
listen to them, as the LORD had said.
The Nile
7:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, Pharaohs heart is
stubborn; he refuses to let the people go.
7:15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to
the water, and station yourself to meet him on the
bank of the Nile; and you shall take in your hand the
staff that was turned into a serpent.
7:16 You shall say to him, The LORD, the God of the
Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, Let My people go,
that they may serve Me in the wilderness. But
behold, you have not listened until now.
7:17 Thus says the LORD, By this you shall know that I
am the LORD: behold, I will strike the water that is
in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it
will be turned to blood. []
7:20 So Moses and Aaron did even as the LORD had
commanded. And he lifted up the staff and struck the
water that was in the Nile, in the sight of Pharaoh
The Book of Exodus
and in the sight of his servants, and all the water that
was in the Nile was turned to blood.
7:21 The fish that were in the Nile died, and the Nile
became foul, so that the Egyptians could not drink
water from the Nile. And the blood was through all
the land of Egypt.
7:22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same with their
secret arts; and Pharaohs heart was hardened, and he
did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
7:23 Then Pharaoh turned and went into his house with no
concern even for this.
7:24 So all the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to
drink, for they could not drink of the water of the Nile.
7:25 Seven days passed after the LORD had struck the Nile.
Frogs
8:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and
say to him, Thus says the LORD, Let My people
go, that they may serve Me.
8:2 But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite
your whole territory with frogs.
8:3 The Nile will swarm with frogs, which will come
up and go into your house and into your bedroom
and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants
and on your people, and into your ovens and into
your kneading bowls. []
8:5 Then the LORD said to Moses, Say to Aaron,
Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers,
over the streams and over the pools, and make frogs
come up on the land of Egypt.
8:6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt,
and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.
8:7 The magicians did the same with their secret arts,
making frogs come up on the land of Egypt.
8:8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said,
Entreat the LORD that He remove the frogs from
me and from my people; and I will let the people go,
that they may sacrifice to the LORD. []
8:12 Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and
Moses cried to the LORD concerning the frogs
which He had inflicted upon Pharaoh.
8:13 The LORD did according to the word of Moses, and the
frogs died out of the houses, the courts, and the fields.
8:14 So they piled them in heaps, and the land became foul.
8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened
his heart and did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
Gnats
8:16 Then the LORD said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch
out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, that it
may become gnats through all the land of Egypt.
8:17 They did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with
his staff, and struck the dust of the earth, and there
were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the
earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt.
17
8:18 The magicians tried with their secret arts to bring
forth gnats, but they could not; so there were gnats
on man and beast.
8:19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the
finger of God. But Pharaohs heart was hardened,
and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
Flies
8:20 Now the LORD said to Moses, Rise early in the
morning and present yourself before Pharaoh, as he
comes out to the water, and say to him, Thus says the
LORD, Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
8:21 For if you do not let My people go, behold, I will
send swarms of flies on you and on your servants
and on your people and into your houses; and the
houses of the Egyptians will be full of swarms of
flies, and also the ground on which they dwell.
8:22 But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen,
where My people are living, so that no swarms of
flies will be there, in order that you may know that I,
the LORD, am in the midst of the land.
8:23 I will put a division between My people and your
people. Tomorrow this sign will occur.
8:24 Then the LORD did so. And there came great swarms
of flies into the house of Pharaoh and the houses of
his servants and the land was laid waste because of
the swarms of flies in all the land of Egypt. []
8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he
did not let the people go.
Dead Animals
9:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and
speak to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of the
Hebrews, Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
9:2 For if you refuse []
9:3 behold, the hand of the LORD will come with a very
severe pestilence on your livestock which are in the
field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels,
on the herds, and on the flocks.
9:4 But the LORD will make a distinction between the
livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that
nothing will die of all that belongs to the sons of Israel.
9:5 The LORD set a definite time, saying, Tomorrow
the LORD will do this thing in the land.
9:6 So the LORD did this thing on the next day, and all
the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of
the sons of Israel, not one died.
9:7 Pharaoh sent, and behold, there was not even one of
the livestock of Israel dead. But the heart of Pharaoh
was hardened, and he did not let the people go.
Sores
9:8 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, Take for
yourselves handfuls of soot from a kiln[oven], and let
Moses throw it toward the sky in the sight of Pharaoh.
18 The Book of Exodus
9:9 It will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt,
and will become boils breaking out with sores on
man and beast through all the land of Egypt.
9:10 So they took soot from a kiln, and stood before
Pharaoh; and Moses threw it toward the sky, and it
became boils breaking out with sores on man and beast.
9:11 The magicians could not stand before Moses because
of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians as
well as on all the Egyptians.
9:12 And the LORD hardened Pharaohs heart, and he did not
listen to them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
Hailstones
9:13 Then the LORD said to Moses, Rise up early in the
morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him,
Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, Let
My people go, that they may serve Me.
9:14 For this time I will send all My plagues on you and
your servants and your people, so that you may know
that there is no one like Me in all the earth.
9:15 For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck
you and your people with pestilence, you would then
have been cut off from the earth.
9:16 But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to
remain, in order to show you My power and in order
to proclaim My name through all the earth.
9:17 Still you exalt yourself against My people by not
letting them go.
9:18 Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will send a very
heavy hail, such as has not been seen in Egypt from
the day it was founded until now.
9:19 Now therefore send, bring your livestock and
whatever you have in the field to safety. Every man
and beast that is found in the field and is not brought
home, when the hail comes down on them, will die.
9:20 The one among the servants of Pharaoh who feared
the word of the LORD made his servants and his
livestock flee into the houses;
9:21 but he who paid no regard to the word of the LORD
left his servants and his livestock in the field.
9:22 Now the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your
hand toward the sky, that hail may fall on all the land
of Egypt, on man and on beast and on every plant of
the field, throughout the land of Egypt.
9:23 Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the
LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the
earth. And the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt.
9:24 So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the
midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in
all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
9:25 The hail struck all that was in the field through all
the land of Egypt, both man and beast; the hail also
struck every plant of the field and shattered every
tree of the field.
9:26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the sons of Israel
were, there was no hail.
9:27 Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and said to
them, I have sinned this time; the LORD is the
righteous one, and I and my people are the wicked ones.
9:28 Make supplication to the LORD, for there has been
enough of Gods thunder and hail; and I will let you
go, and you shall stay no longer.
9:29 Moses said to him, As soon as I go out of the city, I
will spread out my hands to the LORD; the thunder
will cease and there will be hail no longer, that you
may know that the earth is the LORDS. []
9:33 So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread
out his hands to the LORD; and the thunder and the hail
ceased, and rain no longer poured on the earth.
9:34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and
the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and
hardened his heart, he and his servants.
9:35 Pharaohs heart was hardened, and he did not let the
sons of Israel go, just as the LORD had spoken
through Moses.
Locusts
10:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, for I
have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants,
that I may perform these signs of Mine among them,
10:2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and
of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the
Egyptians and how I performed My signs among
them, that you may know that I am the LORD.
10:3 Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him,
Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews,
How long will you refuse to humble yourself before
Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
10:4 For if you refuse to let My people go, behold,
tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.
10:5 They shall cover the surface of the land, so that no
one will be able to see the land. They will also eat
the rest of what has escaped--what is left to you from
the hail--and they will eat every tree which sprouts
for you out of the field.
10:6 Then your houses shall be filled and the houses of
all your servants and the houses of all the Egyptians,
something which neither your fathers nor your
grandfathers have seen, from the day that they came
upon the earth until this day. And he turned and
went out from Pharaoh.
10:7 Pharaohs servants said to him, How long will this
man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may
serve the LORD their God. Do you not realize that
Egypt is destroyed? []
10:11 So they were driven out from Pharaohs presence. []
10:13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of
Egypt, and the LORD directed an east wind on the
land all that day and all that night; and when it was
morning, the east wind brought the locusts.
10:14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and
settled in all the territory of Egypt; they were very
numerous. There had never been so many locusts,
nor would there be so many again.
The Book of Exodus
10:15 For they covered the surface of the whole land, so
that the land was darkened; and they ate every plant
of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail
had left. Thus nothing green was left on tree or plant
of the field through all the land of Egypt.
10:16 Then Pharaoh hurriedly called for Moses and Aaron,
and he said, I have sinned against the LORD your
God and against you.
10:17 Now therefore, please forgive my sin only this
once, and make supplication to the LORD your God,
that He would only remove this death from me.
10:18 He went out from Pharaoh and made supplication to
the LORD.
10:19 So the LORD shifted the wind to a very strong west
wind which took up the locusts and drove them into
the Red Sea; not one locust was left in all the
territory of Egypt.
10:20 But the LORD hardened Pharaohs heart, and he did
not let the sons of Israel go.
Darkness
10:21 Then the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand
toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the
land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.
10:22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there
was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.
10:23 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise
from his place for three days, but all the sons of
Israel had light in their dwellings.
10:24 Then Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, Go, serve
the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be
detained. Even your little ones may go with you.
10:25 But Moses said, You must also let us have
sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice
them to the LORD our God.
10:26 Therefore, our livestock too shall go with us; not a
hoof shall be left behind, for we shall take some of
them to serve the LORD our God. And until we
arrive there, we ourselves do not know with what we
shall serve the LORD.
10:27 But the LORD hardened Pharaohs heart, and he was
not willing to let them go.
10:28 Then Pharaoh said to him, Get away from me!
Beware, do not see my face again, for in the day you
see my face you shall die!
10:29 Moses said, You are right; I shall never see your
face again!
Mosess Warning
11:1 Now the LORD said to Moses, One more plague I
will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will
let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will
surely drive you out from here completely. []
11:4 Moses said, Thus says the LORD, About midnight
I am going out into the midst of Egypt,
19
11:5 and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from
the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even
to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the
millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well.
11:6 Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of
Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as
shall never be again.
11:7 But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not
even bark, whether against man or beast, that you
may understand how the LORD makes a distinction
between Egypt and Israel. []
11:10 Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders
before Pharaoh; yet the LORD hardened Pharaohs
heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of
his land.
The Passover
12:1 Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land
of Egypt,
12:2 This month shall be the beginning of months for
you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.
12:3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On
the tenth of this month they are each one to take a
lamb for themselves, according to their fathers
households, a lamb for each household. []
12:6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the
same month, then the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.
12:7 Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put
it on the two doorposts and on the lintel[beam] of the
houses in which they eat it. []
12:11 Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins
girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in
your hand; and you shall eat it in haste--it is the
LORDS Passover.
12:12 For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night,
and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of
Egypt I will execute judgments--I am the LORD.
12:13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses
where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass
over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy
you when I strike the land of Egypt.
12:14 Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you
shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout
your generations you are to celebrate it as a
permanent ordinance.
12:15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on
the first day you shall remove leaven[yeast] from your
houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the
first day until the seventh day, that person shall be
cut off from Israel.
12:16 On the first day you shall have a holy assembly, and
another holy assembly on the seventh day; no work at
all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten
by every person, that alone may be prepared by you.
[]
20 The Book of Exodus
12:28 Then the sons of Israel went and did so; just as the
LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
First-Born Sons
12:29 Now it came about at midnight that the LORD struck
all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the
firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the
firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and
all the firstborn of cattle.
12:30 Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants
and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in
Egypt, for there was no home where there was not
someone dead.
The People of Israel Escape from Egypt
12:31 Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and
said, Rise up, get out from among my people, both
you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the
LORD, as you have said.
12:32 Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have
said, and go, and bless me also.
12:33 The Egyptians urged the people, to send them out of
the land in haste, for they said, We will all be dead.
12:34 So the people took their dough before it was
leavened, with their kneading bowls bound up in the
clothes on their shoulders.
12:35 Now the sons of Israel had done according to the word
of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians
articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing;
12:36 and the LORD had given the people favor in the
sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have
their request. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
12:37 Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to
Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot,
aside from children.
12:38 A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with
flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock.
12:39 They baked the dough which they had brought out of
Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not
become leavened, since they were driven out of
Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared
any provisions for themselves.
12:40 Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt
was four hundred and thirty years.
12:41 And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to
the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out
from the land of Egypt.
12:42 It is a night to be observed for the LORD for having
brought them out from the land of Egypt; this night
is for the LORD, to be observed by all the sons of
Israel throughout their generations. []
The Lord Leads His People
13:17 Now when Pharaoh had let the people go, God did
not lead them by the way of the land of the
Philistines, even though it was near; for God said,
The people might change their minds when they see
war, and return to Egypt.
13:18 Hence God led the people around by the way of the
wilderness to the Red Sea; and the sons of Israel
went up in martial array from the land of Egypt. []
14:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
14:2 Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before
Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you shall
camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it, by the sea.
14:3 For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, They are
wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has
shut them in.
14:4 Thus I will harden Pharaohs heart, and he will
chase after them; and I will be honored through
Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will
know that I am the LORD. And they did so.
14:5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had
fled, Pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart
toward the people, and they said, What is this we
have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?
14:6 So he made his chariot ready and took his people
with him;
14:7 and he took six hundred select chariots, and all the
other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
14:8 The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of
Egypt, and he chased after the sons of Israel as the
sons of Israel were going out boldly.
14:9 Then the Egyptians chased after them with all the
horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his
army, and they overtook them camping by the sea []
14:10 As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and
behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and
they became very frightened []
14:11 Then they said to Moses, Is it because there were no
graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in
the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this
way, bringing us out of Egypt?
14:12 Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt,
saying, Leave us alone that we may serve the
Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to
serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.
14:13 But Moses said to the people, Do not fear! Stand by
and see the salvation of the LORD which He will
accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you
have seen today, you will never see them again forever.
14:14 The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.
14:15 Then the LORD said to Moses, Why are you crying
out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.
14:16 As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your
hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel
shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land.
The Book of Exodus
14:17 As for Me, behold, I will harden the hearts of the
Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and I
will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army,
through his chariots and his horsemen. []
14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and
the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind
all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the
waters were divided.
14:22 The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea
on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to
them on their right hand and on their left.
14:23 Then the Egyptians took up the pursuit, and all
Pharaohs horses, his chariots and his horsemen went
in after them into the midst of the sea.
14:24 At the morning watch, the LORD looked down on the
army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud
and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion.
14:25 He caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and He
made them drive with difficulty; so the Egyptians
said, Let us flee from Israel, for the LORD is
fighting for them against the Egyptians.
14:26 Then the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand
over the sea so that the waters may come back over the
Egyptians, over their chariots and their horsemen.
14:27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the
sea returned to its normal state at daybreak, while the
Egyptians were fleeing right into it; then the LORD
overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
14:28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the
horsemen, even Pharaohs entire army that had gone
into the sea after them; not even one of them remained.
14:29 But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the
midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to
them on their right hand and on their left.
14:30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand
of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead
on the seashore.
14:31 When Israel saw the great power which the LORD
had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the
LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in His
servant Moses. []
Water at Elim
15:22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they
went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went
three days in the wilderness and found no water. []
15:24 So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, What
shall we drink? []
15:26 And [the Lord] said, If you will give earnest heed to
the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is
right in His sight, and give ear to His
commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put
none of the diseases on you which I have put on the
Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer.
15:27 Then they came to Elim where there were twelve
springs of water and seventy date palms, and they
camped there beside the waters.
21
The Lord Sends Food From Heaven
16:1 Then they set out from Elim, and all the
congregation of the sons of Israel came to the
wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai,
on the fifteenth day of the second month after their
departure from the land of Egypt.
16:2 The whole congregation of the sons of Israel
grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
16:3 The sons of Israel said to them, Would that we had
died by the LORDS hand in the land of Egypt, when
we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the
full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness
to kill this whole assembly with hunger. []
16:11 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
16:12 I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel;
speak to them, saying, At twilight you shall eat meat,
and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; and
you shall know that I am the LORD your God. []
16:29 [T]he LORD has given you the sabbath; therefore
He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day.
Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of
his place on the seventh day.
16:30 So the people rested on the seventh day. []
Jethro Visits Moses
18:1 Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses father-in-law, 18:25 Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made
heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His
people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.
18:2 Jethro, Moses father-in-law, took Moses wife
Zipporah, after he had sent her away,
18:3 and her two sons, of whom one was named Gershom []
18:4 The other was named Eliezer []
18:5 Then Jethro, Moses father-in-law, came with his
sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where
he was camped, at the mount of God. []
18:8 Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had
done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israels
sake, all the hardship that had befallen them on the
journey, and how the LORD had delivered them.
18:9 Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness which the
LORD had done to Israel, in delivering them from
the hand of the Egyptians. []
Judges Are Appointed
18:13 It came about the next day that Moses sat to judge
the people, and the people stood about Moses from
the morning until the evening.
18:14 Now when Moses father-in-law saw all that he was
doing for the people, he said, What is this thing that
you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit
as judge and all the people stand about you from
morning until evening?
18:15 Moses said to his father-in-law, Because the people
come to me to inquire of God.
22 The Book of Exodus
18:16 When they have a dispute, it comes to me, and I
judge between a man and his neighbor and make
known the statutes of God and His laws.
18:17 Moses father-in-law said to him, The thing that you
are doing is not good.
18:18 You will surely wear out, both yourself and these
people who are with you, for the task is too heavy for
you; you cannot do it alone.
18:19 Now listen to me: I will give you counsel, and God
be with you. You be the peoples representative
before God, and you bring the disputes to God,
18:20 then teach them the statutes and the laws, and make
known to them the way in which they are to walk
and the work they are to do.
18:21 Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able
men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate
dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as
leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens.
18:22 Let them judge the people at all times; and let it be that
every major dispute they will bring to you, but every
minor dispute they themselves will judge. So it will be
easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.
18:23 If you do this thing and God so commands you,
then you will be able to endure, and all these people
also will go to their place in peace.
18:24 So Moses listened to his father-in-law and did all that
he had said.
them heads over the people, leaders of thousands, of
hundreds, of fifties and of tens.
18:26 They judged the people at all times; the difficult
dispute they would bring to Moses, but every minor
dispute they themselves would judge.
18:27 Then Moses bade his father-in-law farewell, and he
went his way into his own land.
At Mount Sinai
19:1 In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone
out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came
into the wilderness of Sinai.
19:2 When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the
wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness;
and there Israel camped in front of the mountain.
19:3 Moses went up to God []
19:9 The LORD said to Moses, Behold, I will come to you in
a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak
with you and may also believe in you forever. Then
Moses told the words of the people to the LORD. []
19:11 and let them be ready for the third day, for on the
third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai
in the sight of all the people.
19:12 You shall set bounds for the people all around,
saying, Beware that you do not go up on the
mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches
the mountain shall surely be put to death.
19:14 So Moses went down from the mountain []
19:15 He said to the people, Be ready for the third day [].
The Lord Comes to Mount Sinai
19:16 So it came about on the third day, when it was
morning, that there were thunder and lightning
flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a
very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who
were in the camp trembled.
19:17 And Moses brought the people out of the camp to
meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
19:18 Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the
LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke
ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole
mountain quaked violently. []
19:20 The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of
the mountain; and the LORD called Moses to the top
of the mountain, and Moses went up.
19:21 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, Go down, warn
the people, so that they do not break through to the
LORD to gaze, and many of them perish.
19:22 Also let the priests who come near to the LORD
consecrate themselves, or else the LORD will break
out against them.
19:23 Moses said to the LORD, The people cannot come
up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, Set
bounds about the mountain and consecrate it.
19:24 Then the LORD said to him, Go down and come up
again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the
priests and the people break through to come up to
the LORD, or He will break forth upon them.
19:25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.
The Ten Commandments
20:1 Then God spoke all these words, saying,
20:2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
20:3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
20:4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any
likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the water under the earth.
20:5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the
LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third
and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
20:6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those
who love Me and keep My commandments.
20:7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God
in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished
who takes His name in vain.
20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
20:10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your
God; in it you shall not do any work []
20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the
earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on
the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the
sabbath day and made it holy.
The Book of Exodus
20:12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days
may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your
God gives you.
20:13 You shall not murder.
20:14 You shall not commit adultery.
20:15 You shall not steal.
20:16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
20:17 You shall not covet your neighbors house; you
shall not covet your neighbors wife [] or anything
that belongs to your neighbor.
The People Are Afraid
20:18 All the people perceived the thunder and the
lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and
the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it,
they trembled and stood at a distance.
20:19 Then they said to Moses, Speak to us yourself and we
will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.
20:20 Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid; for God
has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear
of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.
20:21 So the people stood at a distance, while Moses
approached the thick cloud where God was.
Idols and Alters
20:22 Then the LORD said to Moses, Thus you shall say
to the sons of Israel, You yourselves have seen that I
have spoken to you from heaven.
20:23 You shall not make other gods besides Me; gods of
silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for
yourselves.
20:24 You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you
shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your
peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every
place where I cause My name to be remembered, I
will come to you and bless you.
20:25 If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not
build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it,
you will profane it.
20:26 And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, so that
your nakedness will not be exposed on it.
Hebrew Slaves
21:1 Now these are the ordinances which you are to set
before them:
21:2 If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six
years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free
man without payment.
21:3 If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the
husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.
21:4 If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him
sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall
belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.
21:5 But if the slave plainly says, I love my master, my
wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,
23
21:6 then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall
bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master
shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve
him permanently.
21:7 If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is
not to go free as the male slaves do.
21:8 If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who
designated her for himself, then he shall let her be
redeemed[refunded]. He does not have authority to sell her
to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her.
21:9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with
her according to the custom of daughters.
21:10 If he takes to himself another woman, he may not
reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.
21:11 If he will not do these three things for her, then she
shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
Murder and Other Violent Crimes
21:12 [The LORD said:] He who strikes a man so that he
dies shall surely be put to death.
21:13 But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him
fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to
which he may flee.
21:14 If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his
neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take
him even from My altar, that he may die.
21:15 He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely
be put to death.
21:16 He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is
found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.
21:17 He who curses his father or his mother shall surely
be put to death.
21:18 If men have a quarrel and one strikes the other with
a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but
remains in bed,
21:19 if he gets up and walks around outside on his staff,
then he who struck him shall go unpunished; he shall
only pay for his loss of time, and shall take care of
him until he is completely healed.
21:20 If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod
and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.
21:21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance
shall be taken; for he is his property. []
Property Laws
22:1 [The LORD said:] If a man steals an ox or a sheep
and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for
the ox and four sheep for the sheep.
22:2 If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck
so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on
his account. []
22:7 If a man gives his neighbor money or goods to keep
for him and it is stolen from the mans house, if the
thief is caught, he shall pay double. []
24 The Book of Exodus
Laws for Everyday Life
22:16 If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies
with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife.
22:17 If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he
shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins. []
22:19 Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death.
22:20 He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the
LORD alone, shall be utterly destroyed.
22:21 You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for
you were strangers in the land of Egypt. []
Equal Justice for All
23:1 You shall not bear a false report; do not join your
hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.
23:2 You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor
shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after
a multitude in order to pervert justice;
23:3 nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute. []
23:7 Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the
innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty.
23:8 You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the
clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just.
23:9 You shall not oppress a stranger, since you
yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you
also were strangers in the land of Egypt. []
Laws for the Sabbath
23:12 Six days you are to do your work, but on the
seventh day you shall cease from labor so that your
ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your
female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh
themselves.
23:13 Now concerning everything which I have said to you,
be on your guard; and do not mention the name of
other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth.
Three Annual Festivals
23:14 Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me.
23:15 You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread []
23:16 Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of
the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in
the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end
of the year when you gather in the fruit of your
labors from the field. []
A Promise and a Warning
23:20 Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to
guard you along the way and to bring you into the
place which I have prepared.
23:21 Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do
not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon
your transgression, since My name is in him.
23:22 But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say,
then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an
adversary to your adversaries. []
23:25 [Y]ou shall serve the LORD your God, and He will
bless your bread and your water; and I will remove
sickness from your midst.
23:26 There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your
land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
23:27 I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into
confusion all the people among whom you come, and I
will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. []
23:32 You shall make no covenant with them or with their
gods.
23:33 They shall not live in your land, because they will
make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods,
it will surely be a snare to you. []
The People Agree to Obey God
24:4 Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then
he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the
foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the
twelve tribes of Israel. []
24:7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in
the hearing of the people; and they said, All that the
LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be
obedient! []
Moses on Mount Sinai
24:12 Now the LORD said to Moses, Come up to Me on
the mountain and remain there, and I will give you
the stone tablets with the law and the commandment
which I have written for their instruction. []
24:15 Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud
covered the mountain.
24:16 The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and
the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh
day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.
24:17 And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance
of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire
on the mountain top.
24:18 Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up
to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain
forty days and forty nights. []
The People Make and Idol Worship
32:1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to
come down from the mountain, the people assembled
about Aaron and said to him, Come, make us a god
who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man
who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not
know what has become of him.
32:2 Aaron said to them, Tear off the gold rings which
are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your
daughters, and bring them to me.
32:3 Then all the people tore off the gold rings which
were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
The Book of Exodus
32:4 He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a
graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they
said, This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up
from the land of Egypt.
32:5 Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it;
and Aaron made a proclamation and said,
Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.
32:6 So the next day they rose early and offered burnt
offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people
sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
32:7 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, Go down at once,
for your people, whom you brought up from the land
of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
32:8 They have quickly turned aside from the way which
I commanded them. They have made for themselves
a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have
sacrificed to it and said, This is your god, O Israel,
who brought you up from the land of Egypt!
32:9 The LORD said to Moses, I have seen this people,
and behold, they are an obstinate people.
32:10 Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn
against them and that I may destroy them; and I will
make of you a great nation.
32:11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said,
O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your
people whom You have brought out from the land of
Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
32:12 Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, With evil
intent He brought them out to kill them in the
mountains and to destroy them from the face of the
earth? Turn from Your burning anger and change
Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your
servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said
to them, I will multiply your descendants as the
stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have
spoken I will give to your descendants, and they
shall inherit it forever.
32:14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm
which He said He would do to His people.
32:15 Then Moses turned and went down from the
mountain with the two tablets []
32:19 [A]s soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw
the calf and the dancing; and Moses anger burned,
and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered
them at the foot of the mountain.
32:20 He took the calf which they had made and burned it with
fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the
surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.
32:21 Then Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to
you, that you have brought such great sin upon them?
32:22 Aaron said, Do not let the anger of my lord burn; you
know the people yourself, that they are prone to evil. []
32:24 I said to them, Whoever has any gold, let them tear
it off. So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the
fire, and out came this calf.
25
32:25 Now when Moses saw that the people were out of
control--for Aaron had let them get out of control to
be a derision among their enemies--
32:26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said,
Whoever is for the LORD, come to me! And all
the sons of Levi gathered together to him.
32:27 He said to them, Thus says the LORD, the God of
Israel, Every man of you put his sword upon his
thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the
camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man
his friend, and every man his neighbor.
32:28 So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and
about three thousand men of the people fell that day.
32:29 Then Moses said, Dedicate yourselves today to the
LORD--for every man has been against his son and
against his brother--in order that He may bestow a
blessing upon you today.
32:30 On the next day Moses said to the people, You yourselves
have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the
LORD, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.
32:31 Then Moses returned to the LORD, and said, Alas,
this people has committed a great sin, and they have
made a god of gold for themselves. []
32:33 The LORD said to Moses, Whoever has sinned
against Me, I will blot him out of My book. []
The Lord Tells Israel to Leave Mount Sinai
33:1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, Depart, go up
from here, you and the people whom you have
brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of
which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob []
33:2 I will send an angel before you and I will drive out
the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite,
the Hivite and the Jebusite.
33:3 Go up to a land flowing with milk
and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you
are an obstinate[stubborn] people, and I might destroy
you on the way. []
33:3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I
will not go up in your midst, because you are an
obstinate[stubborn] people, and I might destroy you on
the way. [] 34:28 So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty
33:5 . . . Now therefore, put off your ornaments[jewelry] from
you, that I may know what I shall do with you.
33:6 So the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their
ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward. []
26 The Book of Exodus
33:12 Then Moses said to the LORD, See, You say to me,
Bring up this people! But You Yourself have not
let me know whom You will send with me.
Moreover, You have said, I have known you by
name, and you have also found favor in My sight.
33:13 Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in
Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know
You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider
too, that this nation is Your people. []
33:17 The LORD said to Moses, I will also do this thing
of which you have spoken; for you have found favor
in My sight and I have known you by name. []
The Second Set of Commandments
34:1 Now the LORD said to Moses, Cut out for yourself
two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will
write on the tablets the words that were on the
former tablets which you shattered. []
34:10 Then God said, Behold, I am going to make a
covenant. Before all your people I will perform
miracles which have not been produced in all the
earth nor among any of the nations; and all the
people among whom you live will see the working of
the LORD, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to
perform with you.
34:11 Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this
day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite
before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the
Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite.
34:12 Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the
inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it
will become a snare in your midst.
34:13 But rather, you are to tear down their altars and
smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim
[The LORD proceeds to recite the commandments.]
34:27 Then the LORD said to Moses, Write down these
words, for in accordance with these words I have
made a covenant with you and with Israel.
nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he
wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the
Ten Commandments. []
 Abrahamic Religions
The Gospel according to Matthew, 60 CE
A selection from the New American Standard Bible
The Ancestors of Jesus
1:1 The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son
of David, the son of Abraham:
1:2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of . . .
[Multiple generations are listed.]
1:16 Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by
whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
1:17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are
fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to
Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation
to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
The Birth of Jesus
1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His
mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they
came together she was found to be with child by the Holy
Spirit.
1:19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not
wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
1:20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the
Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of
David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the
Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
1:21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus,
for He will save His people from their sins.
1:22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the
Lord through the prophet:
1:23 BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD
AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL
CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL, which translated
means, GOD WITH US.
1:24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of
the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife,
1:25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he
called His name Jesus.
The Wise Men
2:1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the
days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in
Jerusalem, saying,
2:2 Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For
we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.
2:3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all
Jerusalem with him.
2:4 Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the
people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be
born.
2:5 They said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what
has been written by the prophet:
The Gospel according to Matthew
2:6 AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH, ARE BY
NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF
JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A
RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.
2:7 Then Herod secretly called the magi and determined from
them the exact time the star appeared.
2:8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search
carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him,
report to me, so that I too may come and worship Him.
2:9 After hearing the king, they went their way; and the star,
which they had seen in the east, went on before them until
it came and stood over the place where the Child was.
2:10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with
great joy.
2:11 After coming into the house they saw the Child with
Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and
worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they
presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense[incense], and
myrrh[incense].
2:12 And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to
Herod, the magi left for their own country by another way.
The Escape to Egypt
2:13 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up! Take
the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain
there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the
Child to destroy Him.
2:14 So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother
while it was still night, and left for Egypt.
2:15 He remained there until the death of Herod. []
The Killing of the Children
2:16 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the
magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the
male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity,
from two years old and under, according to the time
which he had determined from the magi. []
The Return from Egypt
2:19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord
appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said,
2:20 Get up, take the Child and His mother, and go into the land
of Israel; for those who sought the Childs life are dead.
2:21 So Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and
came into the land of Israel.
2:22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over
Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go
there. Then after being warned by God in a dream, he left
for the regions of Galilee,
2:23 and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. []
27
The Preaching of John the Baptist
3:1 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in
the wilderness of Judea, saying,
3:2 Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
3:3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when
he said, THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE
WILDERNESS, MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE
LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT! []
3:5 Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and
all the district around the Jordan;
3:6 and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River,
as they confessed their sins. []
The Baptism of Jesus
3:13 Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to
John, to be baptized by him.
3:14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, I have need to be
baptized by You, and do You come to me?
3:15 But Jesus answering said to him, Permit it at this time;
for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all
righteousness. Then he permitted Him.
3:16 After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the
water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the
Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him,
3:17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, This is My
beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.
Jesus and the Devil
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted by the devil.
4:2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He
then became hungry.
4:3 And the tempter came and said to Him, If You are the
Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
4:4 But He answered and said, It is written, MAN SHALL
NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY
WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF
GOD.
4:5 Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him
stand on the pinnacle of the temple,
4:6 and said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw
Yourself down; for it is written,
HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING
YOU; and ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR
YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR
FOOT AGAINST A STONE.
4:7 Jesus said to him, On the other hand, it is written, YOU
SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE
TEST.
4:8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and
showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;
4:9 and he said to Him, All these things I will give You, if
You fall down and worship me.
4:10 Then Jesus said to him, Go, Satan! For it is written,
YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD,
AND SERVE HIM ONLY.
4:11 Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and
began to minister to Him.
28 The Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus Begins His Work
4:12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into
custody, He withdrew into Galilee;
4:13 and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum []
4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Jesus Chooses Four Fishermen
4:18 Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw
two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his
brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
4:19 And He said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you
fishers of men.
4:20 Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
4:21 Going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the
son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with
Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them.
4:22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and
followed Him.
Jesus Teaches, Preaches, and Heals
4:23 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom,
and healing every kind of disease and every kind of
sickness among the people.
4:24 The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and
they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with
various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics,
paralytics; and He healed them.
4:25 Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis
and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.
The Sermon on the Mount
5:1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain;
and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.
5:2 He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying,
5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.
5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5:5 Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
sons of God.
5:10 Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake
of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
5:11 Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute
you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because
of Me.
5:12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great;
for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who
were before you.
Salt and Light
5:13 You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become
tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer
good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled
under foot by men.
5:14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot
be hidden;
5:15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in
the house.
5:16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they
may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is
in heaven.
The Law of Moses
5:17 Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
5:18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law
until all is accomplished.
5:19 Whoever then annuls one of the least of these
commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall
be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever
keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven. []
Anger
5:21 You have heard that the ancients were told, YOU
SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER and Whoever
commits murder shall be liable to the court.
5:22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his
brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says
to his brother, You good-for-nothing, shall be guilty
before the supreme court; and whoever says, You fool,
shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. []
Marriage
5:27 You have heard that it was said, YOU SHALL NOT
COMMIT ADULTERY;
5:28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with
lust for her has already committed adultery []
Divorce
5:31 It was said, WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY,
LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE;
5:32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife,
except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit
adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman
commits adultery. []
Revenge
5:38 You have heard that it was said, AN EYE FOR AN
EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.
5:39 But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever
slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
5:40 If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him
have your coat also.
The Gospel according to Matthew
5:41 Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
5:42 Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from
him who wants to borrow from you.
Love
5:43 You have heard that it was said, YOU SHALL LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.
5:44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you,
5:45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;
for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. []
Giving
6:1 Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to
be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with
your Father who is in heaven.
6:2 So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet
before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in
the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I
say to you, they have their reward in full.
6:3 But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand
know what your right hand is doing,
6:4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who
sees what is done in secret will reward you. []
Treasure in Heaven
6:19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where
moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
6:20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not
break in or steal; []
Money
6:24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the
one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and
despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
Worry
6:25 For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about
your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink;
nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life
more than food, and the body more than clothing?
6:26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor
reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father
feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
6:27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour
to his life? []
6:33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and
all these things will be added to you.
6:34 So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care
for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Judging Others
7:1 Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
7:2 For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by
your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.
7:3 Why do you look at the speck that is in your brothers
eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? []
29
 Ask, Search, Knock
7:7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
7:8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks
finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. []
7:12 In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you
want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the
Prophets.
The Narrow Gate
7:13 Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and
the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are
many who enter through it.
7:14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to
life, and there are few who find it.
A Tree and Its Fruit
7:15 Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in
sheeps clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
7:16 You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not
gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles,
are they? []
A Warning
7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My
Father who is in heaven will enter.
7:22 Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we
not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out
demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?
7:23 And then I will declare to them, I never knew you;
DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE
LAWLESSNESS.
Two Builders
7:24 Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and
acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built
his house on the rock.
7:25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds
blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not
fall, for it had been founded on the rock.
7:26 Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not
act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his
house on the sand.
7:27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great
was its fall.
7:28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were
amazed at His teaching;
7:29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and
not as their scribes.
30 The Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus Heals
8:1 When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds
followed Him.
8:2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and
said, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.
8:3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, I
am willing; be cleansed. And immediately his leprosy
was cleansed.
8:4 And Jesus said to him, See that you tell no one; but go,
show yourself to the priest and present the offering that
Moses commanded, as a testimony to them. []
8:14 When Jesus came into Peters home, He saw his mother-
in-law lying sick in bed with a fever.
8:15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got
up and waited on Him.
8:16 When evening came, they brought to Him many who
were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a
word, and healed all who were ill. []
9:2 [T]hey brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing
their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, Take courage, son;
your sins are forgiven.
9:3 And some of the scribes said to themselves, This fellow
blasphemes.
9:4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Why are you
thinking evil in your hearts?
9:5 Which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to
say, Get up, and walk?
9:6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has
authority on earth to forgive sins--then He said to the
paralytic, Get up, pick up your bed and go home.
9:7 And he got up and went home.
Jesus Chooses Matthew
9:9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called
Matthew, sitting in the tax collectors booth; and He said
to him, Follow Me! And he got up and followed Him.
9:10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table
in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners
came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.
9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples,
Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and
sinners?
9:12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, It is not those who are
healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. []
Jesus Has Pity
9:35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel
of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and
every kind of sickness.
9:36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because
they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a
shepherd.
9:37 Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful,
but the workers are few.
9:38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out
workers into His harvest.
Jesus Chooses His Twelve Apostles
10:1 Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them
authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to
heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
10:2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first,
Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and
James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
10:3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax
collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
10:4 Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who
betrayed Him.
Instructions
10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: Do
not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any
city of the Samaritans;
10:6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
10:7 And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven
is at hand.
10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out
demons. Freely you received, freely give.
10:9 Do not acquire gold [] for your money belts,
10:10 or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals,
or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support.
10:11 And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is
worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city.
10:12 As you enter the house, give it your greeting.
10:13 If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace.
But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace.
10:14 Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you 11:21 Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if
go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet.
10:15 Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of
Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.
Warnings
10:16 Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.
10:17 But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the
courts and scourge you in their synagogues;
10:18 and you will even be brought before governors and kings
for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.
10:19 But when they hand you over, do not worry about how
or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that
hour what you are to say. []
10:22 You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is
the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. []
10:26 Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed
that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
10:27 What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and
what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the
housetops.
10:28 Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill
the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell. []
The Gospel according to Matthew
Not Peace, but Trouble
10:34 Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I
did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER,
AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND
A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-
IN-LAW;
10:36 and A MANS ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS
OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.
10:37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not
worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more
than Me is not worthy of Me.
10:38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me
is not worthy of Me.
10:39 He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has
lost his life for My sake will find it.
10:40 He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives
Me receives Him who sent Me.
10:41 He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet
shall receive a prophets reward; and he who receives a
righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall
receive a righteous mans reward. []
The Unbelieving Towns
11:1 When Jesus had finished giving instructions to His twelve
disciples, He departed from there to teach and preach in
their cities. []
11:20 Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of
His miracles were done, because they did not repent.
the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which
occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in
sackcloth and ashes.
11:22 Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for
Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.
11:23 And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will
you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had
occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have
remained to this day.
11:24 Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for
the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you. []
A Question About the Sabboth
12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the
Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to
pick the heads of grain and eat.
12:2 But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, Look,
Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.
12:3 But He said to them, Have you not read what David did
when he became hungry, he and his companions,
12:4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the
consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat
nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?
12:5 Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the
priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent?
31
12:6 But I say to you that something greater than the temple
is here.
12:7 But if you had known what this means, I DESIRE
COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE, you would
not have condemned the innocent.
12:8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
A Man With a Paralyzed Hand
12:9 Departing from there, He went into their synagogue.
12:10 And a man was there whose hand was withered. And they
questioned Jesus, asking, Is it lawful to heal on the
Sabbath?--so that they might accuse Him.
12:11 And He said to them, What man is there among you who
has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will
he not take hold of it and lift it out?
12:12 How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So
then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.
12:13 Then He said to the man, Stretch out your hand! He
stretched it out, and it was restored to normal, like the other.
12:14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, as
to how they might destroy Him. []
Jesus and the Ruler of Demons
12:22 Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute
was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute
man spoke and saw.
12:23 All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, This man
cannot be the Son of David, can he?
12:24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, This man casts
out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.
12:25 And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, Any
kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city
or house divided against itself will not stand. []
12:30 He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does
not gather with Me scatters. []
A Tree and Its Fruit
12:33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the
tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.
12:34 You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is
good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
12:35 The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; 13:15 FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME
and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.
12:36 But I tell you that every careless word that people speak,
they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
12:37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your
words you will be condemned. []
Jesus Mother and Brothers
12:46 While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother 13:17 For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous
and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.
12:47 Someone said to Him, Behold, Your mother and Your
brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.
12:48 But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and
said, Who is My mother and who are My brothers?
32 The Gospel according to Matthew
12:49 And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He
said, Behold My mother and My brothers!
12:50 For whoever does the will of My Father who is in
heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.
A Story About a Farmer
13:1 That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by
the sea.
13:2 And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat
and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the
beach.
13:3 And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying,
Behold, the sower went out to sow;
13:4 and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the
birds came and ate them up.
13:5 Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have
much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they
had no depth of soil.
13:6 But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and
because they had no root, they withered away.
13:7 Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up
and choked them out.
13:8 And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop,
some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.
13:9 He who has ears, let him hear.
Why Jesus Used Stories
13:10 And the disciples came and said to Him, Why do You
speak to them in parables?
13:11 Jesus answered them, To you it has been granted to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it has not been granted.
13:12 For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he
will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even
what he has shall be taken away from him.
13:13 Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while
seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not
hear, nor do they understand.
13:14 In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled,
which says, YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT
WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON
SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY
HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES,
OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR
EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND
UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND
RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.
13:16 But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your
ears, because they hear.
men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to
hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Jesus Explains the Story about the Farmer
13:18 Hear then the parable of the sower.
13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does
not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away
what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom
seed was sown beside the road.
13:20 The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places,
this is the man who hears the word and immediately
receives it with joy;
13:21 yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary,
and when affliction or persecution arises because of the
word, immediately he falls away.
13:22 And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns,
this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the
world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word,
and it becomes unfruitful.
13:23 And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil,
this is the man who hears the word and understands it;
who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a
hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.
Weeds Among the Wheat
13:24 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, The
kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who
sowed good seed in his field.
13:25 But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and
sowed tares[weeds] among the wheat, and went away.
13:26 But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the
tares became evident also.
13:27 The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, Sir,
did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does
it have tares?
13:28 And he said to them, An enemy has done this! The
slaves said to him, Do you want us, then, to go and
gather them up?
13:29 But he said, No; for while you are gathering up the
tares, you may uproot the wheat with them.
13:30 Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the
time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather
up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up;
but gather the wheat into my barn.
Stories about Mustard Seed
13:31 He presented another parable to them, saying, The
kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man
took and sowed in his field;
13:32 and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full
grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a
tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST
IN ITS BRANCHES.
13:33 He spoke another parable to them, The kingdom of
heaven is like leaven[yeast], which a woman took and hid
in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened. []
The Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus Explains the Story about the Weeds
13:36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And
His disciples came to Him and said, Explain to us the
parable of the tares of the field.
13:37 And He said, The one who sows the good seed is the
Son of Man,
13:38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these
are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of
the evil one;
13:39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the
harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels.
13:40 So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire,
so shall it be at the end of the age.
13:41 The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will
gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and
those who commit lawlessness,
13:42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. []
Heaven Analogies
13:44 The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the
field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over
it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
13:45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking
fine pearls,
13:46 and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and
sold all that he had and bought it.
13:47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into
the sea, and gathering fish of every kind;
13:48 and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and
they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers,
but the bad they threw away.
13:49 So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come
forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous,
13:50 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. []
Jesus Feeds Five Thousand
14:15 When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said,
This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so
send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages
and buy food for themselves.
14:16 But Jesus said to them, They do not need to go away;
you give them something to eat!
14:17 They said to Him, We have here only five loaves and
two fish.
14:18 And He said, Bring them here to Me.
14:19 Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the
five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward
heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He
gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to
the crowds,
14:20 and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what
was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets.
14:21 There were about five thousand men who ate, besides
women and children.
33
Jesus Walks on Water
14:22 Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and
go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the
crowds away.
14:23 After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the
mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening,
He was there alone.
14:24 But the boat was already a long distance from the land,
battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary.
14:25 And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them,
walking on the sea.
14:26 When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they
were terrified, and said, It is a ghost! And they cried
out in fear.
14:27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take
courage, it is I; do not be afraid.
14:28 Peter said to Him, Lord, if it is You, command me to
come to You on the water.
14:29 And He said, Come! And Peter got out of the boat, and
walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
14:30 But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and
beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me!
14:31 Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold
of him, and said to him, You of little faith, why did you
doubt?
14:32 When they got into the boat, the wind stopped.
14:33 And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying,
You are certainly Gods Son! []
Who is Jesus?
16:13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea
Philippi, He was asking His disciples, Who do people
say that the Son of Man is?
16:14 And they said, Some say John the Baptist; and others,
Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
16:15 He said to them, But who do you say that I am?
16:16 Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of
the living God.
16:17 And Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona,
because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My
Father who is in heaven. []
16:20 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one
that He was the Christ.
Jesus Speaks about His Suffering and Death
16:21 From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He
must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be
raised up on the third day.
16:22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying,
God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.
16:23 But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan!
You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting
your mind on Gods interests, but mans.
34 The Gospel according to Matthew
16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wishes to
come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his
cross and follow Me.
16:25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but
whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
16:26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world
and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul?
16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His
Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY
EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.
16:28 Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are
standing here who will not taste death until they see the
Son of Man coming in His kingdom.
The True Glory of Jesus
17:1 Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and
John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by
themselves.
17:2 And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone
like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.
17:3 And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking
with Him.
17:4 Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here; if
You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for
You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
17:5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed
them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, This is My
beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!
17:6 When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the
ground and were terrified.
17:7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, Get
up, and do not be afraid.
17:8 And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus
Himself alone.
17:9 As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus
commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no one until
the Son of Man has risen from the dead. []
Who Is the Greatest
18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, Who
then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
18:2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them,
18:3 and said, Truly I say to you, unless you are converted
and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom
of heaven.
18:4 Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
18:5 And whoever receives one such child in My name
receives Me; []
When Someone Sins
18:15 If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in
private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
18:16 But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more
with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR
 THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE
CONFIRMED.
18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if
he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you
as a Gentile and a tax collector. []
18:21 Then Peter came and said to Him, Lord, how often shall
my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven
times?
18:22 Jesus said to him, I do not say to you, up to seven times,
but up to seventy times seven. []
Concerning Divorce
19:1 When Jesus had finished these words, He departed from
Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the
Jordan;
19:2 and large crowds followed Him, and He healed them
there.
19:3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking,
Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason
at all?
19:4 And He answered and said, Have you not read that He
who created them from the beginning MADE THEM
MALE AND FEMALE,
19:5 and said, FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL
LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE
JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL
BECOME ONE FLESH?
19:6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore
God has joined together, let no man separate.
19:7 They said to Him, Why then did Moses command to
GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND
SEND her AWAY?
19:8 He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart
Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the
beginning it has not been this way.
19:9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for
immorality, and marries another woman commits
adultery. []
A Rich Young Man
19:16 And someone came to Him and said, Teacher, what
good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?
19:17 And He said to him, Why are you asking Me about what
is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish
to enter into life, keep the commandments.
19:18 Then he said to Him, Which ones? And Jesus said,
YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER; YOU
SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY; YOU SHALL
NOT STEAL; YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE
WITNESS;
19:19 HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER; and YOU
SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.
19:20 The young man said to Him, All these things I have
kept; what am I still lacking?
19:21 Jesus said to him, If you wish to be complete, go and
sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.
The Gospel according to Matthew
19:22 But when the young man heard this statement, he went
away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.
19:23 And Jesus said to His disciples, Truly I say to you, it is
hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
19:24 Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God. []
Jesus Talks About His Death
20:17 As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the
twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He
said to them,
20:18 Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of
Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and
they will condemn Him to death,
20:19 and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and
scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be
raised up. []
Jesus Enters Jerusalem
21:1 When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to
Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two
disciples,
21:2 saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and
immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt
with her; untie them and bring them to Me. []
21:6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them,
21:7 and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats
on them; and He sat on the coats.
21:8 Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and
others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading
them in the road.
21:9 The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who
followed, were shouting,
Hosanna[Praise] to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE
WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;
Hosanna in the highest!
21:10 When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred,
saying, Who is this?
21:11 And the crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus,
from Nazareth in Galilee.
Jesus in the Temple
21:12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who
were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the
tables of the money changers and the seats of those who
were selling doves.
21:13 And He said to them, It is written, MY HOUSE
SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER; but you
are making it a ROBBERS DEN.
21:14 And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple,
and He healed them.
21:15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the
wonderful things that He had done, and the children who
were shouting in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of
David, they became indignant[furious] []
35
21:17 And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany,
and spent the night there. []
A Question About Jesus Authority
21:23 When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the
elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching,
and said, By what authority are You doing these things,
and who gave You this authority?
21:24 Jesus said to them, I will also ask you one thing, which
if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do
these things.
21:25 The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven
or from men? And they began reasoning among
themselves, saying, If we say, From heaven, He will
say to us, Then why did you not believe him?
21:26 But if we say, From men, we fear the people; for they
all regard John as a prophet.
21:27 And answering Jesus, they said, We do not know. He
also said to them, Neither will I tell you by what
authority I do these things.
A Story About Two Sons
21:28 But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he
came to the first and said, Son, go work today in the
vineyard.
21:29 And he answered, I will not; but afterward he regretted
it and went.
21:30 The man came to the second and said the same thing;
and he answered, I will, sir; but he did not go.
21:31 Which of the two did the will of his father? They said,
The first. Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you that
the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the
kingdom of God before you.
21:32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and
you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and
prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not
even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.
Renters of a Vineyard
21:33 Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who
PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL
AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND
BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and
went on a journey.
21:34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to
the vine-growers to receive his produce.
21:35 The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and
killed another, and stoned a third.
21:36 Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the
first; and they did the same thing to them.
21:37 But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, They will
respect my son.
21:38 But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said
among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him
and seize his inheritance.
36 The Gospel according to Matthew
21:39 They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and
killed him.
21:40 Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what
will he do to those vine-growers?
21:41 They said to Him, He will bring those wretches to a
wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other
vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper
seasons.
21:42 Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures,
THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,
THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS
CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS
MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES?
21:43 Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be
taken away from you and given to a people, producing
the fruit of it.
21:44 And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces;
but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.
21:45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His
parables, they understood that He was speaking about
them.
21:46 When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people,
because they considered Him to be a prophet.
The Great Banquet
22:1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying,
22:2 The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who
gave a wedding feast for his son.
22:3 And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been
invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to
come.
22:4 Again he sent out other slaves saying, Tell those who
have been invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner;
my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and
everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.
22:5 But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his
own farm, another to his business,
22:6 and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and
killed them.
22:7 But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and
destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.
22:8 Then he said to his slaves, The wedding is ready, but
those who were invited were not worthy.
22:9 Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you
find there, invite to the wedding feast.
22:10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered
together all they found, both evil and good; and the
wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.
22:11 But when the king came in to look over the dinner
guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in
wedding clothes,
22:12 and he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here
without wedding clothes? And the man was speechless.
22:13 Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and
foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
22:14 For many are called, but few are chosen. []
Jesus Condemns the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law of Moses
23:1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples,
23:2 saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have seated
themselves in the chair of Moses;
23:3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not
do according to their deeds; for they say things and do
not do them.
23:4 They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on mens
shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move
them with so much as a finger. []
23:6 They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief
seats in the synagogues,
23:7 and respectful greetings in the market places, and being
called Rabbi by men.
23:8 But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and
you are all brothers.
23:9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your
Father, He who is in heaven.
23:10 Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is,
Christ.
23:11 But the greatest among you shall be your servant.
23:12 Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever
humbles himself shall be exalted.
23:13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people;
for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those
who are entering to go in. []
23:23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
tithe[tax] mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected
the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and
faithfulness; but these are the things you should have
done without neglecting the others. []
23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside
they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
23:26 You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of
the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
23:27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear
beautiful, but inside they are full of dead mens bones
and all uncleanness.
23:28 So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but
inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. []
23:33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape
the sentence of hell?
23:34 Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise
men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify,
and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues,
and persecute from city to city,
23:35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous
blood shed on earth []
23:36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this
generation.
23:37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones
those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather
your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks
under her wings, and you were unwilling.
23:38 Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!
The Gospel according to Matthew
Warnings of Trouble
24:1 Jesus came out from the temple and was going away
when His disciples came up to point out the temple
buildings to Him.
24:2 And He said to them, Do you not see all these things?
Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon
another, which will not be torn down.
24:3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples
came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these
things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming,
and of the end of the age?
24:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, See to it that no
one misleads you.
24:5 For many will come in My name, saying, I am the
Christ, and will mislead many.
24:6 You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See
that you are not frightened, for those things must take
place, but that is not yet the end.
24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and
earthquakes.
24:8 But all these things are merely the beginning of birth
pangs.
24:9 Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill
you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My
name.
24:10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one
another and hate one another.
24:11 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.
24:12 Because lawlessness is increased, most peoples love
will grow cold.
24:13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.
24:14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the
whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then
the end will come. []
When the Son of Man Appears
24:29 But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE
SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL
NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL
from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
24:30 And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the
sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and
they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE
CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.
24:31 And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT
TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER
His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to
the other. []
24:36 But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the
angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
24:37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the
days of Noah.
24:38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the
day that Noah entered the ark,
37
24:39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took
them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
24:40 Then there will be two men in the field; one will be
taken and one will be left.
24:41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be
taken and one will be left.
24:42 Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which
day your Lord is coming.
24:43 But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had
known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he
would have been on the alert and would not have allowed
his house to be broken into.
24:44 For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man
is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. []
The Final Judgment
25:31 But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the
angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
25:32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will
separate them from one another, as the shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats;
25:33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on
the left.
25:34 Then the King will say to those on His right, Come,
you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
25:35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I
was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a
stranger, and you invited Me in;
25:36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited
Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. []
25:41 Then He will also say to those on His left, Depart from
Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been
prepared for the devil and his angels;
25:42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was
thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
25:43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and
you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did
not visit Me. []
25:46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.
The Plot Against Jesus
26:1 When Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His
disciples,
26:2 You know that after two days the Passover is coming,
and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.
26:3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were
gathered together in the court of the high priest, named
Caiaphas;
26:4 and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and kill
Him. []
26:14 Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the
chief priests
26:15 and said, What are you willing to give me to betray Him to
you? And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him.
38 The Gospel according to Matthew
26:16 From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to
betray Jesus.
The Last Supper
26:17 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples
came to Jesus and asked, Where do You want us to
prepare for You to eat the Passover?
26:18 And He said, Go into the city to a certain man, and say
to him, The Teacher says, My time is near; I am to keep
the Passover at your house with My disciples.
26:19 The disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they
prepared the Passover.
26:20 Now when evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table
with the twelve disciples.
26:21 As they were eating, He said, Truly I say to you that one
of you will betray Me.
26:22 Being deeply grieved, they each one began to say to Him,
Surely not I, Lord?
26:23 And He answered, He who dipped his hand with Me in
the bowl is the one who will betray Me.
26:24 The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but
woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It
would have been good for that man if he had not been born.
26:25 And Judas, who was betraying Him, said, Surely it is not
I, Rabbi? Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself.
26:26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after
a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and
said, Take, eat; this is My body.
26:27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave
it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you;
26:28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out
for many for forgiveness of sins.
26:29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine
from now on until that day when I drink it new with you
in My Fathers kingdom.
26:30 After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of
Olives.
Peters Promise
26:31 Then Jesus said to them, You will all fall away because
of Me this night, for it is written, I WILL STRIKE
DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE
FLOCK SHALL BE SCATTERED.
26:32 But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to
Galilee.
26:33 But Peter said to Him, Even though all may fall away
because of You, I will never fall away.
26:34 Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you that this very night,
before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.
26:35 Peter said to Him, Even if I have to die with You, I will
not deny You. All the disciples said the same thing too.
Jesus Prays
26:36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane,
and said to His disciples, Sit here while I go over there
and pray.
26:37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of
Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed.
26:38 Then He said to them, My soul is deeply grieved, to the
point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.
26:39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face
and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this
cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.
26:40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping,
and said to Peter, So, you men could not keep watch
with Me for one hour?
26:41 Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into
temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
26:42 He went away again a second time and prayed, saying,
My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it,
Your will be done.
26:43 Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes
were heavy.
26:44 And He left them again, and went away and prayed a
third time, saying the same thing once more.
26:45 Then He came to the disciples and said to them, Are you
still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and
the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.
26:46 Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me
is at hand!
Jesus is Arrested
26:47 While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the
twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with
swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and
elders of the people.
26:48 Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign,
saying, Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him.
26:49 Immediately Judas went to Jesus and said, Hail, Rabbi!
and kissed Him.
26:50 And Jesus said to him, Friend, do what you have come for.
Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.
26:51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached
and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high
priest and cut off his ear.
26:52 Then Jesus said to him, Put your sword back into its
place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by
the sword.
26:53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and
He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve
legions of angels?
26:54 How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that
it must happen this way?
26:55 At that time Jesus said to the crowds, Have you come
out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as you would
against a robber? Every day I used to sit in the temple
teaching and you did not seize Me.
26:56 But all this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures of the
prophets. Then all the disciples left Him and fled.
The Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus is Questioned
26:57 Those who had seized Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas,
the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were
gathered together.
26:58 But Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the
courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down
with the officers to see the outcome.
26:59 Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying
to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might
put Him to death.
26:60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses
came forward. But later on two came forward,
26:61 and said, This man stated, I am able to destroy the
temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.
26:62 The high priest stood up and said to Him, Do You not
answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?
26:63 But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, I
adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether
You are the Christ, the Son of God.
26:64 Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself;
nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see THE SON
OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF
POWER, and COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF
HEAVEN.
26:65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, He has
blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses?
Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy;
26:66 what do you think? They answered, He deserves death!
26:67 Then they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists;
and others slapped Him,
26:68 and said, Prophesy to us, You Christ; who is the one
who hit You?
Peters Acknowledgment of Jesus
26:69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a
servant-girl came to him and said, You too were with
Jesus the Galilean.
26:70 But he denied it before them all, saying, I do not know
what you are talking about.
26:71 When he had gone out to the gateway, another servant-
girl saw him and said to those who were there, This man
was with Jesus of Nazareth.
26:72 And again he denied it with an oath, I do not know the
man.
26:73 A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter,
Surely you too are one of them; for even the way you
talk gives you away.
26:74 Then he began to curse and swear, I do not know the
man! And immediately a rooster crowed.
26:75 And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said,
Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.
And he went out and wept bitterly.
Jesus is Taken to Pilate
39
27:1 Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the
elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to
put Him to death;
27:2 and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered
Him to Pilate the governor.
27:3 Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He
had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the
thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
27:4 saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. But
they said, What is that to us? See to that yourself!
27:5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary
and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. []
27:11 Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor
questioned Him, saying, Are You the King of the
Jews? And Jesus said to him, It is as you say.
27:12 And while He was being accused by the chief priests and
elders, He did not answer.
27:13 Then Pilate said to Him, Do You not hear how many
things they testify against You?
27:14 And He did not answer him with regard to even a single
charge, so the governor was quite amazed.
The Sentencing of Jesus
27:15 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release
for the people any one prisoner whom they wanted.
27:16 At that time they were holding a notorious prisoner,
called Barabbas.
27:17 So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to
them, Whom do you want me to release for you?
Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?
27:18 For he knew that because of envy they had handed Him over. 27:42 He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the
27:19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent
him a message, saying, Have nothing to do with that
righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream 27:43 HE TRUSTS IN GOD; LET GOD RESCUE Him now, IF
because of Him.
27:20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds
to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death.
27:21 But the governor said to them, Which of the two do you
want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas.
27:22 Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus who
is called Christ? They all said, Crucify Him!
27:23 And he said, Why, what evil has He done? But they
kept shouting all the more, saying, Crucify Him!
27:24 When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but
rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed
his hands in front of the crowd, saying, I am innocent of 27:47 And some of those who were standing there, when they
this Mans blood; see to that yourselves.
27:25 And all the people said, His blood shall be on us and on
our children!
27:26 Then he released Barabbas for them; but after having
Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.
Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
27:27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the
Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around
Him.
40 The Gospel according to Matthew
27:28 They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.
27:29 And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it
on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt
down before Him and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King
of the Jews!
27:30 They spat on Him, and took the reed and began to beat
Him on the head.
27:31 After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe
off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led
Him away to crucify Him.
27:32 As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene
named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear
His cross.
27:33 And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which
means Place of a Skull,
27:34 they gave Him wine to drink mixed with gall; and after
tasting it, He was unwilling to drink.
27:35 And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His
garments among themselves by casting lots.
27:36 And sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him there.
27:37 And above His head they put up the charge against Him
which read, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE
JEWS.
27:38 At that time two robbers were crucified with Him, one on
the right and one on the left.
27:39 And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him,
wagging their heads
27:40 and saying, You who are going to destroy the temple
and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the
Son of God, come down from the cross.
27:41 In the same way the chief priests also, along with the
scribes and elders, were mocking Him and saying,
King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross,
and we will believe in Him.
HE DELIGHTS IN HIM; for He said, I am the Son of God.
27:44 The robbers who had been crucified with Him were also
insulting Him with the same words.
The Death of Jesus
27:45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land
until the ninth hour.
27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
saying, ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI? that is, MY
GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
heard it, began saying, This man is calling for Elijah.
27:48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he
filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him
a drink.
27:49 But the rest of them said, Let us see whether Elijah will
come to save Him.
27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded
up His spirit.
27:51 And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from
top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split.
27:52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints
who had fallen asleep were raised;
27:53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they
entered the holy city and appeared to many.
27:54 Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping
guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the
things that were happening, became very frightened and
said, Truly this was the Son of God!
27:55 Many women were there looking on from a distance, who
had followed Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him.
27:56 Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother
of James and Joseph []
Jesus is Buried
27:57 When it was evening, there came a rich man from
Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become
a disciple of Jesus.
27:58 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.
27:59 And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen
cloth,
27:60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out
in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the
entrance of the tomb and went away.
27:61 And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary,
sitting opposite the grave.
27:62 Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief
priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate,
27:63 and said, Sir, we remember that when He was still alive
that deceiver said, After three days I am to rise again.
27:64 Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until
the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal
Him away and say to the people, He has risen from the
dead, and the last deception will be worse than the first.
27:65 Pilate said to them, You have a guard; go, make it as
secure as you know how.
27:66 And they went and made the grave secure, and along with
the guard they set a seal on the stone.
Jesus is Alive
28:1 Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the
first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary came to look at the grave.
28:2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an
angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and
rolled away the stone and sat upon it.
The Gospel according to Matthew
28:3 And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing
as white as snow.
28:4 The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead
men.
28:5 The angel said to the women, Do not be afraid; for I know
that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.
28:6 He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come,
see the place where He was lying.
28:7 Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from
the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into
Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.
28:8 And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy
and ran to report it to His disciples.
28:9 And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they
came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.
28:10 Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid; go and take
word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they
will see Me.
Report of the Guard
28:11 Now while they were on their way, some of the guard
came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that
had happened.
28:12 And when they had assembled with the elders and
consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the
soldiers,
28:13 and said, You are to say, His disciples came by night
and stole Him away while we were asleep.
28:14 And if this should come to the governors ears, we will
win him over and keep you out of trouble.
28:15 And they took the money and did as they had been
instructed; and this story was widely spread among the
Jews, and is to this day.
What Jesus Followers Must Do
28:16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the
mountain which Jesus had designated.
28:17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were
doubtful.
28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All
authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit,
28:20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and
lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
41
 Theories on Religion & Liberation
from A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right (1844)
Marx, Karl. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right. Marxist. Web. 10 July 2014.
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm>.

For Germany, the criticism of religion has been
essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the
prerequisite[precondition] of all criticism.
The profane[irreligious] existence of error is compromised
as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [speech
for the altars and hearths[homes], i.e., for God and
country] has been refuted. Man, who has found only the
reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven,
where he sought a superman, will no longer feel
disposed[likely] to find the mere appearance of himself, the
non-man [Unmensch], where he seeks and must seek his
true reality.
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes
religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed,
the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has
either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost
himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting
outside the world. Man is the world of man state,
society. This state and this society produce religion,
which is an inverted[upside-down] consciousness of the world,
because they are an inverted world. Religion is the
general theory of this world [], its moral
sanction[authorization], [], and its universal basis of
consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization
of the human essence since the human essence has not
acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is,
therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world
whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the
expression of real suffering and a protest against real
suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,
the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition[end] of religion as the illusory[false]
happiness of the people is the demand for their real
happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions
about their condition is to call on them to give up a
condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion
is, therefore, in embryo[beginning], the criticism of that vale
of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the
chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that
chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall
throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The
criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will
think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has
discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he
will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion
is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as
long as he does not revolve around himself.
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world
of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world.
It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the
service of history, to unmask self-estrangement[alienation] in
its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-
estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of
Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of
religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of
theology[study of religioun] into the criticism of politics. []

from Soicalism and Religion (1948)

Ridley, Frank. Soicalism and Religion. Marxist. Web. 10 July 2014.
<http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/ridley/socialism-religion/introduction.htm>.

Introduction environment? And in practice, whence[from where] comes the

Socialism is a system which in politics expresses itself as
republicanism, in economics as communism and in
religion as atheism.August Bebel
The problem of religion is one that is important both in
the practical and the theoretical spheres. How comes it that
mankind in the past has devoted so large a portion of his
energies to the investigation of alleged spiritual
phenomena to the point of neglecting his proper material
enormous power of organised religiona power which has
dominated what passes for civilisation almost throughout
its entire existence? A power which, whilst shorn[shaved] of
much of its former influence, still wields today an
extensive authority throughout the world. And not only
throughout the primitive world of barbarism but also
among the civilised and professedly[supposedly] scientific
nations of the contemporary[modern] world.

42 Marx / Ridley
 This important question has naturally aroused much
interest and discussion during those comparatively rare
epochs[periods] in human history in which mankind has been
free to think at all about such matters. It goes without
saying that, throughout by far the greater part of history, it
would have been found distinctly dangerous to ask such
questions, indeed impossible, with any measure of legal
and personal impunity. Such tribunals[courts] as the
Inquisition1 saw to that very effectively! For that matter, in
modern Germany and Japan it would have been the reverse
of safe to question the divine origin of the herrenvolk
(master-race2): in Japan, ruled by the divine descendants
of the Sun-Goddess, it would have been distinctly
hazardous to draw attention to too many eclipses of the
Sun! Not even in Europe does complete religious liberty
exist today: in Franco Spain3, as in the Ireland of De
Valera4, the power of the Roman Church still preserves
almost medieval proportions.
In particular, during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries an extensive critical and scientific literature was
devoted to these questions. For these epochs of capitalist
growth and progressive expansion afforded extensive
scope for religious toleration and for scientific and
disinterested religious investigation. In such works as
Frazers monumental Golden Bough, and its French and
German counterparts, the origins of natural religion were
subjected to an exhaustive and critical survey[study], as were
also the higher cosmopolitan and supernatural religions.
The origins, dogmas[beliefs] and general history of
Christianity as the traditional religion of Europe were, in
particular, made the subject of an elaborate and learned
criticism from the time of Voltaire5 down to the latest
researches of our own day.
As a result of these sequential investigations the natural
origins and character of religion, including Christianity,
are now tolerably well-known. On some details there is, no
doubt, still room for controversy. But, in broad outline, we
now know what religion is, in what kind of mental
environment it originally arose and to what kind of
intellectual attitudes its alleged truths appealed. And
since this is so, can we wonder that the rationalistic critics
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [] believed
confidently that, its origins and nature once known and
ascribed to purely natural causes in human immaturity and
ignorance, religion would speedily and automatically
vanish from the social scene?
We now know that these too optimistic rationalists
were wrong: their rationalism was not sufficiently
rational! For religion has not died out. On the contrary, in
many respects, it has increased its power. And it has done
1
Inquisition: (c. 12th-18th Centruy) the judicial system of the Catholic
Church whose combated formal denial or doubt of the Christian faith
2
master-race: a concept in Nazi ideology promoting white purity
3
Franco Spain: (1936-1975) when the dictatorship of Francisco Franco
took control of Spain and established a Chatholic totalitarian government
4
Ireland of De Valera: (1917-1973) refers to politician amon de Valera and
his incorporation of Catholic values into the Constitution of Ireland (1937)
5
Voltaire: (1694-1778) was a French Enlightenment philosopher famous
for his attacks on the Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of
religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.
Marx / Ridley
this because religion is not only an intellectual but a social
product. Because, as a given society declines, it requires
soporifics[sleeping-drug] to drug the multitude[masses]. And
religion is primarily a social , and not an intellectual
phenomenon. For Marx laid bare its essential nature in his
classical epigram: Religion is the heart of a heartless
world, the soul of soulless conditions, the opium of the
people.
For, as a social product, and one at that which arises in a
society divided into classes and based on exploitation[abuse],
religion discharges a necessary role in that type of society,
and cannot die out while such an exploiting society
continues to exist. Hence the socialist criticism of religion
differs profoundly from the purely intellectual criticism of
capitalist scholars. For religion is necessary to the class
state and to class society in general. And, as such, can only
perish with it. Hence, no amount of merely expository or
destructive criticism, useful and necessary as such
criticism is in itself, can finally destroy religion. Only the
coming of a classless society can do that []
Part I: The Origins and Nature of Religion
If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.
Voltaire
I: The Two Roots of Religion
[] When we investigate the history of religion from the
standpoint of the widest possible perspectives it becomes
obvious that we are confronted with, broadly, two main
species of religion. With substantial accuracy we may style
these as, respectively, natural and supernatural
religion. In our next two sections we will glance at the
historical sequence of these two main types of religious
evolution. Here we will glance at their social origins and
character.
Natural religion is the religion of primitive races; that
is, of races which have not yet attained to the cultural level
of civilisation, using this last word in a Marxist sense to
denominate[name] not only a general level of material
efficiency and cultural attainment, but, specifically, a
society divided into classes and regulated by the class
state. Natural religion, contrarily, is the religion of
primitive races who have not yet reached this last level;
who still live in tribal communities based on common
ownership of the means[methods] of production [].
These two types of religion are entirely dissimilar both
in their character and in their motivating social causes.
In the case of natural religion we are dealing with very
primitive societies who carry on an unceasing[constant] battle
with nature in order to wrest[gain] an uncertain existence
from a hostile environment. [] It is compounded chiefly of
fear and ignorance, the two chief social features in all such
primitive societies. Its gods are either personifications of
natural forces, before which primitive man trembles, but
which he does not understand: the Sun, the Moon, the Fire,
the Thunder, etc. Or they are the ghosts of great chiefs,
hunters, warriors, perhaps primitive agriculturalists, whose
memory is held in reverence[respect] by the tribes which have
solved their problem of existence under their leadership, or
43
by means of their prowess[skill] in the chase[i.e. hunting] or in
war, the two chief occupations of all primitive races.
Hence, natural religion, the religion of all pre-civilised
races, is a religion motivated by fear and misunderstanding
of natural forces. It is the product of mans fear and
ignorance of nature . Contrarily, its social roots are very
feeble, and it does not reflect social antagonisms[hostility] and
social oppressions, at least, to any great extent, since
history for such societies has not yet reached the point at
which classes have grown up alongside the expanding
means of production at which the class state presses
heavily upon the enslaved masses.
We are consequently driven to this inevitable
conclusion: primitive races profess a common type of
religion which springs in general from a single source:
misunderstanding, and, in direct consequence, fear of the
terrifying and unknown forces of nature and of natural
phenomena, upon which savage society depends for
existence and before which it is so largely helpless.
With the expansion of the means of production and the
consequent simultaneous and reciprocal[shared] growth of a
class society, of the class state, and of civilisation, the
above state of things inevitably passed away. Along with
the demise[fall] of primitive society there vanished
concurrently[simultaneously] the type of religion which was the
reflex and expression of that society. In its place there
developed a new and distinct type of religion: the religion
of civilised man; and therefore in itself the inevitable
expression of the class-divided society and of the
oppressive class state, which came into being concurrently
with civilisation itself. To this civilised type of religion
we apply the term supernatural, in sharp distinction to the
natural religion of primitive societies.
Supernatural religion differs sharply from natural both in
its social origins and in its generic characteristics. Like all
religion, like its predecessor, it is still based on fear and
ignorance: the historic twin roots of religion. But on social
rather than on natural fear. As society becomes
progressively more civilised: that is, as it simultaneously
acquires more knowledge of and more control over natural
processes, its dependence on and consequent fear of nature
becomes continuously less. [] As civilisation advances,
fear of nature declines along with growing knowledge of
and power over its processes.
But fear and ignorance of nature are not the only kind of
fear and ignorance. As civilisation progressively advances
and frees mankind from the domination of natural forces, it
concurrently enslaves it to social forces expressed in the
exploitation of a class society and oppression by a class
state. All civilisation hitherto is synonymous with slavery
and exploitation of the majority by the ruling minority.
Consequently, in civilised society fear of man, of the
ruling classes and of the class state which is their
embodiment, takes the place of primitive fear of nature.
Hence, in the higher supernatural religions which
accompany the rise of civilisation social causes
predominate over natural causes. [] The citizen of a
modern capitalist state knows the nature of eclipses, and
no longer lives in fear of drought, but he nonetheless has
44 Marx / Ridley
the liveliest fear of unemployment, bankruptcy and
military conscription[enlistment]; all of which are social
causes, unknown to primitive and inseparable from
(capitalist) civilised societies. []
III: Supernatural Religion
With the advent[start] of civilisation and concurrently of
class society and the class state, barbarism[brutality] began to
disappear, and along with it the type of religion which we
have seen above to be characteristic of barbarism. In its
place there arose [] one which reflected the new and
radically different social conditions which came into
existence along with civilisation and class society [].
By the term civilisation we imply a social order in
which the means of production have expanded to the point
where, for the first time, they yield a surplus[excess] wealth
over and above the lowest needs of current society for
immediate consumption. This wealth is owned and utilised
in the form of private property, by the ruling class for the
time being, which maintains its exploitation of the
subjugated[defeated] masses by the agency of a novel[new]
institution unknown in primitive society, that is, the class
state []. In all such societies, accordingly, the class
struggle for control of surplus-value and for the
consequent right to exploit, remains the decisive social
factor. []
The earliest civilised religions arose in the earliest
civilisations[]. These religions represent the faithful
reflex of the societies wherein they originated. For
example, each city-state in Egypt and Chaldea had its own
local God. The importance of the state-god waxed and
waned[grew and decreased] proportionately with the temporal
political and military fortunes of his terrestrial[earthy]
worshippers here below! Thus, when Assyria, by utilising
iron weapons for the first time in the history of war,
became the dominant empire in western Asia (c 800BC),
simultaneously, Assur, the local Assyrian god, was
elevated to the first place in the heavenly hierarchy: viz,
the social discovery of iron for military purposes led to
alterations not only in the terrestrial[earthly], but, equally, in
the celestial[heavenly] sphere! Similarly, when the Egyptian
city of Thebes became the capital of a united Egyptian
empire, Amon, the city-god, became supreme over the
other gods. Indeed, throughout the entire history of
civilisation heaven faithfully reflects the vicissitudes[changes]
of earth! The growth of equality in heaven accompanies
the growth of inequality on earth!
When we turn to more advanced forms of religion than
pagan polytheism the same phenomenon recurs. According
to the writers of orthodox text-books on the history of
comparative religion, the broad distinction in religious
evolution is that between polytheismbelief in the
simultaneous existence of many gods, and monotheism,
that is, the belief in one god alone. But, in actuality, there
is no absolute distinction between the two forms of belief.
The historic link between polytheism and monotheism is
found in monolatry, that is, the belief that many gods
exist, but that one alone (ours, of course), is superior to
all others. []
 The highest forms of religion faithfully reflect the
highest forms of society. This age-old truth is seen with
particular clarity in the case of the great
cosmopolitan[diverse] and ethical religions which have arisen
in Europe and Asia during the course of the last 2500
years: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and their modern
off-shoots. These universal religions reflect with the
fidelity[loyalty] of a mirror the social evolution of civilisation
throughout this era. They are cosmopolitan because society
during this period had been steadily widening its
boundaries and advancing from the tribal, first to the
national, then to the cosmopolitan sphere. They are ethical,
since in a society founded on the exploitation of the many
by the few mere brute force is insufficient to hold the
masses in subjection: for this last purpose, an ethic is
required; that is, the masses must be persuaded to do what
it is against their real interest to do, and submit voluntarily
to exploitation on earth in the name of heaven! And they
all presuppose[assume] the regime[rulers] of classes, private
property and exploitation, not as temporary social phases,
but as something fixed and eternal: the sacred rights of
private property! Such universally found commandments
as Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet, Thou
shalt not kill, etc, etc, presuppose a state of society based
on private property, inequality and violence. It is one of
the most glaring paradoxes of all civilised ethics that
every society based on social theft and murder by the rich
must peremptorily forbid individual theft and murder by
the poor as an essential prerequisite for its existence! []
As the Roman Empire unified the local city-states of the
Mediterranean, so, concurrently, Christianity unified the
local religious cults []. Similarly, it is well known that the
rise of individualistic capitalism in the sixteenth century
led to new forms of Christianity, in the reformed Churches,
which accommodated themselves to the new competitive
ethics so different from those of feudalism. For example,
punctuality is pre-eminently a capitalist virtue.
Protestantism is the first religion to make it a religious
virtue: the proletarian[worker] who is late at the factory gate
cannot be in time at the door of heaven! One could give
countless similar examples. []
Religion has historically passed through two main
epochs. The era of barbarism throughout which religion
expressed chiefly mans fear of and helplessness before
Nature. And the era of civilisation, in which religion was
primarily an instrument in the hands of the successive
ruling classes and which primarily reflected fear of these
classes and of the fundamental social antagonisms[hostilities]
which have [] dominated every class-ruled society.
Part II: Religion and Society
Religion is the opium of the people.Marx
I: Religion and the Class War
The fundamental and decisive fact in every social order
that has arisen since prehistoric times has been the class
war for control of the surplus-value produced by that
society. And the control of surplus value, of the means of
Marx / Ridley
production, carries with it automatically control of the
state, of the particular power of suppression (Engels) and
of cultural processes in general. Historically nothing is
more certain or well-established than that, in the words of
Marx, the [dominant] ideas of every age are the ideas of
its ruling class. []
The part that official religion has played in this age-long
process is evident on every page of the historical record.
As the opium of the people, as a drug, a soporific to
deaden the effect of an inevitable social misery in a class-
ruled society; religion has played always an important and
often a decisive role in every known class society that has
hitherto existed.
In the very earliest civilised societies of which we have
any exact knowledge, the sacerdotal[holy]
[religious_rulers]
theocracies of the pre-classical archaic world
[] such as Egypt, Babylonia, Crete, God and the State
were virtually synonymous terms. [] The very name of
the ruler of the oldest known civilisation, that of Egypt,
derives from religious auspices: viz, Pharaoh is derived
from Per-Ea, the Great House; the Temple. And has not
the most learned of ancient philosophers, Aristotle, left it
on record that the Egyptian priests, the first leisured class
in history, were the creators of civilisation?
The colossal monuments left behind by this earliest
civilisation, the giant Pyramids [] were about equally
temples and tombs. [] Literally, whole generations of
slaves must have perished worn-out in the task of building
an adequate memorial to the ruling class of the first known
civilisation, symbolised in the Divine Pharaohs, for whom
the Pyramids originally served as tombs: a
necropolis[cemetery] of exploitation!
When we turn to subsequent[following] ages and
civilisations we are confronted with the same or a closely
similar spectacle. The Roman Empire, the greatest engine
of exploitation known up to that date, identified its religion
with the worship of Caesar, of the Emperor: []
Nor is it any different essentially when we turn to the
higher religions, such as Christianity and Islam. For if, as
is not at all unlikely, Christianity itself started as a
revolutionary mass movement against Roman society[]
In that respect, the conversion of the (Roman) Emperor
Constantine (fourth century AD), was the
perversion[distortion] of (the original) Christianity. []
Historians now admit that the Roman Emperors of the
Decline, in adopting Christianity as the state religion, were
motivated primarily by political and economic motives
rather than by considerations of a purely religious
character. They needed moral cement wherewith to hold
together their cracking administrative structure, and to
arrest the decay of their exhausted civilisation in the era of
the Barbarian Invasions. []
Since its official adoption as a state-religion Christianity
has faithfully acted as the docile[silent] instrument of the
class state; it was always for the classes against the
masses; for the exploiters against the exploited. Under the
peculiar conditions of the Middle Ages the Church indeed
became itself the dominant force in society and the
exploiter-in-chief. According to a moderate computation,
45
one-third of the land of Europe was ecclesiastical[church]
property throughout this period: and this in an
agrarian[farming] society when land was (in feudal law) real
property, that is, the kind of property which pre-eminently
bestowed social prestige and political power. It is well
known how during this epoch, the golden age of (Catholic)
Christianity, the Church waged the most frightful wars in
the so-called Crusades (c 1100-1300 AD), and that its
Gestapo[Nazi police], the Inquisition, bloodily and most
effectively suppressed every free movement of the human
mind throughout this entire era, during which a law
against dangerous thoughts (to employ modern Japanese
terminology) was in unbroken operation. []
And subsequent religious history is the same. Every
social revolution from the French to the Russian has had to
meet the full fury of the Churches. (According to some
historians, it was the influence of Methodism which
prevented the French Revolution from spreading to
England.) In both its ideology and its property-
relationships official religion has only played one role in
the class war: that of chaplain[priest], apologist[protector], and,
where necessary, active auxiliary[supporter] to the ruling class.
The lack of real democracy on earth is made up by a
fictitious[false] democracy in heaven.
And what has been said above of Christianity is equally
true and could easily be duplicated, had we the necessary
space, in respect of other religions also. For example,
Islam has always stubbornly opposed even the
bourgeois[middle-class] revolution: Arabia and Afghanistan,
still strongholds of Mohammedan clericalism, are almost
completely feudal. [] Whilst Hinduism, by means of its
doctrine of reincarnation, has cleverly allayed the
discontent[unhappy] of the Indian masses with their frightful
conditions in this life! []
To sum up: as far as the class struggle is concerned,
official religion is, and always has been, on the side of the
exploiters. [] And the same is true today. []
II: The Churches and Society
[] By far the most powerful, best organised, and
logically consistent of the Christian Churches is the
Roman Catholic Church. This originally medieval and
feudal institution almost foundered[sank] in the storms of the
(Protestant) Reformation era which witnessed the opening-
up of the world market and the earlier phases of the
bourgeois revolution against feudalism and clericalism. By
a skilful combination of terror and demagogy the Catholic
Counter-Reformation extricated the Church from its
dangerous situation and, under the brilliant direction of the
Jesuits, made a masterly adaptation to the rising capitalist
social order. []
Despite its claims to Divine origin the Roman Church is
an institution with a very strong sense of survival-values.
It was not an accident that the biologist, Lamarck, who
invented the theory of creative evolution, was a pupil of
the Jesuits: to arrive at his theory of the giraffe which
deliberately grew a long neck in order to survive, all he
had to do was to study the evolution of the famous Order
(of Catholicism)! Today, the Papacy[Popo] knows that it is in
46 Marx / Ridley
even greater danger than at the time of the Reformation.
For whilst it survived Protestantism it could not possibly
survive Communism, which would necessarily be fatal to
all religion [].
There is no doubt at all that the fundamental aim of the
present-day Papacy is at all costs to defeat Communism.
[] On the one hand, the Popes issue encyclical letters
denouncing the abuses of capitalism, and demanding a
square deal for the masses. On the other hand, whenever
the masses attempt to secure a square deal for themselves
it backs terrorist movements against them. It is well known
how actively it assisted Hitler and Mussolini to come to
power; and how [] strenuously the Roman Church exerted
its worldwide activity on behalf of Franco during the
Spanish Social War. []
The Papacy is itself a totalitarian[dictator] institution. For it,
socialism is not a question of politics but a moral
question. []
To sum up: as the social utility of religion becomes less,
and as the Social Revolution gains ground, everywhere
organised religion allies itself more closely with the forces
of reaction in other spheres. The gods form a united front
against the Revolution! For the Revolution digs a common
grave for all the gods!
III: Religion and Socialism
After what has been written above it is unnecessary to
devote much time to the question of the relations of
Socialism and Religion: they necessarily mix about as well
as oil and water! We have already seen what were the
historical causes for the appearance and growth of religion
and how it arose out of fear and ignorance; fear and
ignorance in savage societies before the incomprehensible
phenomena of nature; fear and ignorance of the
uncontrollable forces of civilisation and of the social
tyranny which is inseparable from the operations of a
class-dominated society. In this last respect, the
aphorism[saying] of that shrewd bourgeois politician
Napoleon1, I regard religion not as the mystery of the
incarnation, but as the mystery of the Social Order, is
abundantly borne out by history. Indeed, before Bonaparte,
Robespierre2 had expressed to perfection the role of
religion in a society based like all class societies on
fundamental inequality and injustice: Atheism is
aristocratic. The idea of a god who avenges outraged
innocence and punishes triumphant crime, is essentially
the idea of the people.
Or in other words, if there is no justice here, there must
be somewhere else!an obvious case of wishful
thinking! If God did not exist it would be necessary to
invent him: this remark of Voltaire is absolutely correct of
any society based on exploitation, even if the
circumstances of his era prevented Voltaire himself from
drawing this correct conclusion.
For, we repeat: there is nothing accidental about the rise
and historical role of religion. It is a mere waste of time to
1
2
Napoleon Bonaparte: (1769-1821) French Emperor; r. 1804-1814, 1815.
Maximilien de Robespierre : (1758-1794) a French lawyer and
politician, and one of most influential figures of the French Revolution.
try to kill it by argument or ridicule where the social or To sum up: Religion is a social phenomenon in present-
natural causes exist that inevitably result in its day society. Hence no amount of merely negative and
reappearance. To attempt to do this is, indeed, the critical propaganda can destroy it. Only the positive
cardinal[central] error of bourgeois rationalism which lops achievement of a classless society can do that by
down the branches of religion but leaves its roots abolishing its causes. The war against the gods is,
untouched. Wherever injustice and fear exist men will seek henceforth, equivalent to the class war for a socialist
a remedy elsewhere, if none exists here. Hence as an society: Forward to the Social Revolution!
Anglican bishop recently naively remarked: Ages of fear
have always been ages of religion. For example, after the Epilogue: The Death of the Gods
Roman slaves had failed to win their social liberty under Man is a bridge and not a goal.Nietzsche
Spartacus(73-71 BCE), they resorted to the spiritual salvation
of Christianity. There is little more to add. Religion in its present form
Hence, to seek to abolish religion in a society founded becomes ever more obviously a parasite on the exploiting
on exploitation is futile[useless]. The ancient Greek and civilisation and society []. As the machine-age develops it
Roman freethinkers such as Epicurus(341-270 BCE) and becomes more and more an absurdity, and its specific
Lucretius(c. 99-c. 55 BCE) demolished every theological dogmas[beliefs] approximate ever more closely to self-
argument as well as their modern successors have done, evident mumbo-jumbo. [] The gods are old: they have
but when Paganism passed from the scene it was become senile[confused]: it is time for them to die!
Christianity, not Atheism, which took its place. And, we But they will die no natural death. Capital will keep
may add, the medieval freethinkers who perished at the them alive even, if necessary, by artificial stimulants! As
stake of the Inquisition could testify that the change, as far the capitalist civilisation declines, as war follows war, each
as freedom of thought was concerned, was merely from more total and soul-destroying than the last, religion
the frying-pan into the fire! again plants its feet firmly on the familiar ground of fear,
If, however, it follows from the above that religion and, like the fabled giant, grows stronger with every
cannot die out or be abolished in a class society, it follows contact. In this society, religion will never die out. This is,
equally and by the same reasoning that it could not survive above all, an age of fear, and fear and superstition are age-
under the world-order of international socialism. Once a long twins.
communist order was fully established the twin Only the Social Revolution will destroy religion by
foundations of religion, ignorance and fear, would be torn abolishing its effective causes. Thereafter, man takes the
up by the roots. International socialism, by doing away place of god. An evolving earth succeeds a static heaven as
with class exploitation and by developing to the fullest Humanity, now, at long last, master of his own destiny in a
possible extent the unfathomed productive potentialities of free society, moves ever onward from the ape-man of
the machine-age, hitherto hardly touched under capitalism, yesterday to the man of today, and to the superman of
would make poverty and insecurity absolutely meaningless tomorrow. Today gods and capitalists stand together:
terms in an age of universal plenty. Whilst war, the third tomorrow, gods and capitalists will fall together.
partner in the unholy capitalist trinity, would necessarily Chase gods from the skies and capitalists from the earth.
pass into oblivion[nothingness] along with the competitive Forward to the Social Revolution! Mankind comes of age!
capitalism and imperialism which is its sole efficient
cause.
All the social roots of religion would thus
simultaneously disappear. And, of course, it goes without
saying that the last remains of barbaric ignorance and
superstition which still survive from pre-civilised eras
would vanish before the impact of universal free education
based on the scientific humanism that is inseparable from
socialism, and no longer twisted as today by class
domination into a mere machine for producing
standardised wage-slaves, mechanical minders of
machines, and servile robots. []
In the meanwhile, prior to the conquest of power, the
revolutionary socialist party continues its necessary
propaganda against all manifestations of capitalism,
including those which belong to the sphere of religion.
Whether it is necessary to attack religion specifically
depends on local and on particular circumstances, but
every reactionary movement of the Churches in our current
society should be duly noted and exposed. It goes without
saying that a revolutionary party has no official relations
with religion [].

Marx / Ridley 47
 Theories on Religion & Liberation
from A Theology of Liberation (1971)
Gutirrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation.
C. Inda, & J. Eagleson (Eds.). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 1988.
INTRODUCTION
This book is an attempt at reflection, based on the
Gospel and the experiences of men and women committed
to the process of liberation in the oppressed and exploited
land of Latin America. It is a theological reflection born of
the experience of shared efforts to abolish the current
unjust situation and to build a different society, freer and
more human. Many in Latin America have started along
the path of a commitment to liberation, and among them is
a growing number of Christians; whatever the validity of
these pages, it is due to their experiences and reflections.
Our greatest desire is not to betray their experiences and
efforts to elucidate[clarify] the meaning of their solidarity
with the oppressed.
Our purpose is not to elaborate an ideology to justify
postures already taken, nor to undertake a feverish search
for security in the face of the radical challenges which
confront the faith, nor to fashion a theology from which
political action is deduced. It is rather to let ourselves be
judged by the Word of the Lord, to think through our faith,
to strengthen our love, and to give reason for our hope
from within a commitment which seeks to become more
radical, total, and efcacious[effective]. It is to reconsider the
great themes of the Christian life within this radically
changed perspective and with regard to the new questions
posed by this commitment. This is the goal of the so-called
theology of liberation.
Many signicant efforts along these lines are being
made in Latin America. Insofar as we know about them,
they have been kept in mind and have contributed to this
study. We wish to avoid, however, the kind of reflection
whichlegitimately concerned with preventing the
mechanical transfer of an approach foreign to our
historical and social coordinatesneglects the contribution
of the universal Christian community. It seems better,
moreover, to acknowledge explicitly this contribution than
to introduce surreptitiously[sneakily] and uncritically certain
ideas elaborated in another context which can only be
fruitful among us if they undergo a healthy and frank
scrutiny[inspection].
A reflection on the theological meaning of the process
of the liberation of man throughout history demands
methodologically that we define our terms. The first part
of this book is devoted to that purpose. This will enable us
to indicate why we pay special attention in this work to the
critical function of theology with respect to the presence
and activity of man in history. The most important instance
of this presence in our times, especially in underdeveloped
and oppressed countries, is the struggle to construct a just
and fraternal society, where people can live with dignity
48
and be the agents of their own destiny. It is our opinion
that the term development does not well express these
profound aspirations. Liberation, on the other hand, seems
to express them better. Moreover, in another way the
notion of liberation is more exact and all-embracing: it
emphasizes that man transforms himself by conquering his
liberty throughout his existence and his history. The Bible
presents liberationsalvationin Christ as the total gift,
which, by taking on the levels we indicate, gives the whole
process of liberation its deepest meaning and its complete
and unforeseeable fulfillment. Liberation can thus be
approached as a single salvic[towards salvation] process. This
viewpoint, therefore, permits us to consider the unity,
without confusion, of mans various dimensions, that is, his
relationships with other men and with the Lord, which
theology has been attempting to establish for some time;
this approach will provide the framework for our
reflection.
It is tting, secondly, to show that the problem which
the theology of liberation poses is simultaneously
traditional and new. This twofold characteristic will be
more evident if we analyze the different ways in which
theology has historically responded to this problem. This
will lead us to conclude that because the traditional
approaches have been exhausted, new areas of theological
reflection are being sought. Our examination should help
us remove the obstacles from our path and move ahead
more quickly. The second part of the work deals with this
matter.
The preceding analysis leads us to reconsider the
practice of the Church in todays world. The situation in
Latin America, the only continent among the exploited and
oppressed peoples where Christians are in the majority, is
especially interesting. An attempt to describe and interpret
the forms under which the Latin American Church is
present in the process of liberationespecially among the
most committed Christian groupswill allow us to
establish the questions for an authentic theological
reflection. These will be the first efforts along these lines.
The third part of this treatise is devoted to this attempt.
The previous remarks make it clear that the question
regarding the theological meaning of liberation is, in truth,
a questions about the very meaning of Christianity and
about the mission of the Church. There was a time when
the Church responded to any problem by calmly appealing
to its doctrinal and vital resources. Today the seriousness
and scope of the process which we call liberation is such
that Christian faith and the Church are being radically
challenged. They are being asked to show what
significance they have for a human task which has reached
adulthood. The greater part of our study is concerned with
Gutirrez
this aspect. We approach the subject within the framework
of the unity and, at the same time, the complexity of the
process of liberation centered in the salvific work of
Christ. We are aware, however, that we can only sketch
these considerations, or more precisely, outline the new
questionswithout claiming to give conclusive answers.
The novelty and shifting quality of the problems posed
by the commitment to liberation make the use of adequate
language and sufficiently precise concepts rather difficult.
Nevertheless, we present this study in the hope that it will
be useful, and especially because we are confident that the
confrontation necessarily implied in publishing will allow
us to improve and deepen these reflections.
The present study is based on a paper presented at the Encuentro
Nacional del Movimiento Sacerdotal ONIS, July 1968, in
Chimbote, Peru, published by the MIEC Documentation Service
in Montevideo (1969) with the title Hacia una teologia de la
liberation. The original lecture was updated for a presentation at
the Consultation on Theology and Development organized by
SODEPAX, November 1969, in Cartigny, Switzerland, and
published as Notes on a Theology of Liberation, in In Search of
a Theology of Development: A Sodepax Report (Lausanne, 1970).
This study follows the same line of thought.
PART 1
THEOLOGY AND LIBERATION
Theology and liberation are terms subject to a variety
of interpretations. In order to present our study properly
and clearly, we must examine critically the notion of
theology which we will use throughout. Likewise, it is
necessary to determine, at least in rough outline, what it is
we understand by liberation. As we progress, various
shades of meaning and deeper levels of understanding will
complement this initial effort.
CHAPTER ONE
THEOLOGY: A CRITICAL REFLECTION
Theological reflectionthat is, the understanding of
the faitharises spontaneously and inevitably in the
believer, in all those who have accepted the gift of the
Word of God. Theology is intrinsic[inherent] to a life of faith
seeking to be authentic and complete and is, therefore,
essential to the common consideration of this faith in the
ecclesial[church] community. There is present in all
believersand more so in every Christian communitya
rough outline of a theology. There is present an effort to
understand the faith, something like a pre-understanding of
that faith which is manifested in life, action, and concrete
attitude. It is on this foundation, and only because of it,
that the edice[system] of theologyin the precise and
technical sense of the termcan be erected. This
foundation is not merely a jumping-off point, but the soil
into which theological reflection stubbornly and
Gutirrez
permanently sinks its roots and from which it derives its
strength.1
But the focus of theological work, in the strict sense of
the term, has undergone many transformations throughout
the history of the Church. Bound to the role of the
Church, theology is dependent upon its historical
development, writes Christian Duquoc. Moreover, as
Congar observed recently, this evolution has accelerated to
a certain extent in recent years: The theological work has
changed in the past twenty-five years.
THE CLASSICAL TASKS OF THEOLOGY
Theological study has fulfilled different functions
throughout the history of the Christian community, but this
does not necessarily mean that any of these different
approaches has today been denitively superseded[outdated].
Although expressed in different ways, the essential effort
to understand the faith has remained. Moreover, the more
penetrating and serious efforts have yielded decisive gains,
opening paths along which all subsequent theological
reflection must travel. In this perspective it is more
accurate to speak of permanent tasksalthough they have
emerged at different moments in the history of the
Churchthan of historically successive stages of theology.
Two of these functions are considered classical: theology
as wisdom and theology as rational knowledge.
Theology as Wisdom
In the early centuries of the Church, what we now
term theology was closely linked to the spiritual life. It was
essentially a meditation on the Bible, geared toward
spiritual growth. Distinctions were made between the
beginners, the faithful, and the advanced, who sought
perfection. This theology was above all monastic[reclusive]
and therefore characterized by a spiritual life removed
from worldly concerns; it offered a model for every
Christian desirous of advancing along the narrow path of
sanctity and seeking a life of spiritual perfection.
Anxious to dialogue with the thought of its time, this
theology used Platonic and Neoplatonic categories. In
these philosophies it found a metaphysics which stressed
the existence of a higher world and the transcendence of an
Absolute from which everything came and to which
everything returned. The present life, on the other hand,
was regarded as essentially contingent and was not valued
sufficiently.
1
What Antonio Gramsci said of philosophy is also true of
theology: It is necessary to destroy the widely-held prejudice
that philosophy is something extremely difficult because it is the
intellectual activity proper to a certain category of scientic
specialists or professional and systematic philosophers. It is
necessary, therefore, to demonstrate first that all men are
philosophers, establishing the parameters and characteristics of
this spontaneous philosophy proper to every-man
(Avviamemento allo studio della filosofia e del materialismo
storico, Saggio introduttivo in La formazione delluomo [Rome:
Editori Riuniti, 1969], p. 217).
49
 It is important to remember, however, that at this same
time the reflections of the Greek Fathers on the theology of
the worldcosmos and historygo well beyond a mere
personal spiritual meditation and place theology in a wider
and more fruitful context.
Around the fourteenth century, a rift appears between
theologians and masters of the spiritual life. This division
can be seen, for example, in such books as The Imitation of
Christ, which has made a deep impact upon Christian
spirituality during past centuries. We are suffering from
this dichotomy[divide] even today, although it is true that
Biblical renewal and the need to reflect upon lay
spirituality are providing us with the broad outlines of
what might be considered a new spiritual theology.
The spiritual function of theology, so important in the
early centuries and later regarded as parenthetical,
constitutes, nevertheless, a permanent dimension of
theology.
Theology as Rational Knowledge
From the twelfth century on, theology begins to
establish itself as a science. The process culminated with
Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. On the basis of
Aristotelian categories, theology was classied as a
subaltern[lower] science. St. Thomass view, nevertheless,
was broad and synthetical: theology is not only a science,
but also wisdom flowing from the charity which unites
man to God. But this balance is lost when the above-
mentioned separation appears between theology and
spirituality in the fourteenth century.
The Thomistic idea of science is unclear today
because it does not correspond to the definition generally
accepted by the modern mind. But the essential feature of
St. Thomas Aquinass work is that theology is an
intellectual discipline, born of the meeting of faith and
reason. From this point of view, therefore, it is more
accurate to regard the theological task not as a science, but
as rational knowledge.
The function of theology as rational knowledge is also
permanentinsofar as it is a meeting between faith and
reason, not exclusively between faith and any one
philosophy, nor even between faith and philosophy in
general. Reason has, especially today, many other
manifestations than philosophical ones. The understanding
of the faith is also following along new paths in our day:
the social, psychological, and biological sciences. The
social sciences, for example, are extremely important for
theological reflection in Latin America. Theological
thought not characterized by such a rationality and
disinterestedness would not be truly faithful to an
understanding of the faith.
But it is well to remember, especially with respect to
the outdated views which still persist in some quarters, that
in Scholastic theology after the thirteenth century there is a
degradation[degrading] of the Thomistic concept of theology.
There arises at that time, regardless of outward
appearances, a very different way of approaching the
theological task. The demands of rational knowledge will
50 Gutirrez
be reduced to the need for systematization and clear
exposition. Scholastic theology will thus gradually
become, especially after the Council of Trent1, an
ancillary[secondary] discipline of the magisterium[authority] of
the Church. Its function will be (1) to define, present, and
explain revealed truths; (2) to examine doctrine, to
denounce and condemn false doctrines, and to defend true
ones; (3) to teach revealed truths authoritatively.
In summary, theology is of necessity both spirituality
and rational knowledge. These are permanent and
indispensable functions of all theological thinking.
However, both functions must be salvaged, at least
partially, from the division and deformations they have
suffered throughout history. A reflective outlook and style
especially must be retained, rather than one or another
specific achievement gained in a historical context
different from ours.
THEOLOGY as CRITICAL REFLECTION on PRAXIS2
The function of theology as critical reection on
praxis has gradually become more clearly defined in recent
years, but it has its roots in the first centuries of the
Churchs life. The Augustinian theology of history which
we find in The City of God,3 for example, is based on a
true analysis of the signs of the times and the demands
with which they challenge the Christian community.
Historical Praxis
For various reasons the existential and active aspects
of the Christian life have recently been stressed in a
different way than in the immediate past.
In the first place, charity has been fruitfully
rediscovered as the center of the Christian life. This has led
to a more Biblical view of the faith as an act of trust, a
1
The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento
(Trent) and Bologna, northern Italy, was one of the Roman
Catholic Church's most important unity councils. Prompted by
the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the
embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.
2
Praxis: practice, as distinguished from theory; application or
use, as of knowledge or skills.
3
The City of God: The sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 left
Romans in a deep state of shock, and many Romans saw it as
punishment for abandoning traditional Roman religion for
Christianity. In response to these accusations, and in order to
console Christians, Augustine wrote The City of God, arguing for
the truth of Christianity over competing religions and
philosophies and that Christianity is not only not responsible for
the Sack of Rome, but also was responsible for the success of
Rome. He attempted to console Christians, writing that, even if
the earthly rule of the Empire was imperiled, it was the City of
God that would ultimately triumph. Augustine's eyes were fixed
on Heaven, a theme of many Christian works of Late Antiquity,
and despite Christianity's designation as the official religion of
the Empire, Augustine declared its message to be spiritual rather
than political. Christianity, he argued, should be concerned with
the mystical, heavenly city, the New Jerusalemrather than with
earthly politics (from Wikipedia).
going out of ones self, a commitment to God and
neighbor, a relationship with others. It is in this sense that
St. Paul tells us that faith works through charity: love is the
nourishment and the fullness of faith, the gift of ones self
to the Other, and invariably to others. This is the
foundation of the praxis of the Christian, of his active
presence in history. According to the Bible, faith is the
total response of man to God, who saves through love. In
this light, the understanding of the faith appears as the
understanding not of the simple affirmationalmost
memorizationof truths, but of a commitment, an overall
attitude, a particular posture toward life.
In a parallel development, Christian spirituality has
seen a significant evolution. In the early centuries of the
Church there emerged the primacy, almost exclusiveness,
of a certain kind of contemplative life, hermitical,
monastic, characterized by withdrawal from the world, and
presented as the model way to sanctity. About the twelfth
century the possibility of sharing contemplation by means
of preaching and other forms of apostolic activity began to
be considered. This point of view was exemplified in the
mixed life (contemplative and active) of the mendicant[given
to begging]
orders and was expressed in the formula:
contemplata aliis tradere (to transmit to others the fruits
of contemplation). Viewed historically this stage can be
considered as a transition to Ignatian spirituality, which
sought a difficult but fruitful synthesis between
contemplation and action: in actione contemplativus
(contemplative in action). This process, strengthened in
recent years by the search for a spirituality of the
laity[ordinary people], culminates today in the studies on the
religious value of the profane and in the spirituality of the
activity of the Christian in the world.
Moreover, today there is a greater sensitivity to the
anthropological aspects of revelation. The Word about
God is at the same time a promise to the world. In
revealing God to us, the Gospel message reveals us to
ourselves in our situation before the Lord and with other
men. The God of Christian revelation is a God made man,
hence the famous comment of Karl Barth regarding
Christian anthropocentrism: Man is the measure of all
things, since God became man. All this has caused the
revaluation of the presence and the activity of man in the
world, especially in relation to other men. On this subject
Congar writes: Seen as a whole, the direction of
theological thinking has been characterized by a
transference away from attention to the being per se of
supernatural realities, and toward attention to their
relationship with man, with the world, and with the
problems and the affirmations of all those who for us
represent the Others. There is no horizontalism in this
approach. It is simply a question of the rediscovery of the
indissoluble unity of man and God.
On the other hand, the very life of the Church appears
ever more clearly as a locus theologicus. Regarding the
participation of Christians in the important social
movements of their time, Chenu wrote insightfully more
than thirty years ago: They are active loci theologici for
the doctrines of grace, the Incarnation, and the redemption,
Gutirrez
as expressly promulgated[promoted] and described in detail by
the papal encyclicals[letter]. They are poor theologians who,
wrapped up in their manuscripts and scholastic
disputations[arguments], are not open to these amazing events,
not only in the pious[holy] fervor[passion] of their hearts but
formally in their science; there is a theological datum[starting
point]
and an extremely fruitful one, in the presence of the
Spirit. The so-called new theology attempted to adopt
this posture some decades ago. The fact that the life of the
Church is a source for all theological analysis has been
recalled to mind often since then. The Word of God
gathers and is incarnated in the community of faith, which
gives itself to the service of all men.
Vatican Council II1 has strongly reaffirmed the idea of
a Church of service and not of power. This is a Church
which is not centered upon itself and which does not nd
itself except when it loses itself, when it lives the joys
and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of men of this
age (Gaudium et spes, no. 1). All of these trends provide
a new focus for seeing the presence and activity of the
Church in the world as a starting point for theological
reflection.
What since John XXIII and Vatican Council II began
to be called a theology of the signs of the times can be
characterized along the same lines, although this takes a
step beyond narrow ecclesial limits. It must not be
forgotten that the signs of the times are not only a call to
intellectual analysis. They are above all a call to pastoral
activity, to commitment, and to service. Studying the signs
1
Vatican Council II: When Pope John XXIII announced the
creation of the Second Vatican Council (also known as Vatican
II) in January 1959, it shocked the world. There hadn't been an
ecumenical council an assembly of Roman Catholic religious
leaders meant to settle doctrinal issues in nearly 100 years.
"Many people maintained that with the definition of papal
infallibility in 1870, councils were no longer needed. So it was a
big surprise," Georgetown University professor Rev. John W.
O'Malley says.
The council called between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops and
thousands of observers, auditors, sisters, laymen and laywomen
to four sessions at St. Peter's Basilica between 1962 and 1965.
Cultural changes in the aftermath of World War II spelled a need
to reconsider church practices. These meetings did just that 16
documents in total came out of it, laying a foundation for the
church as we know it today.
O'Malley says a theme of the documents was reconciliation.
In keeping, they allowed for Catholics to pray with other
Christian denominations, encouraged friendship with other non-
Christian faiths, and opened the door for languages besides Latin
to be used during Mass. Other new positions concerned
education, the media and divine revelation.
Most prominently, says Xavier University's Peter A. Huff,
the council highlighted the church's willingness to operate in the
contemporary realm.
"Prior to this time, the church had been almost seen as a
fortress, very much concerned about its own internal stability and
integrity and engaging the world in terms of missionary activity,"
Huff says. "Pope John wanted to reinforce that missionary
mandate, but he also wanted to create an environment of
dialogue, where the church would engage in all the forces of the
modern world" (from NPR).
51
of the times includes both dimensions. Therefore,
Gaudium et spes, no. 44, points out that discerning the
signs of the times is the responsibility of every Christian,
especially pastors and theologians, to hear, distinguish, and
interpret the many voices of our age, and to judge them in
the light of the divine Word. In this way, revealed truths
can always be more deeply penetrated, better understood,
and set forth to greater advantage. Attributing this role to
every member of the People of God and singling out the
pastorscharged with guiding the activity of the
Churchhighlights the call to commitment which the
signs of the times imply. Necessarily connected with this
consideration, the function of theologians will be to afford
greater clarity regarding this commitment by means of
intellectual analysis. (It is interesting to note that the
inclusion of theologians in the above-mentioned text met
opposition during the conciliar debates.)
Another factor, this time of a philosophical nature,
reinforces the importance of human action as the point of
departure for all reection. The philosophical issues of our
times are characterized by new relationships of man with
nature, born of advances in science and technology. These
new bonds affect the awareness man has of himself and of
his active relationships with others.
Maurice Blondel, moving away from an empty and
fruitless spirituality and attempting to make philosophical
speculation more concrete and alive, presented it as a
critical reection on action. This reection attempts to
understand the internal logic of an action through which
man seeks fulllment by constantly transcending himself.
Blondel thus contributed to the elaboration of a new
apologetics[reasoned arguments] and became one of the most
important thinkers of contemporary theology, including the
most recent trends.
To these factors can be added the influence of Marxist
thought, focusing on praxis and geared to the
transformation of the world.1 The Marxist inuence began
to be felt in the middle of the nineteenth century, but in
recent times its cultural impact has becomes greater. Many
agree with Sartre that Marxism, as the formal framework
of all contemporary philosophical thought, cannot be
superseded[replaced]. Be that as it may, contemporary
theology does in fact find itself in direct and fruitful
confrontation with Marxism, and it is to a large extent due
to Marxisms influence that theological thought, searching
for its own sources, has begun to reflect on the meaning of
the transformation of this world and the action of man in
history.2 Further, this confrontation helps theology to
1
The Marxian text is well known: The Philosophers have
only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is
to change it (Theses on Feuerbach, no. 11, in Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, On Religion [New York: Schocken Books,
1964], p. 72). The exact role of the idea of praxis in Marxian
thought is a controversial subject; for a quick review of the
different positions see Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez, Filosofia de la
praxis (Mexico, D.F.: Grijalbo. 1967), pp. 43-45.
2
See the collective work Christentum und Marxismus-heute,
ed. Erich Kellner (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1966); Marxism and
Christianity, trans. Kevin Traynor (New York: The Macmillan
52
perceive what its efforts at understanding the faith receive
from the historical praxis of man in history as well as what
its own reflection might mean for the transformation of the
world.
Finally, the rediscovery of the eschatological
dimension3 in theology has also led us to consider the
central role of historical praxis. Indeed, if human history is
above all else an opening to the future, then it is a task, a
political occupation, through which man orients and opens
himself to the gift which gives history its transcendent
meaning: the full and definitive encounter with the Lord
and with other men. To do the truth, as the Gospel says,
thus acquires a precise and concrete meaning in terms of
the importance of action in Christian life. Faith in a God
who loves us and calls us to the gift of full communion
with him and brotherhood among men not only is not
foreign to the transformation of the world; it leads
necessarily to the building up of that brotherhood and
communion in history. Moreover, only by doing this truth
will our faith be verified, in the etymological sense of
the word. From this notion has recently been derived the
term orthopraxis, which still disturbs the sensitivities of
some. The intention, however, is not to deny the meaning
of orthodoxy, understood as a proclamation of and
reflection on statements considered to be true. Rather, the
goal is to balance and even to reject the primacy and
almost exclusiveness which doctrine has enjoyed in
Christian life and above all to modify the emphasis, often
obsessive, upon the attainment of an orthodoxy which is
often nothing more than fidelity[faithfulness] to an obsolete
tradition or a debatable interpretation. In a more positive
vein, the intention is to recognize the work and importance
of concrete behavior, of deeds, of action, of praxis in the
Christian life. And this, it seems to me, has been the
greatest transformation which has taken place in the
Christian conception of existence, said Edward
Schillebeeckx in an interview. It is evident that thought is
also necessary for action. But the Church has for centuries
devoted her attention to formulating truths and meanwhile
did almost nothing to better the world. In other words, the
Church focused on orthodoxy and left orthopraxis in the
hands of nonmembers and nonbelievers.
In the last analysis, this concern for praxis seeks to
avoid the practices which gave rise to Bernanos sarcastic
remark: God does not choose the same men to keep his
word as to fulfill it.
Company, 1968); Georges M. M. Cottier, Chrtiens et marxistes
(Tours: Maison Mame, 1967); Roger Garaudy. From Anathema
to Dialogue, trans. Luke ONeill (New York: Herder and Herder,
1966). A high-level theoretical and practical confrontation is
needed, however, to get away from the well-trodden paths of
dialogue and explore the possibilities for creative innovation.
To this end, grassroots experiences in social praxis are
fundamental. Experiments up to this point have not been of
sufficient duration or number. For this purpose what is happening
in all of Latin Americaand not only in Cuba and Chilecan be
regarded as laboratory experiments.
3
Eschatology: any system of doctrines concerning last, or final,
matters, as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc.
Gutirrez
Critical Reection
All the factors we have considered have been
responsible for a more accurate understanding that
communion with the Lord inescapably means a Christian
life centered around a concrete and creative commitment
of service to others. They have likewise led to the
rediscovery or explicit formulation of the function of
theology as critical reflection. It would be well at this point
to define further our terms.
Theology must be mans critical reflection on himself,
on his own basic principles. Only with this approach will
theology be a serious discourse, aware of itself, in full
possession of its conceptual elements. But we are not
referring exclusively to this epistemological[theory of knowledge]
aspect when we talk about theology as critical reflection.
We also refer to a clear and critical attitude regarding
economic and socio-cultural issues in the life and
reflection of the Christian community. To disregard these
is to deceive both oneself and others. But above all, we
intend this term to express the theory of a definite practice.
Theological reflection would then necessarily be a
criticism of society and the Church insofar as they are
called and addressed by the Word of God; it would be a
critical theory, worked out in the light of the Word
accepted in faith and inspired by a practical purposeand
therefore indissolubly linked to historical praxis.
By preaching the Gospel message, by its sacraments,
and by the charity of its members, the Church proclaims
and shelters the gift of the Kingdom of God in the heart of
human history. The Christian community professes a faith
which works through charity. It isat least ought to be
real charity, action, and commitment to the service of men.
Theology is reflection, a critical attitude. Theology
follows; it is the second step. What Hegel used to say
about philosophy can likewise be applied to theology: it
rises only at sundown. The pastoral activity of the Church
does not flow as a conclusion from theological premises.
Theology does not produce pastoral activity; rather it
reflects upon it. Theology must be able to find in pastoral
activity the presence of the Spirit inspiring the action of
the Christian community. A privileged locus theologicus
for understanding the faith will be the life, preaching, and
historical commitment of the Church.
To reflect upon the presence and action of the
Christian in the world means, moreover, to go beyond the
visible boundaries of the Church. This is of prime
importance. It implies openness to the world, gathering the
questions it poses, being attentive to its historical
transformations. In the words of Congar, If the Church
wishes to deal with the real questions of the modern world
and to attempt to respond to them, it must open as it
were a new chapter of theologico-pastoral epistemology.
Instead of using only revelation and tradition as starting
points, as classical theology has generally done, it must
start with facts and questions derived from the world and
from history. It is precisely this opening to the totality of
human history that allows theology to fulfill its critical
function vis-a-vis ecclesial praxis without narrowness.
Gutirrez
This critical task is indispensable. Reflection in the
light of faith must constantly accompany the pastoral
action of the Church. By keeping historical events in their
proper perspective, theology helps safeguard society and
the Church from regarding as permanent what is only
temporary. Critical reflection thus always plays the inverse
role of an ideology which rationalizes and justifies a given
social and ecclesial order. On the other hand, theology, by
pointing to the sources of revelation, helps to orient
pastoral activity; it puts it in a wider context and so helps it
to avoid activism and immediatism. Theology as critical
reflection thus fulfills a liberating function for man and the
Christian community, preserving them from fetishism and
idolatry[worshiping of idols], as well as from a pernicious[harmful]
and belittling narcissism[egotism]. Understood in this way,
theology has a necessary and permanent role in the
liberation from every form of religious alienationwhich
is often fostered by the ecclesiastical institution itself when
it impedes an authentic approach to the Word of the Lord.
As critical reflection on society and the Church,
theology is an understanding which both grows and, in a
certain sense, changes. If the commitment of the Christian
community in fact takes different forms throughout
history, the understanding which accompanies the
vicissitudes[changes] of this commitment will be constantly
renewed and will take untrodden paths. A theology which
has as its points of reference only truths which have
been established once and for alland not the Truth which
is also the Waycan be only static and, in the long run,
sterile[lifeless]. In this sense the often-quoted and
misinterpreted words of Bouillard take on new validity: A
theology which is not up-to-date is a false theology.
Finally, theology thus understood, that is to say as
linked to praxis, fullls a prophetic function insofar as it
interprets historical events with the intention of revealing
and proclaiming their profound meaning. According to
Cullmann, this is the meaning of the prophetic role: The
prophet does not limit himself as does the fortune-teller to
isolated revelations, but his prophecy becomes preaching,
proclamation. He explains to the people the true meaning
of all events; he informs them of the plan and will of God
at the particular moment. [] Only with the exercise of
the prophetic function understood in this way, will the
theologian beto borrow an expression from Antonio
Gramscia new kind of organic intellectual. He will be
someone personally and vitally engaged in historical
realities with specific times and places. He will be engaged
where nations, social classes, people struggle to free
themselves from domination and oppression by other
nations, classes, and people. In the last analysis, the true
interpretation of the meaning revealed by theology is
achieved only in historical praxis. The hermeneutics[biblical
interpretation]
of the Kingdom of God, observed
Schillebeeckx, consists especially in making the world a
better place. Only in this way will I be able to discover
what the Kingdom of God means. We have here a
political hermeneutics of the Gospel.
53
CONCLUSION which is driving history toward the future. To reflect on
the basis of the historical praxis of liberation is to reflect in
Theology as a critical reflection on Christian praxis in the light of the future which is believed in and hoped for. It
the light of the Word does not replace the other functions is to reect with a view to action which transforms the
of theology, such as wisdom and rational knowledge; present. But it does not mean doing this from an armchair;
rather it presupposes and needs them. But this is not all. rather it means sinking roots where the pulse of history is
We are not concerned here with a mere juxtaposition. The beating at this moment and illuminating history with the
critical function of theology necessarily leads to Word of the Lord of history, who irreversibly committed
redenition of these other two tasks, Henceforth, wisdom himself to the present moment of mankind to carry it to its
and rational knowledge will more explicitly have ecclesial fulfillment.
praxis as their point of departure and their context. It is in It is for all these reasons that the theology of liberation
reference to this praxis that an understanding of spiritual offers us not so much a new theme for reflection as a new
growth based on Scripture should be developed, and it is way to do theology. Theology as critical reection on
through this same praxis that faith encounters the problems historical praxis is a liberating theology, a theology of the
posed by human reason. Given the theme of the present liberating transformation of the history of mankind and
work, we will be especially aware of this critical function also therefore that part of mankindgathered into
of theology with the ramifications suggested above. This ecclesiawhich openly confesses Christ. This is a
approach will lead us to pay special attention to the life of theology which does not stop with reflecting on the world,
the Church and to commitments which Christians, but rather tries to be part of the process through which the
impelled by the Spirit and in communion with other world is transformed. It is a theology which is openin
people, undertake in history. We will give special the protest against trampled human dignity, in the struggle
consideration to participation in the process of liberation, against the plunder of the vast majority of people, in
an outstanding phenomenon of our times, which takes on liberating love, and in the building of a new, just, and
special meaning in the so-called Third World countries. fraternal societyto the gift of the Kingdom of God.
This kind of theology, arising from concern with a
particular set of issues, will perhaps give us the solid and
permanent albeit modest foundation for the theology in a
Latin American perspective which is both desired and
needed. This Latin American focus would not be due to a
frivolous desire for originality, but rather to a fundamental
sense of historical efficacy and alsowhy hide it?to the
desire to contribute to the life and reflection of the
universal Christian community. But in order to make our
contribution, this desire for universalityas well as input
from the Christian community as a wholemust be
present from the beginning. To concretize this desire
would be to overcome particularistic tendencies
provincial and chauvinistic[prejudice]and produce
something unique, both particular and universal, and
therefore fruitful.
The only future that theology has, one might say, is
to become the theology of the future, Harvey Cox has
said. But this theology of the future must necessarily be a
critical appraisal of historical praxis, of the historical task
in the sense we have attempted to sketch. Moltmann says
that theological concepts do not limp after reality. They
illuminate reality by displaying its future. In our
approach, to reflect critically on the praxis of liberation is
not to limp after reality. The present in the praxis of
liberation, in its deepest dimension, is pregnant with the
future; hope must be an inherent part of our present
commitment in history. Theology does not initiate this
future which exists in the present. It does not create the
vital attitude of hope out of nothing. Its role is more
modest. It interprets and explains these as the true
underpinnings of history. To reflect upon a forward-
directed action is not to concentrate on the past. It does not
mean being the caboose of the present. Rather it is to
penetrate the present reality, the movement of history, that

54 Gutirrez
 Theories on Religion & Liberation
from A Black Theology of Liberation (1970)
Cone, James H.. A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1970
Preface to the 1970 Edition
The reader is entitled to know what to expect in this
book. It is my contention that Christianity is essentially a
religion of liberation. The function of theology is that of
analyzing the meaning of that liberation for the oppressed
so they can know that their struggle for political, social,
and economic justice is consistent with the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Any message that is not related to the liberation of
the poor in a society is not Christs message. Any theology
that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian
theology.
In a society where persons are oppressed because they
are black, Christian theology must become black theology,
a theology that is unreservedly identified with the goals of
the oppressed and seeks to interpret the divine character of
their struggle for liberation. Black theology is a phrase
that is particularly appropriate for contemporary America
because of its symbolic power to convey both what whites
mean by oppression and what blacks mean by liberation.
However, I am convinced that the patterns of meaning
centered in the idea of black theology are by no means
restricted to the American scene, for blackness symbolizes
oppression and liberation in any society.
It will be evident, therefore, that this book is written
primarily for the black community, not for whites. Whites
may read it and to some degree render an intellectual
analysis of it, but an authentic understanding is dependent
on the blackness of their existence in the world. There will
be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their
whiteness, asking from the depths of their being: How
can we become black? I hope that if enough whites begin
to ask this question, this country will no longer be divided
on the basis of color. But until then, it is the task of the
Christian theologian to do theology in the light of the
concreteness of human oppression expressed in color, and
to interpret for the oppressed the meaning of Gods
liberation in their community. []
Preface to the 1986 Edition
Theology is not universal language about God. Rather,
it is human speech informed by historical and theological
traditions, and written for particular times and places.
Theology is contextual language that is, defined by the
human situation that gives birth to it. No one can write
theology for all times, places, and persons. Therefore,
when one reads a theological textbook, it is important to
note the year of its publication, the audience for whom it
was written, and the issues the author felt compelled to
address.
Cone
A Black Theology of Liberation was first published in
1970, and it was written for and to black Christians (and
also to whites who had the courage to listen) in an attempt
to answer the question that I and others could not ignore,
namely, what has the gospel of Jesus Christ to do with the
black struggle for justice in the United States? This book
cannot be understood without a keen knowledge of the
civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s and a
general comprehension of nearly four hundred years of
slavery and segregation in North America, both of which
were enacted into law by government and openly defended
as ordained of God by most white churches and their
theologians. []
When I began to write A Black Theology of
Liberation, I was deeply involved in the black struggle for
justice and was still searching for a perspective on
Christian theology that would help African-Americans
recognize that the gospel of Jesus is not only consistent
with their fight for liberation but is its central meaning for
twentieth-century America.
I was completely unaware of the beginnings of
liberation theology in the Third World, especially in Latin
America. Neither did I know much about the theme of
liberation in African-American history and culture. [] I
did not have time to do the theological and historical
research needed to present a balanced perspective on the
problem of racism in America. Black men, women, and
children were being shot and imprisoned for asserting their
right to a dignified existence. Others were wasting away in
ghettoes, dying from filth, rats, and dope, as white and
black ministers preached about a blond, blue-eyed Jesus
who came to make us all just like him. I had to speak a
different word, not just as a black person but primarily as a
theologian. I felt then, as I still do, that if theology had
nothing to say about black suffering and resistance, I could
not be a theologian. I remembered what Malcom X had
said: I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any
time I have to accept a religion that wont let me fight a
battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion,
catalogue
The passion with which I wrote alienated most whites
(and some blacks too). But I felt that I had no other
alternative if I was to speak forcefully and truthfully about
the reality of black suffering and of Gods empowerment
of blacks to resist it. [] Oppressors never like to hear the
truth in a socio-political context defined by their lies. That
was why A Black Theology of Liberation was often
rejected as racism in reverse by many whites, particularly
theologians. For example, Father Andrew M. Greeley
referred to my perspective on black theology as a Nazi
mentality, a theology filled with hatred for white people
and the assumption of a moral superiority of black over
55
white. White reactions to black theology never disturbed
me too much, because Malcolm X had prepared me for
them. With skillful manipulating of the press, said
Malcolm, theyre able to make the victim look like the
criminal and the criminal look like the victim.
White theologians wanted me to debate with them
about the question of whether black theology was real
theology, using their criteria to decide the issue. With
clever theological sophistication, white theologians
defined the discipline of theology in the light of the
problem of the unbeliever (i.e., the question of the
relationship of faith and reason) and thus unrelated to the
problem of slavery and racism. Using a white definition of
theology, I knew there was no way I could win the debate.
And even if I had managed to give a good account of
myself, what difference would that have made for the
liberation of poor blacks?
The task of explicating the gospel as Gods liberating
presence with oppressed blacks was too urgent to be
sidetracked into an academic debate with white scholars
about the nature of theology. It was clear to me that what
was needed was a fresh start in theology, a new way of
doing it that would arise out of the black struggle for
justice and in no way would be dependent upon be
approval of white academics in religion. Again I thought
of Malcolm: Dont let anybody who is oppressing us ever
lay the ground rules. Dont go by their games, dont play
the game by their rules. Let them know now that this is a
new game, and weve got some new rules....
I knew that racism was a heresy[contrary to religious belief],
and I did not need to have white theologians tell me so.
Indeed, the exploitation of persons of color was the central
theological problem of our time. The problem of the
twentieth century, wrote W. E. B. DuBois in 1906, is the
problem of the color line, the relation of the darker to the
lighter races of [persons] in Asia and Africa, in America
and the islands of the sea, Just as whites had not listened
to DuBois, I did not expect white theologians to take black
theology seriously. Racism is a disease that perverts ones
moral sensitivity and distorts the intellect. []
Again Malcolm expressed what I felt deep within my
being:
[] What is logical to the oppressor isnt logical
to the oppressed. And what is reason to the
oppressor isnt reason to the oppressed. The black
people in this country are beginning to realize that
what sounds reasonable to those who exploit us
doesnt sound reasonable to us. There just has to
be a new system of reason and logic devised by
us who are at the bottom, if we want to get some
results in this struggle that is called the Negro
revolution?
Although my view of white theology is generally the
same today as it was in 1970, there are several significant
shifts in my theological perspective since the publication
of this text. [] However, I do want to mention four
themes particularly pertinent for readers of this text []
56
The most glaring limitation of A Black Theology of
Liberation was my failure to be receptive to the problem of
sexism in the black community and society as a whole. I
have become so embarrassed by that failure that I could
not reissue this volume without making a note of it and
without changing the exclusive language of the 1970
edition to inclusive language. I know that this is hardly
enough to rectify my failure, because sexism cannot be
eliminated (any more than can racism) simply by changing
words. But it is an important symbol of what we must do,
because our language is a reflection of the reality we
create. Sexism dehumanizes and kills, and it must be
fought on every front.
Contrary to what many black men say (especially
preachers), sexism is not merely a problem for white
women. Rather it is a problem of the human condition. It
destroys the family and society, and makes it impossible
for persons to create a society defined according to Gods
intention for humanity. Any black male theologian or
preacher who ignores sexism as a central problem in our
society and church (as important as racism, because they
are inter-connected), is just as guilty of distorting the
gospel as is a white theologian who does the same with
racism. []
Another serious limitation was my failure to
incorporate a global analysis of oppression into A Black
Theology of Liberation. Unlike my moral blindness in
relation to sexism, the absence of Third World issues in
my perspective was due more to my lack of knowledge
and personal exposure. []
I have now visited many Third World countries,
meeting many Third World persons and seeing for myself
enormous gaps between rich and poor nations. I am
convinced that no one should claim to be doing Christian
theology today without making the liberation of the Third
World from the exploitation of the First World and the
Second World a central aspect of its purpose. There is an
interconnectedness of all humanity that makes the freedom
of one people dependent upon the liberation of all. No one
can be free until all are set free. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
expressed this point persuasively:
We are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.
What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
As long as there is poverty in this world, [no
one] can be totally healthy .... Strangely enough,
I can never be what I ought to be until you are
what you ought to be. You can never be what
you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.
The third weakness of A Black Theology of Liberation
was the absence of a clearly focused economic, class
analysis of oppression. This limitation is unquestionably
the result of my strong identification with the common
tendency in the black community of defining racism as a
domestic problem, largely associated with the exclusion of
blacks from the benefits of American capitalism. Racism
was primarily identified as social exclusion with disastrous
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political and economic consequences. I assumed that if
blacks were creatively integrated into all aspects of
American society, the issue of racism would be essentially
solved. This was faulty analysis, because I failed to see
that the problem of the human condition involved much
more than simply the issue of racism. Anyone who claims
to be fighting against the problem of oppression and does
not analyze the exploitive role of capitalism is either naive
or an agent of the enemies of freedom. I was naive and did
not have at my disposal sufficient tools for analyzing the
complexity of human oppression. My strong negative
reaction to the racism of many white socialists in the
United States distorted my vision and prevented me from
analyzing racism in relation to capitalism.
An exclusive focus on racial injustice without a
comprehensive analysis of its links with corporate
capitalism greatly distorts the multidimensional character
of oppression and also camouflages the true nature of
modern racism. There are black as well as white thieves,
and the color of a persons skin does not make wrong
right. We are all blacks and whites, men and women,
young and old sinners, and thus capable of exploiting the
poor in order to promote our economic and political
interests. [] We must not allow racial solidarity to distort
the truth. Without class analysis, a global understanding of
oppression will be distorted and its domestic
manifestations seriously misrepresented. There are very
few differences between black and white capitalists when
viewed in the light of the consequences of their behavior
for the poor. When profits are more important than
persons, disastrous results follow for the poor of all colors.
It does not matter whether blacks or whites do it. This
madness must be opposed. []
Despite the limitations of A Black Theology of
Liberation, I decided to publish the 1986 edition without
any changes except those related to the elimination of
exclusive language and a few adjustments in style. The
chief reason for reissuing this text as it appeared in 1970 is
its central theme: liberation. [] A Black Theology of
Liberation represents my initial attempt to construct a new
perspective for the discipline of theology, using the Bible
and the black struggle for freedom as its chief sources. []
I repeat: Theology is always done for particular times
and places and addressed to a specific audience. This is
true whether theologians acknowledge it or not. Although
God is the intended subject of theology, God does not do
theology. Human beings do theology. [] In A Black
Theology of Liberation, I tried to uncover the
wrongheadedness of the white way of doing theology and
then attempted to set Christian theology on the right path
of liberation. I believe that it was a message worth saying
in 1970 and still an important word to say today.
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PART I: A BLACK THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION
_______________________________________________
1THE CONTENT OF THEOLOGY
Liberation as the Content of Theology
Christian theology is a theology of liberation. It is a
rational study of the being of God in the world in light of
the existential situation of an oppressed community,
relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the
gospel, which is Jesus Christ. This means that its sole
reason for existence is to put into ordered speech the
meaning of Gods activity in the world, so that the
community of the oppressed will recognize that its inner
thrust for liberation is not only consistent with the gospel
but is the gospel of Jesus Christ. There can be no Christian
theology that is not identified unreservedly with those who
are humiliated and abused. In fact, theology ceases to be a
theology of the gospel when it fails to arise out of the
community of the oppressed. For it is impossible to speak
of the God of Israelite history, who is the God revealed in
Jesus Christ, without recognizing that God is the God of
and for those who labor and are over laden.
The perspective and direction of this study are already
made clear. The reader is entitled to know at the outset
what is considered to be important. My definition of
theology and the assumptions on which it is based are to be
tested by the working out of a theology which can then be
judged in terms of its consistency with a communitarian
view of the ultimate. We begin now by exploring some
preliminary considerations in my definition.
The definition of theology as the discipline that seeks
to analyze the nature of the Christian faith in the light of
the oppressed arises chiefly from biblical tradition itself.
(1) Though it may not be entirely clear why God
elected Israel to be Gods people, one point is evident. The
election is inseparable from the event of the exodus:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and
how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you
to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my
voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own
possession among all peoples [Exodus 19:4-5a].
Certainly this means, among other things, that Gods
call of this people is related to its oppressed condition and
to Gods own liberating activity already seen in the
exodus. You have seen what I did! By delivering this
people from Egyptian bondage and inaugurating the
covenant on the basis of that historical event, God is
revealed as the God of the oppressed, involved in their
history, liberating them from human bondage.
(2) Later stages of Israelite history also show that God
is particularly concerned about the oppressed within the
community of Israel. The rise of Old Testament prophecy
is due primarily to the lack of justice within that
community. The prophets of Israel are prophets of social
justice, reminding the people that Yahweh[God] is the author
57
of justice. It is important to note in this connection that the
righteousness of God is not an abstract quality in the being
of God, as with Greek philosophy. It is rather Gods active
involvement in history, making right what human beings
have made wrong. The consistent theme in Israelite
prophecy is Yahwehs concern for the lack of social,
economic, and political justice for those who are poor and
unwanted in society. Yahweh, according to Hebrew
prophecy, will not tolerate injustice against the poor; God
will vindicate the poor. Again, God is revealed as the God
of liberation for the oppressed.
(3) In the New Testament, the theme of liberation is
reaffirmed by Jesus himself. The conflict with Satan and
the powers of this world, the condemnation of the rich, the
insistence that the kingdom of God is for the poor, and the
locating of his ministry among the poor these and other
features of the career of Jesus show that his work was
directed to the oppressed for the purpose of their
liberation. To suggest that he was speaking of a spiritual
liberation fails to take seriously Jesus thoroughly Hebrew
view of human nature. Entering into the kingdom of God
means that Jesus himself becomes the ultimate loyalty of
humankind, for he is the kingdom. This view of existence
in the world has far-reaching implications for economic,
political, and social institutions. They can no longer have
ultimate claim on human life; human beings are liberated
and thus free to rebel against all powers that threaten
human life. That is what Jesus had in mind when he said:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord [Luke 4: 18-19].
In view of the biblical emphasis on liberation, it seems
not only appropriate but necessary to define the Christian
community as the community of the oppressed which joins
Jesus Christ in his fight for the liberation of humankind.
The task of theology, then, is to explicate the meaning of
Gods liberating activity so that those who labor under
enslaving powers will see that the forces of liberation are
the very activity of God. Christian theology is never just a
rational study of the being of God. Rather it is a study of
Gods liberating activity in the world, Gods activity in
behalf of the oppressed.
If the history of Israel and the New Testament
description of the historical Jesus reveal that God is a God
who is identified with Israel because it is an oppressed
community, the resurrection of Jesus means that all
oppressed peoples become his people. Herein lies the
universal note implied in the gospel message of Jesus. The
resurrection-event means that Gods liberating work is not
only for the house of Israel but for all who are enslaved by
principalities and powers. The resurrection conveys hope
in God. Nor is this the hope that promises a reward in
heaven in order to ease the pain of injustice on earth.
58
Rather it is hope which focuses on the future in order to
make us refuse to tolerate present inequities. []
The task of Christian theology, then, is to analyze the
meaning of hope in God in such a way that the oppressed
community of a given society will risk all for earthly
freedom, a freedom made possible in the resurrection of
Jesus. []
Theology can never be neutral or fail to take sides on
issues related to the plight of the oppressed. For this reason
it can never engage in conversation about the nature of
God without confronting those elements of human
existence which threaten anyones existence as a person.
Whatever theology says about God and the world must
arise out of its sole reason for existence as a discipline: to
assist the oppressed in their liberation. Its language is
always language about human liberation, proclaiming the
end of bondage and interpreting the religious dimensions
of revolutionary struggle.
Liberation and Black Theology
Unfortunately, American white theology has not been
involved in the struggle for black liberation. It has been
basically a theology of the white oppressor, giving
religious sanction to the genocide of Amerindians[Native
Americans]
and the enslavement of Africans. From the very
beginning to the present day, American white theological
thought has been patriotic, either by defining the
theological task independently of black suffering (the
liberal northern approach) or by defining Christianity as
compatible with white racism (the conservative southern
approach). In both cases theology becomes a servant of the
state, and that can only mean death to blacks. It is little
wonder that an increasing number of black religionists are
finding it difficult to be black and be identified with
traditional theological thought forms. The appearance of
black theology on the American scene then is due
primarily to the failure of white religionists to relate the
gospel of Jesus to the pain of being black in a white racist
society. It arises from the need of blacks to liberate
themselves from white oppressors. Black theology is a
theology of liberation [].
The task of black theology, then, is to analyze the
nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the light of
oppressed blacks so they will see the gospel as inseparable
from their humiliated condition, and as bestowing on them
the necessary power to break the chains of oppression. []
There are two reasons why black theology is Christian
theology. First, there can be no theology of the gospel
which does not arise from an oppressed community. This
is so because God is revealed in Jesus as a God whose
righteousness is inseparable from the weak and helpless in
human society. The goal of black theology is to interpret
Gods activity as related to the oppressed black
community.
Secondly, black theology is Christian theology
because it centers on Jesus Christ. There can be no
Christian theology which does not have Jesus Christ as its
point of departure. Though black theology affirms the
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black condition as the primary datum[starting point] of reality to
be reckoned with, this does not mean that it denies the
absolute revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Rather it
affirms it. Unlike white theology, which tends to make the
Jesus-event an abstract, unembodied idea, black theology
believes that the black community itself is precisely where
Jesus Christ is at work. The Jesus-event in twentieth-
century America is a black-event that is, an event of
liberation taking place in the black community in which
blacks recognize that it is incumbent upon them to throw
off the chains of white oppression by whatever means they
regard as suitable. []
It is to be expected that some will ask, Why black
theology? Is it not true that God is color-blind? Is it not
true that there are others who suffer as much as, if not in
some cases more than, blacks? These questions reveal a
basic misunderstanding of black theology, and also a
superficial view of the world at large. There are at least
three points to be made here.
First, in a revolutionary situation there can never be
nonpartisan[unbiased] theology. Theology is always identified
with a particular community. It is either identified with
those who inflict oppression or with those who are its
victims. A theology of the latter is authentic Christian
theology, and a theology of the former is a theology of the
Antichrist. Insofar as black theology is a theology arising
from an identification with the oppressed black community
and seeks to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ in the light
of the liberation of that community, it is Christian
theology. American white theology is a theology of the
Antichrist insofar as it arises from an identification with
the white community, thereby placing Gods approval on
white oppression of black existence.
Secondly, in a racist society, God is never color-blind.
To say God is color-blind is analogous to saying that God
is blind to justice and injustice, to right and wrong, to good
and evil. Certainly this is not the picture of God revealed
in the Old and New Testaments. Yahweh takes sides. On
the one hand, Yahweh sides with Israel against the
Canaanites in the occupancy of Palestine. On the other
hand, Yahweh sides with the poor within the community
of Israel against the rich and other political oppressors. In
the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the
oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against
oppressors. The God of the biblical tradition is not
uninvolved or neutral regarding human affairs; God is
decidedly involved. God is active in human history, taking
sides with the oppressed of the land. If God is not involved
in human history, then all theology is useless, and
Christianity itself is a mockery, a hollow, meaningless
diversion.
The meaning of this message for our contemporary
situation is clear: the God of the oppressed takes sides with
the black community. God is not color-blind in the black-
white struggle, but has made an unqualified identification
with blacks. This means that the movement for black
liberation is the very work of God, effecting Gods will
among men.
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Thirdly, there are, to be sure, many who suffer, and
not all of them are black. Many white liberals derive a
certain joy from reminding black militants that two-thirds
of the poor in America are white. Of course I could point
out that this means that there are five times as many poor
blacks as there are poor whites, when the ratio of each
group to the total population is taken into account. But it is
not my intention to debate white liberals on this issue, for
it is not the purpose of black theology to minimize the
suffering of others, including whites. Black theology
merely tries to discern the activity of the Holy One in
achieving the purpose of the liberation of humankind from
the forces of oppression.
We must make decisions about where God is at work
so we can join in the fight against evil. But there is no
perfect guide for discerning Gods movement in the world.
Contrary to what many conservatives would say, the Bible
is not a blueprint on this matter. It is a valuable symbol for
pointing to Gods revelation in Jesus, but it is not self-
interpreting. We are thus placed in an existential situation
of freedom in which the burden is on us to make decisions
without a guaranteed ethical guide. This is the risk of faith.
For the black theologian God is at work in the black
community, vindicating black victims of white oppression.
It is impossible for the black theologian to be indifferent
on this issue. Either God is for blacks in their fight for
liberation from white oppressors, or God is not. God
cannot be both for us and for white oppressors at the same
time.
In this connection we may observe that black theology
takes seriously Paul Tillichs description of the symbolic
nature of all theological speech. We cannot describe God
directly; we must use symbols that point to dimensions of
reality that cannot be spoken of literally. Therefore to
speak of black theology is to speak with the Tillichian
understanding of symbol in mind. The focus on blackness
does not mean that only blacks suffer as victims in a racist
society, but that blackness is an ontological[existential] symbol
and a visible reality which best describes what oppression
means in America.
The extermination of Amerindians, the persecution of
Jews, the oppression of Mexican-Americans, and every
other conceivable inhumanity done in the name of God and
country these brutalities can be analyzed in terms of the
white American inability to recognize humanity in persons
of color. If the oppressed of this land want to challenge the
oppressive character of white society, they must begin by
affirming their identity in terms of the reality that is anti-
white. Blackness, then, stands for all victims of oppression
who realize that the survival of their humanity is bound up
with liberation from whiteness.
This understanding of blackness can be seen as the
most adequate symbol of the dimensions of divine activity
in America. And insofar as this country is seeking to make
whiteness the dominating power throughout the world,
whiteness is the symbol of the Anti-christ. Whiteness
characterizes the activity of deranged individuals intrigued
by their own image of themselves, and thus unable to see
that they are what is wrong with the world. Black theology
59
seeks to analyze the satanic nature of whiteness and by
doing so to prepare all nonwhites for revolutionary action.
[] [W]hites are in no position whatever to question
the legitimacy of black theology. Questions like Do you
think theology is black? or What about others who
suffer? are the product of minds incapable of black
thinking. It is not surprising that those who reject
blackness in theology are usually whites who do not
question the blue-eyed white Christ. It is hard to believe
that whites are worried about black theology on account of
its alleged alienation of other sufferers. Oppressors are not
genuinely concerned about any oppressed group. It would
seem rather that white rejection of black theology stems
from a recognition of the revolutionary implications in its
very name: a rejection of whiteness, an unwillingness to
live under it, and an identification of whiteness with evil
and blackness with good.
Black Theology and the Black Community
Most theologians agree that theology is a church
discipline that is, a discipline which functions within the
Christian community. This is one aspect which
distinguishes theology from philosophy of religion.
Philosophy of religion is not committed to a community; it
is an individualistic attempt to analyze the nature of
ultimate reality through rational thought alone, using
elements of many religions to assist in the articulation of
the ultimate.
Theology by contrast cannot be separated from the
community which it represents. It assumes that truth has
been given to the community at the moment of its birth. Its
task is to analyze the implications of that truth, in order to
make sure that the community remains committed to that
which defines its existence. Theology is the continued
attempt of the community to define in every generation its
reason for being in the world: A community that does not
analyze its existence theologically is a community that
does not care what it says or does. It is a community with
no identity. Applying this description, it is evident that
white American theology has served oppressors well.
Throughout the history of this country, from the Puritans
to the death-of-God theologians, the theological problems
treated in white churches and theological schools are
defined in such a manner that they are unrelated to the
problem of being black in a white, racist society. By
defining the problems of Christianity in isolation from the
black condition, white theology becomes a theology of
white oppressors, serving as a divine sanction from
criminal acts committed against blacks. []
Because white theology has consistently preserved the
integrity of the community of oppressors, I conclude that it
is not Christian theology at all.1 When we speak about God
1
The reader should take note of two characteristics of the definition of
blackness. First, blackness is a physiological trait. It refers to a
particularly black-skinned people in America, a victim of white racist
brutality. The scars of its members bear witness to the inhumanity
committed against them. Black theology believes that they are the only
key that can open the door to divine revelation. Therefore, no American
60
as related to human-kind in the black-white struggle,
Christian theology can only mean black theology, a
theology that speaks of God as related to black liberation.
If we agree that the gospel is the proclamation of Gods
liberating activity, that the Christian community is an
oppressed community that participates in that activity, and
that theology is the discipline arising from within the
Christian community as it seeks to develop adequate
language for its relationship to Gods liberation, then black
theology is Christian theology.
It is unthinkable that oppressors could identify with
oppressed existence and thus say something relevant about
Gods liberation of the oppressed. In order to be Christian
theology, white theology must cease being white theology
and become black theology by denying whiteness as an
acceptable form of human existence and affirming
blackness as Gods intention for humanity. White
theologians will find this difficult, and it is to be expected
that some will attempt to criticize black theology precisely
on this point. Such criticism will not reveal a weakness in
black theology but only the racist character of the critic. []
Black Theology as Survival Theology
To speak of black theology as survival theology refers
to the condition of the community out of which black
theology arises. We can delineate three characteristics of
the black condition: the tension between life and death,
identity crisis, and white social and political power.
1. The Tension between Life and Death. Black
theology is the theology of a community whose daily
energies must be focused on physical survival in a hostile
environment. The black community spends most of its
time trying to make a living in a society labeled for
whites only. Therefore, the central question for blacks is
How are we going to survive in a world which deems
black humanity an illegitimate form of human existence?
That white America has issued a death warrant for being
black is evident in the white brutality inflicted on black
persons. Though whites may deny it, the ghettos of this
country say otherwise. Masters always pretend that they
are not masters, insisting that they are only doing what is
best for society as a whole, including the slaves. This is, of
course, the standard rhetoric of an oppressive society.
Blacks know better. They know that whites have only one
purpose: the destruction of everything which is not white.
In this situation, blacks are continually asking, often
unconsciously, When will the white overlord decide that
blackness in any form must be exterminated? The
genocide of Amerindians is a reminder to the black
community that white oppressors are capable of pursuing a
course of complete annihilation of everything black. And
the killing and the caging of black leaders make us think
theology can even tend in the direction of Christian theology without
coming to terms with the black-skinned people of America. Secondly,
blackness is an ontological symbol for all those who participate in
liberation from oppression. This is the universal note in black theology. It
believes that all human beings were created for freedom, and that God
always sides with the oppressed against oppressors.
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that black genocide has already begun. It seems that, from
the white cop on his beat to the high government official,
whites are not prepared for a real encounter with black
reality, and thus the black community knows that whites
may decide at any moment that the extermination of all
blacks is indispensable for continued white existence and
hegemony[dominance]. []
To breathe in white society is dependent on saying yes
to whiteness, and blacks know it. It is only natural to cling
to life; no one wants to die. But there is such a thing as
living physically while being dead spiritually. As long as
blacks let whiteness define the limits of their being, blacks
are dead. To be or not to be is thus a dilemma for the
black community: to assert ones humanity and be killed,
or to cling to life and sink into nonhumanity.
It is in this situation that black theology seeks to speak
the word of God. It says that the God who was revealed in
the life of oppressed Israel and who came to us in the
incarnate Christ and is present today as the Holy Spirit has
made a decision about the black condition. God has chosen
to make the black condition Gods condition! [] It is this
certainty that makes physical life less than ultimate and
thus enables blacks courageously to affirm blackness and
its liberating power as ultimate. When persons feel this
way, a revolution is in the making.
With the assurance that God is on our side, we can
begin to make ready for the inevitable the decisive
encounter between black and white existence. White
appeals to wait and talk it over are irrelevant when
children are dying and men and women are being tortured.
We will not let whitey cool this one with his pious love
ethic but will seek to enhance our hostility, bringing it to
its full manifestation. Black survival is at stake [].
2. Identity Crisis. There is more at stake in the
struggle for survival than mere physical existence. You
have to be black, with a knowledge of the history of this
country, to know what America means to black persons.
You also have to know what it means to be a nonperson, a
nothing, a person with no past, to know what black power
is all about. Survival as a person means not only food and
shelter, but also belonging to a community that remembers
and understands the meaning of its past. Black
consciousness is an attempt to recover a past deliberately
destroyed by slave masters, an attempt to revive old
survival symbols and create new ones.
Herbert Aptheker has written:
Historys potency is mighty. The oppressed need
it for identity and inspiration; oppressors for
justification, rationalization and legitimacy. []
White Americans try to convince themselves that they
have been innocent onlookers of that history, but black
Americans evaluate the history of this country differently.
For them, white Americans have pursued two principal
courses of action with regard to blacks. First, they decreed
that blacks were outside the realm of humanity, that blacks
were animals and that their enslavement was best both for
them and for society as a whole. And as long as black
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labor was needed, slavery was regarded as the only
appropriate solution to the black problem. But when
black labor was no longer needed, blacks were issued their
freedom, the freedom to live in a society which
attempted to destroy them physically and spiritually. There
is no indication before or after the Civil War that this
society recognized the humanity of black persons.
The second course of action that whites have taken is to
try to integrate blacks into white society. Before the
Supreme Court decision in 1954, whites sought to destroy
black identity by segregating blacks from the mainstream of
society, decreeing that this world is not for blacks. Then,
under the banner of liberalism (compounded of white guilt
and black naivety), integration became the watchword.
The implications of the term are now all too clear: the
destruction of black identity through assimilation. Whites
wanted to integrate blacks into white societystraight hair,
neckties, deodorant []as if blacks had no existence
apart from whiteness.
In such a situation, there is only one course of action for
the black community, and that is to destroy the oppressors
definition of blackness by unraveling new meanings in old
tales so that the past may emerge as an instrument of black
liberation. If the oppressed are to preserve their personhood,
they must create a new way of looking at history
independent of the perspective of the oppressor. []
It seeks to reorder religious language, to show that all
forces supporting white oppression are anti-Christian in
their essence. []
The search for black identity is the search for God,
because Gods identity is revealed in the black struggle for
freedom. [] [B]lack persons [] are in search of new
ways of talking about God, ways that will enhance their
understanding of themselves.
3. White Social and Political Power. Black theology is
the theological expression of a people deprived of social and
political power. [] It is clear to blacks why they are
unwanted in society, and for years they tried to make
themselves acceptable by playing the game of human
existence according to white rules, hoping that someday
whites would not regard the color of their skins as the
ultimate or only criterion for human relationships. But to
this day, there is little evidence that whites can deal with the
reality of physical blackness as an appropriate form of
human existence. For this reason, blacks are oppressed
socially even if they have economic and intellectual power.
Jews in Nazi Germany found out the hard way that
economic power was no security against an insane
government that had the political and social power [].
Realizing that white racism is an insanity comparable to
Nazism, black theology seeks to articulate a theological
ethos consistent with the black revolutionary struggle.
Blacks know that there is only one possible authentic
existence in this society, and that is to force a radical
revolutionary confrontation with the structures of white
power by saying yes to the essence of their blackness. The
role of black theology is to tell blacks to focus on their own
self-determination as a community by preparing to do
anything the community believes necessary for its existence.
61
 To be human in a condition of social oppression
involves affirming that which the oppressor regards as
degrading. In a world in which the oppressor defines right in
terms of whiteness, humanity means an unqualified
identification with blackness. Black, therefore, is beautiful;
oppressors have made it ugly. We glorify it because they
despise it; we love it because they hate it. []
Blacks live in a society in which blackness means
criminality, and thus law and order means get blacky.
To live, to stay out of jail, blacks are required to obey laws
of humiliation. Law and order is nothing but an emphasis
on the stabilization of the status quo, which means telling
blacks they cannot be black and telling whites that they have
the moral and political right to see to it that black persons
stay in their place. Conversely the development of black
power means that the black community will define its own
place, its own way of behaving in the world, regardless of
the consequences to white society. We have reached our
limit of tolerance, and if it means death with dignity or life
with humiliation, we will choose the former. []
Black theology is a theology of survival because it
seeks to interpret the theological significance of the being of
a community whose existence is threatened by the power of
nonbeing. We are seeking meaning in a world permeated
with philosophical and theological absurdities, where hope
is nonexistent. In existential philosophy the absurd is that
which is meaningless: Thus mans existence is absurd
because his contingency finds no external justification. His
projects are absurd because they are directed toward an
unattainable goal.
This is certainly the feeling of blacks as they seek to
make sense out of their existence in a white society. []
Speaking to the black condition characterized by
existential absurdities, black theology rejects the tendency of
classic Christianity to appeal to divine providence. To
suggest that black suffering is consistent with the knowledge
and will of God and that in the end everything will happen
for the good of those who love God is unacceptable to blacks.
The eschatological promise of a distant, future heaven is
insufficient to account for the earthly pain of black suffering.
We cannot accept a God who inflicts or tolerates black
suffering for some inscrutable purpose.
Black theology also rejects those who counsel blacks to
accept the limits which this society places on them, for it is
tantamount to suicide. In existential philosophy suicide is the
ultimate expression of despair. If we accept white definitions
of blackness, we destroy ourselves. Black theology,
responding to the black condition, takes on the character of
rebellion against things as they are. In the writings of Camus,
the rebel is the one who refuses to accept the absurd
conditions of things but fights against them in spite of the
impossibility of arriving at a solution. In black theology,
blacks are encouraged to revolt against the structures of white
social and political power by affirming blackness, but not
because blacks have a chance of winning. What could the
concept of winning possibly mean? Blacks do what they do
because and only because they can do no other; and black
theology says simply that such action is in harmony with
divine revelation.
62 Cone
Black Theology as Passionate Language
Because black theology is survival theology, it must
speak with a passion consistent with the depths of the
wounds of the oppressed. Theological language is
passionate language, the language of commitment, because
it is language which seeks to vindicate the afflicted and
condemn the enforcers of evil. [] Theology must take the
risk of faith []. Paul Tillich calls this an existential risk:
The risk of faith is an existential risk, a risk in which the
meaning and fulfillment of our lives is at stake, and not a
theoretical judgment which may be refuted [].
Blacks know what it means to have their lives at stake,
for [] every moment of being is surrounded with the
threat of nonbeing. [] [Black theology] must take the risk
of faith and speak with a passion in harmony with the
revolutionary spirit of the oppressed. []
[B]lack theology as passionate theology is analogous to
Paul Tillichs analysis of the existential thinker. Quoting
Feuerbach, he writes: Do not wish to be a philosopher in
contrast to being a man do not think as a thinker think
as a living, real being think in Existence. Love is passion,
and only passion is the mark of Existence.
In fact, Tillich quotes Feurbach as saying, Only what
is as an object of passion really is. The existential thinker
is a thinker who not only relates thought to existence but
whose thought arises out of a passionate encounter with
existence. As Kierkegaard put in his definition of truth: An
objective uncertainty held fast in the most passionate
personal experience is the truth, the highest truth attainable
for an Existing individual.
Relating this to black theology, we can say that the
definition of truth for the black thinker arises from a
passionate encounter with black reality. Though that truth
may be described religiously as God, it is [] the God of
black existence. There is no way to speak of this
objectively; truth is not objective. It is subjective, a personal
experience of the ultimate in the midst of degradation.
Passion is the only appropriate response to this truth.
To be passionate, black theology may find it necessary
to break with traditional theological concerns. Such
concerns are often unrelated to oppressed existence. []
Creative theological reflection about God and Gods
movement in the world is possible only when one frees
oneself from [] the values of an oppressive society. It
involves prophetic condemnation of society []. Such a
task is especially difficult in America, a nation demonically
deceived about what is good, true, and beautiful. The
oppression in this country is sufficiently camouflaged to
allow many [] to believe that things are not really too bad.
White theologians, not having felt the sting of oppression,
will find it most difficult to criticize this nation, for the
condemnation of America entails their own condemnation.
Black thinkers are in a different position. They cannot be
black and identify with the powers that be. To be black is to be
committed to destroying everything this country loves and adores.
Creativity and passion are possible when one stands where the
black person stands, the one who has visions of the future because
the present is unbearable. And the black person will cling to that
future as a means of passionately rejecting the present.
 Theories on Religion & Liberation
from Women and Mythology (1982)
Weigle, Marta. Spiders & Spinsters: Women and Mythology. Albuquerque: New Mexico Press, 1982.
Chapter 2 Goddesses: Myth as Rorschach1
Our mother of the growing fields, our mother of the
streams, will have pity upon us. For whom do we
belong? Whose seeds are we? To our mother alone
do we belong. Cagaba Indian prayer.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the
fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of
God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of
our death. Amen. Roman Catholic prayer.
Female Creator Deities
Creatress, creatoress, creatrixthese cumbersome,
unfamiliar terms suggest the difficulties in identifying
creators who are portrayed as female rather than male or
bisexual/androgynous[bi-gendered] (in which case the male
aspect tends to predominate []). Quite simply: such
female creator deities are rare.2 On the whole, goddesses
play second fiddle[an inferior position] to gods in cosmogonic
and origin myths dealing with the early stages of creation.
Only when creation myths tell of a cosmos generated
through natural reproductive processes do female creator
deities enact significant roles.
Particularly in agricultural societies, the earth is seen
as a mother, cyclically giving birth to all life. Belief in
such an earth mother is often coupled with a belief that
certain placesrocks, caves, trees, rivers, etc.engender
children, whose souls are actually conceived and carried
in the womb of their real Mother, the Earth, and only
later enter human mothers. Such beliefs foster what
Mircea Eliade calls the mystical experience of
autochthony, the profound feeling of having come from
the soil, of having been born of the Earth. According to
him, perfect autochthony involves a complete cycle
from dust to dust; the mother did no more than to
bring to completion the creation of the Earth-Mother: and,
at death, the great desire was to return to the Earth-
Mother, to be interred[buried] in the native soil [].
1 of men who generally maintain and proclaim a cultures
Rorschach: The ink blot test, used in psychology where a patient is
shown a pattern of ink on a page, and is asked what she sees. Here, the
author is suggesting that women have been a form in myth upon which
the cultures or individuals unconscious thinking on women is revealed.
2
Authors note: As part of her cross-cultural study of Female Power
and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality, anthropologist
Peggy Reeves Sanday examined 112 creation stories worldwide. []
Only 18% of the 112 myths could be classified as feminine (ibid:59).
[] [She] was able to analyze 39 origin mythsonly 6 of which []
featured a female creator or ancestress, rather than a sexless creator,
couple creators or ancestors, male culture-hero or ancestor, animal creator
or ancestor, or supreme being or force (ibid:241).
Weigle
Female Culture Heroes
Culture heroes [] bring or bring about valuable
objects, teachings and natural changes which make
possible human society and survival. The typical culture
hero steals or liberates[frees] the sun, fire, or summer for his
people,[] originates corn,[] gives to men their medicines
and magic, and usually [] goes away into the west to
await a certain time appointed for his return (Leach 1972:268).
In culture hero as in creator, the feminine form is
the marked term, one which is used so seldom[rarely] that it
sounds strained at best. Creatoress, creatrix and
culture heroine are awkward and almost meaningless
designations[titles], reflecting the relatively weaker roles
women play in creation, transformation and origin
mythswhen they appear at all in such narratives about
ordering the world. Despite the fact that goddesses,
women, and female animals do give birth to all manner of
creatures, female figures in most of the mythology on
record are much more likely to be depicted as destructive
monsters rather than creative benefactors[gift-givers].
Vegetation goddesses, especially those associated
with corn, are among the most prevalent[wide-spread] culture
heroines in the broadest sense. Ake Hultkrantz, Swedish
scholar of comparative religions, summarizes the beliefs
about this deity in the Americas:
The vegetation goddess (or the mother goddess in her
role as vegetation goddess) appears to have her strongest
foothold in the agrarian[farming] areas of North and Central
America. She is here a corn goddess, corn being the
predominant grain. . . . Among the Hopi in Arizona and
the central Algonkin, the latter being hunters rather than
cultivators, the corn mother is replaced by a male corn
spiritundoubtedly a secondary notion adapted to the
interests of the patrilinear[male] hunters. . . . .
Female Monsters
It is not difficult to find myths that portray women as
monstrous, unnatural, dangerous, and lethal[deadly]
especially to men, but also to each other. Psychoanalysts
have suggested that this is basically because myths are
projective expressions, collective Rorschach tests that
show an unconscious fear of women, at least on the part
myths and rituals. H. R. Hays summarizes the rationale
behind his anthropological, historical and psychological
study of The Dangerous Sex in these terms:
We have been endeavoring[trying] to show by the facts
assembled in this study that male attitudes toward women
and the images of women created by men are strongly
influenced by deep anxieties, which are probably universal
and basic as the young male grows up in the family
relationship, and also shaped by the pressures of the
various cultures which man has created. In other words,
63
 since men have a tendency to be afraid of women they also
create situations which rationalize these fears and
perpetuate[continue] them. In addition, since no human being
can easily face his own compulsions[impulses], the male tends
to project his fears and antagonisms[hostilities] in terms of
derogatory[offensive] attributes[qhalities] by insisting that women
are evil, inferior and valueless (because different) and
hence should be made to obey, be kept in their place, or
fulfill some unreal role which neutralizes them and
removes them from the sphere of competition. From all of
this, traditions and stereotypes are born [] to justify the
inherent tendencies in male behavior. (1964:281)
After joint fieldwork among the Mundurucu Indians
of Amazonian Brazil in 1952-53she largely in the
company of women and he largely in the company of
menanthropologists Yolanda Murphy and Robert F.
Murphy drew much the same conclusion from the rituals
and behavior they observed and the myths and folklore
they collected. []:
In one sense, the myth is an allegory of mans birth from
woman, his original dependence upon the woman as the
supporting, nurturant and controlling agent in his life, and
of the necessity to break the shackles[chains] and assert his
autonomy[independence] and manhood. The mother is the
center of love and affect, but she is also an eternal threat to
self-individuation, a figure of authority, a frustrater of
urges, and a swallower of emergent identity; she can
devour and reincorporate that which she issued, and the
vagina, the avenue to life, is ambivalently conceived by
the men as destructive. The role of the male, then, must be
maintained by vigilance[caution] and continual self-assertion.
(Murphy and Murphy 1974:95; also see chapter 6 below)
[] In his psychoanalytic study, The Fear of Women,
Dr. Wolfgang Lederer maintains that:
In our Western culture, [] men have seen women
variously as charming or boring, as busy home-makers or
emancipated discontents[those freed from dissatisfaction], as inspiring
or castrating; but throughout, and in spite of everything,
still basically and always as the weaker sex. Whether
dominated, tolerated, despised, adored, or protected, in any
case they are to be the Other, the appendage[addition] and
foil[frustration] for the Lord of Creation, man. (1968:vi)
It is this weaker sex notion, Lederer claims, which has
to such an extent slanted the perception of Western man
that he must, to this day, consider any fear of women as
unmanly and hence unacceptable(ibid). [] We must
admit and face our fear of women [] the way the heroes
of old faced it and, facing it, conquered fear and woman
and the monsters of the unconscious deep, of night and
death (ibid:283).
[] Most myth texts have been collected by men from
other men, and they are usually interpreted from a males
perspective. Perhaps when there have been additional
joint explorations such as the Murphys and when more
women have become actively involved in the study of
myths told and believed by both sexes, but particularly by
other women in the company of women, complementary
mythologies will emerge. []
64
Gynephobia[fear of women]: The Classical Model
In Western culture mythology has tended to mean
Greek and Roman mythology, as preserved in classical art
and literature and perennially[constantly] reworked and
reinterpreted by (usually) men[]. Classicist Sarah B.
Pomeroy points out distinction between such myths as we
have come to know them and their original cult activities:
Myths represent goddesses as hostile to women, or show
them pursuing many activities foreign to the experience of
mortal women. In cult, on the other handthat is, in the
ceremonial veneration[worship] of these divinities by
women attention is paid both to the fulfillment of
womens needs and to the delineation[definition] of their
proper roles in society. Thus, for women, Athenas
patronage[support] of weaving, Heras of marriage, and
Artemis of childbirth were of supreme importance, but
these qualities are not emphasized in myth. (1975:9)
Pomeroy astutely[wisely] observes that a whole being with
potential does not emerge from the myths until the
characteristics of the five chief Olympian goddesses
Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Heraare merged:
The goddesses are archetypal[model] images of human
females, as envisioned by males. . . . A fully realized
female tends to engender[produce] anxiety in the insecure
male. Unable to cope with a multiplicity of powers united
in one female, men [] have envisioned women in either-
or roles. As a corollary[result] of this anxiety, virginal
females are considered helpful, while sexually mature
women like Hera are destructive and evil. [] Women are
frustrated by being forced to choose between an Athena
an intellectual, asexual career womanor an Aphrodite
a frivolous sex objector a respectable wife-mother like
Hera shows that the Greek goddesses continue to be the
archetypes of female existence. If the characteristics of the
major goddesses are combined, a whole being with
unlimited potential for developmenta female equivalent
of Zeus or Apollowould emerge. (1975:8-9) []
Misogyny[dislike or prejudice against women]: The Christian Model
Conception and birth have always been a primary
human concern and wonder. In the texts which follow,
both tribal and folk or popular beliefs about
impregnation are interspersed with official Roman
Catholic doctrines about the Virgin Mary,
promulgated[discussed] at various times in Church history.
These declarations and teachings have had a profound
effect on Western women, whether Catholic or Protestant.
As the idea of virginity evolved, the ideals for female
behavior grew increasingly difficult to emulate[follow]a
dilemma which has generated considerable feminist
commentary in recent years. []
Naomi R. Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods:
Obsession with purifying Mary of any taint[flaw] of
womanhood has occupied Christian scholars for centuries.
Treatises[Essays] on the Holy Mothers hymen1 abound in
every Catholic research library. Theologians have insisted
1
hymen: a membrane that surrounds or partially covers the external
vaginal opening , which may appear completely absent after sexual
intercourse
Weigle
that Mary remained intact before, during (!) and after
the birth of Jesus. Traditions also speak of how Marys
body never decayed and never gave off odors. Instead, her
physical body remained perfect even after death.
Mary is certainly the good girl of Christianity.
Absolutely obedient to the male God, she derives[gets] all
her status from her son. Because of her absolute purity
and obedience, she is the only pinup girl who has been
permitted in monks cells throughout the ages. []
Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The twin
ideal the Virgin represents is of course unobtainable.
Therefore, the effect the myth has on the mind of a
Catholic girl cannot but be disturbing, and if it does not
provoke revolt (as it often does) it deepens the need for
religions consolation, for the screen of rushes against the
perpetual frost of being carnal[sexual] and female. By setting
up an impossible ideal the cult of the Virgin does drive
the adherent[follower] into a position of acknowledged and
hopeless yearning and inferiority. [](1976:337)
Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, Feminist Spirituality,
Christian Identity, and Catholic Vision: The more the
Christian understanding of God was
patriarchalized[masculineized]the more God became the
majestic ruler and the stern judge, the more people turned
to the figure and cult of Mary. The more Jesus Christ
became divinized, the more it became necessary to have a
mediator between the majestic-transcendent God or his
Son and the Christian community. One could almost say
that through the dynamics of this development of the
gradual patriarchalization of the god image, Mary became
the other face, the Christian face, of God. All the New
Testament images and attributes which characterize God
as loving, life giving, compassionate and caring, as being
with the people of God are now transferred to the mother
of God, who is as accessible as was the nonpatriarchal
God whom Jesus preached. Even though any Catholic
school child can explain on an intellectual-theological
level the difference between the worship of God and
Christ and the veneration[worship] of Mary, on an emotional,
imaginative, experiential level the Catholic child
experiences the love of God in the figure of a woman.
Since in later piety Jesus Christ becomes so
transcendentalized and absorbed into his divinity, the
human face of God is almost solely experienced in the
image of a woman. The cult of Mary thus grew in
proportion to the gradual repatriarchalization of the
Christian God and Jesus Christ. The Catholic tradition
gives us thus the opportunity to experience the divine
reality in the figure of a woman (1979:138-39).
[] Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: Although
Mary cannot be a model for the New Woman, a goddess
is better than no goddess at all, for the sombre-suited
masculine world []. But it should not be necessary to
have a goddess contrasted with a god, a divinity who
stands for qualities considered the quintessence[core] of
femininity and who thus polarizes symbolic and religious
thought into two irreconcilably opposed camps. (1976:338)
Weigle
Toward Complementarity: Challenge, Clarion
Insofar as they express the projected fears, hopes and
desires of their narrators and adherents[believers], myths can
be viewed as cultural Rorschach tests. Unfortunately,
most myths now on record apparently have little to do
with women and their fears, hopes and desires. For the
most part, available narratives have been collected by
male researchers from male informants, later to be
translated and interpreted by male scholars from their own
perspectives. Thus, both gods and goddesses, culture
heroes and heroines, male and female monstersto say
nothing of all the Olympians and the Virgin Maryare
largely male constructs. As the following commentators
suggest, a greater range of myths and their associated
ideals of behavior must now be gathered, scrutinized,
compared and re-interpreted from various feminist and
humanist perspectives. Only when more women have
studied and participated in more myths-in-process/context
with other women and lived more stories within
themselves will the imagination transmute the Rorschach,
and many more facets of all the goddesses emerge. []
Naomi R. Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods:
Gender stereotypes will be eliminated when we
recognize that women and men can have many different
styles of thought, feeling and behavior. [] In this age of
change for our gods we need to proliferate[multiply] the ways
we allow ourselves to imagine psychological and
religious styles. Let us not endorse one goddess or one
image as embodying the ideals of the new age. Why not
see the different people we all might become by looking
at many myths and images? (1979:78) []
Kay Turner: A culture is known by its images and
by the ease or difficulty any individual has in gaining
access to the power those images represent. Women have
been denied their right to images which define and
promote female power and independence. To reclaim
images of the feminine world (i.e. to discover and release
the political potential of the spiritual) is a serious task
which will continue to involve many women (1976a:2). []
Carol P. Christ, Why Women Need the Goddess:
The symbol of Goddess has much to offer women who
are struggling to be rid of the powerful, pervasive, and
long-lasting moods and motivations of devaluation of
female power, denigration[attacking] of the female body,
distrust of female will, and denial of the womens bonds
and heritage that have been engendered by patriarchal
religion. As women struggle to create a new culture in
which womens power, bodies, will, and bonds are
celebrated, it seems natural that the Goddess would
reemerge as symbol of the newfound beauty, strength, and
power of women. (1978:13) []
65
 Abrahamic Religions
from Approaching the Quran (1999)
Sells, Michael. Approaching the Quran: The Early Revelations. White Clouse Press, 2007.
This volume is an attempt to approach the Qur'an in
two senses. First, in the translations and commentary I
have tried to bring across some sense of that particular
combination of majesty and intimacy that makes the
Qur'anic voice distinctive. Second, I have sought to allow
the reader who is unfamiliar with the details of Islamic
history to approach the Qur'an in a way that allows an
appreciation of its distinctive literary character. The
selections presented here are the short, hymnic chapters or
Suras associated with the first revelations to Muhammad,
most of which appear at the end of the written text and are
commonly reached only by the most resolute reader. These
short Suras are the sections learned first by Muslims in
their study of the Arabic Qur'an. They also comprise the
verses most often memorized, quoted, and recited. They
contain some of the most powerful prophetic and
revelatory passages in religious history. And they offer the
vision of a meaningful and just life that anchors the
religion of one-fifth of the world's inhabitants. []
The purpose of this book is neither to refute nor to
promote the Qur'anic message. Rather, the goal is to allow
those who do not have access to the Qur'an in its recited,
Arabic form to encounter one of the most influential texts
in human history in a manner that is accessible.
These Suras contain the essential world view of the Qur'an
concerning the meaning of life and the possibility of
justice - the two interconnected themes that are at the heart
of Islamic thought. This volume is devoted to these early
Qur'anic revelations.
I. Muhammad, the Qur'an, and the Poets
According to traditional accounts, Muhammad was
born in the year 570 C.E. in the trading town of Mecca,
situated in a barren valley in central Arabia. Muhammad's
father died before his birth. His mother died soon after. His
grandfather, who had been appointed his guardian, also
died while Muhammad was still a boy. He then came
under the guardianship of an uncle. The Qur'an suggests
that Muhammad's consciousness was deeply influenced by
his experience of being orphaned in a society in which
status, security, and life itself depended upon family
connections.
Muhammad married Khadija, a prosperous widow and
independent businesswoman who, along with her husband,
was to exercise an enormous impact on world history.
Muhammad had also taken to meditating in a cave in the
rocky hills above Mecca and, around the year 610 C.E., he
experienced his prophetic vision and first revelation. The
vision is described in elliptic and allusive language (Sura
53). The first auditory revelation is believed to have been
the Qur'anic words (Sura 96): "Recite in the name of your
lord who created . . . " The term Qur'an, given to the
66 Approaching the Quran
revelations Muhammad would convey, is related to the
Arabic word for "recite." It might be translated as the
Recitation.
The Qur'anic revelations present Muhammad as the
"messenger" ( rasul ) of God, the culmination in a line
going back through many prophets found also in the Bible
(Jesus, Moses, and Abraham) and through others known
only in the Arabian tradition. At first, Muhammad was
dismissed with contempt and mockery. Gradually,
however, he built a small circle of followers, including
Khadija and his cousin Ali. The revelations believed to be
the earliest were embraced by a small group of people in a
region considered a no-man's land by the leaders of the
great empires of the day (Roman, Persian, and Ethiopian).
Within the span of a few decades, these revelations
became the core of a major world religion and an
international civilization extending from what is now
Spain to Afghanistan; within a couple of centuries, that
faith extended all the way to China. []
The Qur'an retains key [Arabian] values such as
remembrance, generosity, hospitality, and valor. But the
social context for such values is transformed. The
remembrance is no longer of a beloved and a lost tribal
love affair, but of the deity who, even when figured in later
poetry as a beloved, maintains a more explicitly
transcendent character. The journey through the desert
evolves into a moral and spiritual journey, a journey of the
human being toward the divine lord. The generous hero,
the Karim, is still the model of human excellence, but the
hero is no longer the tribal chief or even the prophet, but
the all-giving deity and the human being who imitates that
generosity by working for social justice. []
III. The Early Meccan Suras
The Suras from the early Meccan period focus on
existential and personal issues. The later Meccan period
brings in more extended discussions of sacred history and
the prophets known in the Biblical traditions. The message
of the Qur'an is more explicitly fitted into a prophetic
lineage beginning with the creation of Adam, the first
prophet in Islam, extending through the stories of Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, John the Baptist,
and Jesus, prophets of the Arab tradition such as Hud and
Salih, and ending with Muhammad. The Suras from the
Medinan period reflect Muhammad's new position as a
political, economic, social, and military leader and so
address a wider range of societal, historical, and legal
issues. []
As Muhammad's career advanced, the ritual core of
Islam was more fully articulated within the Qur'an. Of the
"five pillars" of Islamic practice, three were discussed in
the early Meccan Suras : the affirmation of the oneness of
God, the ritual prayer ( salat ), and the obligation to give a
pure offering ( zakat ) of one's wealth to those in need. In
later periods, the number of prayers required per day was
fixed at five and the orientation of the prayers was set
toward the shrine of the Ka'ba in Mecca; the obligation for
fasting during the month of Ramadan (the month the initial
Qur'anic revelations are believed to have been sent down
to Muhammad) was enjoined on all able adult Muslims;
and, finally, the Islamic pilgrimage or hajj, which
contained many of the elements of pre-Islamic pilgrimage
activities around Mecca, was ordained for all Muslims
capable of it. []
The values presented in the very early Meccan
revelations are repeated throughout the hymnic Suras.
There is a sense of directness and intimacy, as if the hearer
were being asked repeatedly a simple question: what will
be of value at the end of a human life?
The framework for this question is the concept of a
final moment of truth or day of reckoning ( yawm ad-din )
in which each human being will face what he or she has
done and has not done. The premise of these passages is
that the human being avoids the ultimate question through
self-delusion and avoids acknowledging his own mortality
by engaging in the pursuit of wealth and possessions
"thinking in his wealth he will never die," as one Qur'anic
verse puts it. The criticism of hoarding, the hoarding of
one's possessions or one's life, was a standard in pre-
Islamic Arabic poetry. The Qur'an keeps the value of the
generous hero (the Karim ) but redefines generosity. The
key value of generosity is no longer to be shown through
camel sacrifice, great feasts, or giving one's life in tribal
warfare. Rather, it is to be channeled into a concern for
social justice, a continual willingness to give a share of
one's possessions to the less fortunate. This giving is a
purification of oneself and one's possessions as well as a
recognition that no one truly owns anything. []
_____________________________________
Three calligraphy styles presenting the phrase
by smi Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahi
(In the name of God the Compassionate the Caring),
which precedes each sura of the Quran
Approaching the Quran
_____________________________________
THE GENEROUS QURAN
_____________________________________
1
The Opening
In the name of God
the Compassionate the Caring
Praise be to God
lord sustainer of the worlds
the Compassionate the Caring
master of the day of reckoning
5 To you we turn to worship
and to you we turn in time of need
Guide us along the road straight
the road of those to whom you are giving
not those with anger upon them
not those who have lost the way
Because of its eloquent statement of devotion and the
manner in which it pervades religious life, The
Opening has been called the Islamic equivalent of the
Lord's Prayer in Christianity. The word translated
"opening," ftiha, means the opening in the sense of the
opening of a chapter or a story. Unlike the other early
hymic Suras, The Opening occurs not at the end of the
Qur'anic written text, but at the very beginning. It is the
most recited of all Qur'anic Suras, not only in prayers and
liturgy[ritual], but also in everyday life. After business
transactions, for example, The Opening is recited by both
parties as a mark of good faith and a solemn affirmation of
the responsibilities affirmed by each partner.
The Opening is the only Sura in which the phrase "In
the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring" does not
occur before the Sura, but is actually considered part of the
Sura itself. Just as that phrase is woven into the pattern of
simple activities as a form of reminder so "Praise be to
God" (al-hamdu li llh) has become part of everyday
speech. It is used after any good news or any praise, and as
a response to the greeting "How are you?"
The two qualifications of God are "lord of the worlds"
(the creator deity) and "master of the day of reckoning"
(the deity who brings finality to all acts and all lives). The
response for those hearing or reciting The Opening is to
turn toward God in worship and for refuge.
The "the road straight" frequently is translated as "the
straight path." The term rendered here as road, sirt, would
have connoted something grand to the inhabitants of the
Arabian peninsula. There are many words in Arabic for
paths; the Arabs of Muhammad's time traveled through the
desert on barely discernible paths. By contrast, the
word sirt means a paved road, such as the roads of the
Romans which the Arabian travelers might come across in
their journeys.
_____________________________________
67
53: 1-18
The Star
In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring
By the star as it falls
Your companion has not lost his way
nor is he deluded
He does not speak out of desire
This is a revelation
5 taught him by one of great power
and strength that stretched out over
while on the highest horizon
then drew near and came down
two bows' lengths or nearer
10 He revealed to his servant what he revealed
The heart did not lie in what it saw
Will you then dispute with him his vision?
He saw it descending another time
at the lote tree of the furthest limit
15 There was the garden of sanctuary
when something came down over
the lote tree, enfolding
His gaze did not turn aside nor go too far
He had seen the signs of his lord, great signs
68
The first eighteen verses of The Star are considered
among the earliest revelations of the Qur'an and are the
most explicit reference to Muhammad's prophetic vision.
The Sura begins (1-12) with the divine voice swearing by
the falling star that "your companion" has not gone mad or
lost his way. "Your companion" is interpreted as
Muhammad. His vision is also called a
revelation (wahy) and is explicitly said to be rooted not in
desire (haw), which the Qur'an associates with the
inspiration of the poets (Sura 26). The object of vision is
never actually described. Instead, the text evokes the
process of vision by tracing a movement along the highest
horizon and then a descent and drawing near to the
distance of "two bows' lengths." The passage ends with an
affirmation of the validity of the vision: The heart of the
prophet "did not lie in what he saw." This affirmation
becomes a proof text for the claim among many mystics
and philosophers that the locus of spiritual vision and
mystical knowledge is the heart.
In a second passage (13-18), the divine voice,
referring to Muhammad again in the third person,
describes another vision ("He saw it descending another
time"). Here, "the lote tree of the furthest limit" is placed
in or near the enigmatic "garden of sanctuary." We are told
almost nothing about the tree, except that something came
upon it in an enveloping manner. Of key importance is the
"gaze" of the prophet, which does not "turn aside" or "go
too far." This one verse became the paradigm for Islamic
reflection on the proper state in contemplation. As in many
evocative passages in the Qur'an, what is left unsaid is as
important as what is said. Here, the power of the vision is
evoked through a depiction of the gaze of the viewer, but
the vision itself is never described in detail or given fixed
form in a way that limits thought or imagination.
When the Qur'an states "He saw it descending another
time," the antecedent of the pronoun (hu, it/him) is
unstated, and thus the referent of the "it" is not
determinable from the passage. The identity of the referent
became a matter of controversy, with the debate centering
upon whether or not the deity can be seen in this world.
Those for whom the vision of God can only occur in the
afterlife tend to interpret the it/he as referring to the
messenger-angel Gabriel.
_ _____________________________________ _
Approaching the Quran
81 This Sura offers a cosmic unveiling. The sky, the seas, the
mountains, the normal order of life are pulled away, and
The Overturning the deepest secret within revealed
The English word apocalypse is derived from the
In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring Greek word for unveiling. In The Overturning, one mark
of the apocalypse will be the question addressed to young
When the sun is overturned girls who were buried alive. In ancient bedouin society,
When the stars fall away male children were valued more than female children. A
When the mountains are moved female child could become a financial burden, and the
When the ten-month pregnant camels familys honor was always vulnerable to attacks on her
are abandoned honor. As in other cultures, the disparity in social value led
5 When the beasts of the wild are herded together to practices such as infanticide. By placing the
When the seas are boiled over condemnation of this practice within the series of
When the souls are coupled apocalyptic flashes, The Overturning makes it the
When the girl-child buried alive epitome[essence] of human wrongdoing. The
is asked what she did to deserve murder recompense[payment] for such extreme evil is called Jahim,
10 When the pages are folded out one of several an enigmatic terms the Quran uses in
When the sky is flayed open connection with the final reckoning (for further discussion
When Jahim is set ablaze of Jahim, see Sara 83 and the accompanying commentary
When the garden is brought near on it).
Then a soul will know what it has prepared After twelve verses marking the overturning, the Sura
15 I swear by the stars that slide, states that at the time each soul will know what is what it
stars streaming, stars that sweep along the sky has prepared. By showing the ephemerality[briefly] of what
By the night as it slips away seems secure, the verses on cosmic unveiling attempt to
By the morning when the fragrant air breathes reach the place within the self that is vulnerable before
This is the word of a messenger ennobled, questions concerning ultimate value and reality. After a
20 empowered, ordained before the lord of the throne, series of oaths, this Sura refers back to the key vision
holding sway there, keeping trust verses of Sura 53, the vision seen at the furthest limit:
Your friend has not gone mad
He saw him on the horizon clear Your friend has not gone mad
he does not hoard for himself the unseen He saw him on the horizon clear
25 This is not the word of a satan He does not work for himself the unseen
struck with stones
The word for mad (majnun) literally means
Where are you going? possessed by the jinn (genies), who at the time of
This is a reminder to all beings Muhammad were associated with amorous love, madness,
For those who wish to walk straight and poetic inspiration. Thus the Quran is stating not only
Your only will is the will of God that Muhammad is not insane, but also that he is not a
lord of all beings poet, inspired and possessed by the jinn. Nor is he inspired
by a satan. Satans were considered a species of jinn and
the Quran refers to satans or the satan as sources of
empty ideas and egotistic inclinations. As in Sura 53 the
object of the vision is unspecified. If the pronoun word
translated as him rather than it, the vision would refer
to the angel Gabriel who brought to Muhammad the
message of the Quran.
The Sura ends with the statement that is a reminder
(dhikr) to all beings, and with the question, Where are
you going? This reminder occurs after the language of the
Sura has challenged established patterns of human
endeavor and human aspiration. The cosmos itself has
been presented as a kind of veil, and it's nearly apparent
solidarity has been shown at a moment when the veil is
torn away. The night sky and the morning air (cool, fresh,
and fragrant in the desert) have been evoked as signs of a
deeper reality. Only after this vision of cosmic unveiling
and appeal to the signs of nature is the question about the
direction of life posed.
_____________________________________

Approaching the Quran 69

82 The Tearing
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
When the sky is torn
When the stars are scattered
When the seas are poured forth
When the tombs are burst open
5 Then a soul will know what it has given
and what it has held back
Oh, O human being
what has deceived you about your generous lord
who created you and shaped you and made you right
In whatever form he willed for you, set you
But no. Rather. You deny the reckoning
10 that over you they are keeping watch
ennobled beings, writing down
knowing what it is you do
The pure of heart will be in bliss
The hard of heart will be in blazing fire
15 The day of reckoning, burning there
they will not evade that day
What can tell you of the day of reckoning
Again, what can tell you of the day of reckoning
A day no soul has a say for another
and the decision is at that time with God
70 Approaching the Quran
The Tearing begins with another apocalyptic vision. The
first four verses in Arabic are composed in a staccato
rhythm with strong alliteration. The fifth and sixth verses
are composed in measured cadences filled with long vowel
sounds, offering a contemplative contrast to the tension
and harshness of the first four verses. []
Each soul is asked what it has given and what it has
held back, that is, what acts of generosity and justice has it
carried out or neglected? The question occurs within an
ontological reversal. The solidities of life, the sky, the
stars, the seas, even the reality of death exemplified in the
tombs are revealed to be ephemeral. Those acts that might
seem small or passing, what the Quran calls later a
motes weight good or a motes weight wrong (Sura 99),
are revealed as having true reality.
The question is posed to the human being (insan). The
Arabic word insan, used for the huiman being or humanity,
is never gender specific. Translations that use the word
man evoke a series of male gender constructions that
alter the gender balance in the text. But the Quranic
questions are always addressed to insan, to man and
woman alike. The reference to your generous lord (rabbika
al-karim) reinforces the earlier allusion to generosity as the
matric of ethical value.
The end of the Sura poses the question, what can tell
you of the day if reckoning? Throughout the early
Meccan Suras, the phrase translated as what can tell you
of, or what can tell you what (ma adraka ma) marks a
term that is new or obscure to the original audience. The
phrase indicated a moment of a mystery. The question
often is only partially answered, only to be posed anew in
another Sura, with another partial answer or hint. Here the
Sura speaks about this day of reckoning as a day when no
soul can help any other. Each individual will answer for
what he or she has done. In Arabian tribal society, crimes
were viewed as communal rather than individual, and were
atoned for by the family of the perpetrator through a
payment of the giving of a hostage other than the
perpetrator. The Quranic notion of an existential and
unavoidable individual accountability was particularly
threatening to the tribal rules of blood feud and family
responsibility.
_____________________________________
83
The Cheats
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Cursed are the cheats
who when their portion is measured among people
take their full share
who when they measure the share of others,
are frauds
Do they think they will not be raised again
5 for a momentous day
a day humankind will stand before the lord
of all beings.
But no. The book of the false hearted is in Sijjin
What can tell you of Sijjin?
A book inscribed
10 Cursed are those who call it all a lie
who deny the day of reckoning
Who would deny it
but the oppressor hard in wrong?
When our signs are recited to him, he says
fables of the ancients
But no. Rather. Rust on their hearts
is what they acquire.
15 No. On that day they will be veiled from their lord.
They will burn in Jahim and its fire.
Then they will be told here is what you call a lie
But no. The innocent will be in Illiyyin
What can tell you of Illiyyin?
20 A book inscribed
witnessed by those who are brought near
Oh the pure of heart will rejoice
on raised couches, gazing
On their faces see the radiance of joy
25 They will be given to drink a sealed, pure wine
Its seal is muskfor that let those who
aspire, aspire
blended with the water of Tasnim
From that spring, only those brought close
will drink
The abusers would laugh at those
who kept the faith
30 winking to one another as they passed by
When they returned to their people
they returned mocking
and when they saw them they said
those people have gone astray
and they were not appointed their keepers
But on that day those who kept the faith
at those who denied it will laugh
35 On couches, gazing
Were the deniers rewarded
for what they achieved?
Approaching the Quran
Rather than an evocation of the day of reckoning. The
Cheats envisions the ultimate destiny of those who spend
their lives cheating and hoarding and those who are giving
an accept the reality of the day of reckoning.
The descriptions are consonant with the world of
seventh-century Bedouin Arabia. The punishment is fixed
as the Jahim, a term that means fire or raging fire that was
developed by later Islamic commentaries and integrated
into elaborate visions of hell that circulated the
Mediterranean world in late antiquity. But in the Quran,
the discussions of the afterlife tend to be brief references,
often with rare terms such a Jahim. Here, because it is
within a context of other proper names such as Illiyyin, I
have treated the word Jahim as a proper name as well.
Much of the effect of the early Meccan Suras is due to
what is not said, to the way in which a promise or warning
is given but not fixed into a temporally or spatially located
heaven or hell. The result is an openness as to what the
warning or promise actually meansan openness that
invites each hearer or reader to meditate upon that moment
in which his or her life, in its true perspective of acts of
justice ion injustice, generosity or meanness, is unfolded.
The promise reward is located in Illiyyin. The phrase
And what can tell you of Illiyyin immediately marks
that work as one that would have been mysterious to the
original audience. The description is one of the royal
banquet. In bedouin Arabia, people sat (and still sit) on
cushions on the ground. Thus, the raised couch was
associated with the august splendor of the Roman feast.
Descriptions of great wines also were common in pre-
Islamic poetry and many pre-Islamic poems became
famous for their depictions of rare wines imported from
distant places of ancient vintage. The Quran, which in
later passages bans wine, was to make of the heavenly
wine mixed with the purest spring water (an image of
unbearable beauty to the desert inhabitant) a key symbol of
the paradise to come.
The end of the Sura shows the beginning of the
bitterness between the young Muslim communityat first
mocked and humiliated, then persecutedand those in
Mecca who rejected the messenger Muhammad and
laughed at his message. As with many of the gospel
parables of Jesus, the rejection of the message is met not
with a command to fight back but with the warning that, in
the final moment, it will be the mockers who will be
mocked and the persecutors who will feel the pain.
_____________________________________
71
85
The Heavenly Mansions
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
By the sky with its mansions
By the appointed day
By the witness and what is witnessed
Death to the lords of the pit
5 and its stoked fire
as they took their positions above it there
What they did to the faithful
they are the witness to it
What did they condemn them for
keeping faith in God almighty, worthy
of all praise
master of the heavens and earth?
To all things God is witness
10 As for those who put to the trial
the men of faith and the women of faith
remorseless for the wrong they did
for them is the pain of Jahannam and the
pain of the burning
And as for those who kept the faith and worked
justice for them are gardens with rivers
flowing underground
That is the triumph supreme
Unendurable is the fury of your lord
It is he who brings the beginning and brings
the return
He is the all-forgiving, the one who holds dear
15 lord of the throne of glory
who brings to pass whatever he wills
Have you heard about the armies marching
Pharaoh and Thamud?
But no. In denial are those who reject the faith
20 with God behind them, enfolding all
This is a glorious Quran, surely
On a tablet well preserved
72 Approaching the Quran
In the night sky of the desert, without lights, trees, or
clouds to obscure them, the stars take on an overwhelming
presence. The stars were guides for the bedouin who used
them to navigate the trackless desert. They were also signs
for both bedouin and agriculturists as they looked to the
stars as portents of life-giving rain. The stars were
organized into various systems of constellations,
predictions, and foretelling the weather; one system was
based on the heavenly mansions (buruj) of the Zodiac.
The reference to a people who guarded a ditch and
fire, persecuted those who kept the faith, and refused to
admit their wrong is obscure. Some commentators relate it
to a battle between the South Yemenite Jewish king
Dhu Nuwas and the Christian empire, in which the right
believers were thrown into a fiery ditch. Others suggest it
may be a reference to the afterlife. But whatever the
specific allusion, the general message is the same: those
who cause harm and then refuse to admit their wrong and
atone for it will, on the day of awe, face defeat. They
will face burning and Jahannam, a term for final
punishment that is cognate to the Biblical Gehenna and
related to the Quranic Jahim. Those who keep the faith
and carry out just works will find themselves rewarded
with gardens with rivers flowing underground.
The imagery is clearly based on the life of the
inhabitants of Arabia, where gardens were found in oases
fed by underground rivers. At the center of an oasis is the
spring where the underground river opens out and flows
over, a symbol for life and peace in the desert. To anyone
who has ever walked into an oasis from the desert, the
reference is clear. To those who have not it must be
imagined: after insufferable heat, dust, and glare, the air
suddenly becomes fragrant with blossoms and fruit. The
sounds of birds and the rippling of streams replace the
howl and lash of wind-whipped sand.
A sense of intimacy and peace is overwhelming. The
glare and bleached-out environs give way to the deep,
velvet red of pomegranate blossoms, the richness of grapes
on the arbor, the majestic stands of date palms. And, of
course, the temperature drops from the inhuman burning of
the desert to what seem like never-ending waves of
coolness. The entire experience of entering the oasis would
have been evoked for an inhabitant of Arabia by the phrase
waters flowing underground.
The Sura ends with references to Pharaoh and the
tribe of Thamud, two symbols of the arrogance of power,
of those who thought their power was invulnerable, and
yet whose power passed away. They did not realize in their
denial of God, that God is ever present and surrounding
them even in their denial. The final verse states that the
Quran is on a well preserved tablet (lawh)a statement
that has led to much discussion on the nature of such a
tablet. The Quran is preserved in the divine mind or in
some kind of primordial form. But how it is preserved on
this primordial tablet became a major topic of discussion
among philosophers, theologians, and mystics in the later
centuries of Islam.
_____________________________________
87
The Most High
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Holy be the name of your lord most high
Who created then gave form
Who determined then gave guidance
Who made the meadow pasture grow
5 then turned it to a darkened flood-swept remnant
We will make you recite. You will not forget
except what the will of God allows
He knows what is declared
and what lies hidden
He will ease you to the life of ease
So remind them if reminder will succeed
10 Those who know awe will be brought to remember
He who is hard in wrong will turn away
He will be put to the fire
neither dying in it nor living
He who makes himself pure will flourish
15 who remembers the name of his lord and
performs the prayer
But no. They prefer the lower life
Better is the life ultimate, the life that endures
As is set down in the scrolls of the ancients
the scrolls of Ibrahm and Msa
Approaching the Quran
The Most High centers on a repeated theme of the early
Meccan Suras: the Qur'anic text and its messenger as a
"reminder." The divine voice proclaims that Muhammad
can only remind but not compel his listeners to heed the
reminder. God is depicted here as the one who knows what
is in the open and what is hidden. This notion of the deity
will be developed throughout the Qur'an by the use of
divine names such as the all-seeing(al-basr), the all-
hearing (as-sami`), the one who knows inside and out (al-
khabr), and the all-knowing (al-`alim). The human being
hides things from others and from himself. The being that
knows these hidden, most intimate details, that knows
ourselves better than we know ourselves, is the Qur'anic
God, Allah.
Those who cannot be brought to remember their
essential role and responsibility as human beings are said
to prefer the lower life (al-hayt ad-duny). The word for
"lower" here is also the word, when used as a noun, for
"world," a meaning that has led some translators to render
the phrase "the life of the world." Although there may be a
play on the two senses of duny here, grammatically the
term cannot mean "life of the world" and I have adhered to
the more immediate meaning of the term. The other
problem with terms like "life of the world" or "worldly" is
that the Qur'an generally does not view the world in
negative terms, seeing it instead as the gift of an infinitely
generous creator that, however transitory it may be, is to
be cherished rather than despised.
The final verse suggests that the central message
of The Most High is the same one that was revealed to
Abraham (Ibrhm) and Moses (Ms).
_____________________________________
73
88 The Darkening offers a glimpse of the day of reckoning,
focusing more on the faces of those who experience it than
The Darkening the cosmic phenomena that herald it. This Sura contains
the basic components of the hymnic apocalyptic passages:
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring an evocation of the final day, an oath that summons the
signs of the patterns of life and nature, a reference to the
Have you heard the news of the darkening rejection of the prophet and of the Quran he brings,
Faces on that day cast down paradise in terms of a regal banquet.
toiling, worn The Quran has commonly been referred to as
put to the fire repetitive. From the thematic point of view, this is
5 their only drink a hot spring boiling certainly the case. All the themes in The Darkening can be
their food, bitter-thorn found in other Suras. Yet from the point of view of the
which cannot nourish Quranic experience, such a Sura is much more than
or assuage the pangs of hunger repetition. Like a musical theme that is varied and then
brought back to an original pattern, the central themes
Faces on that day glowing in bliss return in new combinations. There are subtle and important
fulfilled with what they have done shifts in the imagery of the cosmic apocalypse, the
10 within a garden raised high psychological portrayal of those who experience the final
no empty words to hear revelation, the tone and perspective of the discussion of the
with cold, gushing springs role of the Quranic reminder, the interweaving of awe and
on couches raised high intimacy, the movement between a depiction of the all-
with goblets in a setting forgiving deity and the warnings to those who persist in
15 with cushions arranged in place doing harm.
saddle-cushions arrayed in rows The premise of the Quranic reminder is that the
human being is by nature forgetful, and by habit and
Look at the camel preoccupation caught up in the concerns of the world
and how it is created which hide the central reality of the moral imperative for
Look at the sky and how it is raised generosity and justice. One form of reminder is the
Look at the mountains and how they are set performance of the prayer: breaking the preoccupation of
20 Look at the earth and how it is spread the day, ritually and regularly, to orient oneself toward the
prophetic message and its author. The other form of
Remind them reminder is the repetition and recitation, in ever new forms
All you can do is be a reminder and supple shifts in nuance, of the basic message
Over them you have no power concerning the day of reckoning.
As for him who rejects and turns away
God will bring down upon him great pain _____________________________________

25 To us they will return

With us will be their accounting

74 Approaching the Quran

89
The Dawn
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
By the dawn
By the nights ten
By the odd and the even
By the night as it eases away
5 Is there not in that an oath for the thoughtful mind
Did you not see what your lord did to Ad
great pillared ram
like nothing created in this land before
and Thamd with its carvings in the river bed rock
10 and Pharaoh of the tent pegs
who spread oppression through their lands
and compounded their corruption?
Your lord brought down upon them the lash of pain
Your lord is in hiding and waits
15 Such is the human being that when his lord
tries him with generosity and bounty
he says: my lord has honored me
but when his lord tries him with hunger and lack
he says: my lord has treated me with disdain
But no. To the orphan you are ungiving
You do not demand food for those who hunger
You feed on inheritances and devour
20 You love possessions with a love consuming
Rather. When the earth is split apart, splitting,
splitting
When the lord and the angels approach rank on
rank arrayed
When on that day Jahannam is brought close
then the human being will remember
and what good will it do him that he remembers?
Saying: If only I had made provision for my life
25 On that day no one else will suffer his pain
No one will be held to the covenant he made but he
O soul made peaceful
return to your lord accepted and accepting
Come in among my servants
and in my garden, enter
Approaching the Quran
Ad and Thamud were two ancient tribal leaders. Two
great Arabian tribes and the civilizations they controlled
were named after them. The civilization of Thamud was
associated with the ruins of an ancient city that may have
been part of the great Nabataean empire whose capital was
in Petra. The father of Ad was named Iram, and thus the
civilization could be called either Ad or Iram.
By the time of Muhammad, Ad and Thamud had
become symbolic of great civilizations that had risen and
fallen in times past. In the Quran, they become, along
with the civilization of the Pharaohs, emblematic of those
peoples who refused to hear the reminders of their
prophets and ultimately came to ruin. Commentators have
offered varied explanations for the mysterious term
Pharaoh of the tent pegs, interpreting the pegs as a
metaphor for the pyramids, for example, or simply as a
figurative expression for great power as symbolized by an
army with vast arrays of tents.
Thus, there are two strands of warning within the
Quran. The first focuses on the ephemeral nature of
human grandeur in time and the ruin that comes to
civilizations that refuse to heed the words of their
prophets. The second focuses on the fact that sometimes
wrongdoers do seem to prosper and those who do right and
follow the prophets remain oppressed. It suggests, in the
face of such apparent injustice, that at the day of reckoning
(a day that occurs on the boundary of time), both groups
will finally see a just accountability.
The moral critique at the heart of this Sura becomes a
key refrain for the moral critique within the early Meccan
revelations, a critique of the human refusal to be giving, to
help the orphan and the person in want. To be giving in
this life is equated at the end of the Sura with making
provisions for the moment of reckoning. After a
summoning of the fear and awe of this day, with the ranks
of angels marching , the Sura ends with a reference to the
peaceful soul (an-nafs al-mutmainna). The soul at peace
was to become a central system of the goal of religious life
and moral discipline within Islam.
The Dawn ends with another example of the Quranic
voice change. The soul made peaceful is invited to
return to its lord, both accepted and accepting, in a state of
reconciliation. Then the voice shifts to the deity referring
to itself in the first person, a shift that gives a striking tone
of intimacy to the final invitation:
O soul made peaceful
return to your accepted and accepting
Come in among my servants
and in my garden, enter
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75
91
The Sun
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
By the sun and her brightening
By the moon when it follows her
By the day when it displays her
By the night when it veils her
5 By the sky and what constructed her
By the earth and what shaped her
By the soul and what formed her
and revealed her debased and revealed her faithful
Whoever honors her flourishes
10 Whoever defiles her fails
The people of Thamud called truth a lie
in their inhumanity
when they sent out their worst
The messenger of God said
God's camel mare
give her water!
They called him liar
and hamstrung her for the slaughter
15 Then their lord rumbled down upon them
for their crime and wiped them away
with no fear of what came after
76
The Sun begins with one of the most extended oaths of the
Qur'an. The sun is portrayed surrounded by a court, in the
most lyrical Qur'anic tone. The word for sun (shams) is
grammatically feminine in Arabic and takes the
grammatically feminine pronoun h. By making h the key
rhyme word throughout the first part of the Sura, the
Qur'anic voice creates a partial personification. In other
words, a "gender figure" is produced. The "her" is never
fully personified as a woman, but is always on the verge of
such a personification.
The second part of the Sura evokes the civilization of
Thamd. For the people of Arabia, there were few symbols
more potent than the tribe of Thamd and the ruins of their
great city that may have been part of the Nabataean culture
whose capital was Petra, the "red rose city as old as time."
In both early Islamic poetry and the Qur'an, the
destruction of Thamd became a parable for the passing of
civilizations. The poets attributed the passing of the
civilization to the incessant work of fate/time (dahr),
which wears down all things and thwarts human
aspirations. The Qur'an attributed the destruction of
Thamd to the refusal of its people to heed the words of
their prophet, a refusal that led to the destruction of other
peoples before and after Thamd as well.
In disobeying their prophet, Slih, the people of
Thamd slaughtered God's camel mare. Nothing was more
taboo in ancient Arabia than the unjustified killing of a
camel mare. The central ritual of pre-Islamic poetry was
the camel sacrifice and distribution of the meat throughout
the tribe. The improper slaying of a camel mare was a
sacrilege or abomination of such enormity that it led to
tribal wars that lasted generations.
By slaughtering God's camel mare, the people of
Thamd committed what was by both ancient tribal
standards and Qur'anic standards an abomination. The
depictions of the destruction of Thamd are also eerily
similar to depictions of the events of the day of reckoning
and may serve as a parable for them as well.
_____________________________________
Approaching the Quran
92
The Night
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
By the night when it falls
By the day when it breaks
By what has made the male and the female
You strive toward different ends.
5 As for him who shares what he has and is mindful
who affirms the right
him we will ease to the good life
As for him who hoards what he has
thinking it makes him secure
who denies the right
10 him we will ease to hardship
Wealth will not save him from ruin
Ours is guidance
Ours is the after and ours the before
I warn you of a fire that sears
15 One hard in wrong will burn there
a denier, one who turns away
We will spare from it
Whoever keeps the faith
Who shares what he owns, making it pure
Who looks to no one to return the favor
20 Seeking only the face of his lord most high
That one will know peace of mind
Approaching the Quran
The Night begins with a divine invocation of the night and
the day two signs frequently evoked in Quranic oaths
and what made the male and the female. The male and
the female like day and night or odd and even are
viewed as polarities that act as signs in the world and point
back to their creator, who is beyond the polarities they
represent. In Islamic thought, the deity is neither male nor
female. Here the divine oath speaks of the very creation of
gender distinction and places the creator explicitly beyond
gender categories.
The Night goes on to offer a summary of the basic
choices confronting humankind. The primary virtues are
said to be the sharing of wealth, the affirming of the right
(al-husna) in all, and the virtue rendered as mindfulness
(taqwa). The term taqwa is notoriously difficult to
translate. The root meaning is that of protecting oneself or
being vigilant. Islamic commentators describe taqwa as a
consistent and intense moral vigilance. I have used the
terms mindful and mindfulness here as the closest
actively used English approximation. Righteous and
Righteousness have a certain power in the King James
tradition, but it is difficult to find such terms being used
without archaicism or some form of irony. Indeed, the
word righteous in contemporary speech is now frequently
used to mean self-righteous an indication that the word
has evolved in usage and no longer can be used as
effectively as it was.
The divine voice, the Quranic we, announces that
the deity will ease the way of the mindful to the good life
and the way of the unmindful to hardship. This concept
becomes central in Islamic theological discussion of the
issue of divine providence and human free will. In this
Sura, the concept of easing the way implies a slippery
slope. Those who engage in certain forms of behavior find
that their way is eased; they find certain short-term gains
that reinforce their behavior. The deity here personalizes
its activity in easing the way to hardship for such people,
bringing up an issue that was to engage Islamic
psychologists and theologians. Moral psychologists would
explore the way certain actions, such as exploitive
accumulation of wealth, lead people into a self-validating
world of comfort and reward, and deeper into the bonds of
habit. Islamic theologians would explore, with brilliant
subtlety, the tension between divine providence and human
responsibility brought out by the notion that they deity
eases those engaged in such activity to further
entrenchment in their spiritual alienation.
_ _____________________________________ _
77
93

The Morning Hours

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring

By the morning hours

By the night when it is still
Your lord has not abandoned you
and does not hate you

What is after will be better

than what came before
5 To you the lord will be giving
You will be content

Did he not find you orphaned

and give you shelter
Find you lost
and guide you
Find you in hunger
and provide for you

10 As for the orphan

do not oppress him
And one who asks
do not turn him away
And the grace of your lord
proclaim

Muhammad was orphaned as a young boy and came under

the protection of his grandfather. When his grandfather
died, his uncle became his guardian. In a tribal society
based on family and clan protection, the loss of his father
and grandfather left Muhammad vulnerable to enemies in
Mecca, particularly when he began reciting the Qur'anic
messages that threatened the interests and beliefs of more
powerful men.
In this short Sura, the Qur'anic emphasis on helping
the orphaned and the disinherited is directly tied into a
reminder (to Muhammad and to the listener in the more
general sense) of the sufferings Muhammad experienced in
his youth. Many commentators believe that this Sura was a
consolation to Muhammad for the opposition and
persecution he suffered as a prophet in the early Meccan
years.

_____________________________________

Interior of mosque facing the mihrab

The niche indicating the direction of Mecca.
Quranic calligraphy is prominent within the
elaborate tile work.

78 Approaching the Quran

96
The Embryo
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Recite in the name of your lord who created
From an embryo created the human
Recite your lord is all-giving
who taught by the pen
5 Taught the human what he did not know before
The human being is a tyrant
He thinks his possessions make him secure
To your lord is the return of every thing
Did you see the one who stopped a servant
10 from performing his prayer?
Did you see if he was rightly guided
or commanded mindfulness?
Did you see him call lie and turn away?
Did he not know God could see?
15 But no. If he does not change
we will seize him by the forelock
the lying, wrongful forelock
Let him call out his gang
We will call out the Zabniya
Do not follow him
Touch your head to the earth in prayer
Come near
Approaching the Quran
The Embryo is numbered among the first revelations, if not the
first, given to Muhammad. The opening words of the Sura, recite
in the name of your lord, are interpreted as an announcement to
Muhammad of the beginning of his prophecy. The site of the
original revelation is believed to be the cave of Hira, near Mecca,
where Muhammad used to retire alone for meditation and
devotions.
The word alaq, translated here as embryo, has also been
translated as blood clot. The word refers to something that clings,
or more specifically to a coagulation of blood or other liquid.
While the exact biological sense of the term is vague here, the
larger meaning seems clear enough. The human being is created
from humble beginningsa drop of semen, a blood clot, an
embryo. That a being with consciousness, with the ability to
communicate and understand, developed from such a beginning
is, in Quranic terms, yet another sign to be meditated upon. It is
another indication of mystery, another indication that human
beings, despite their rational ability and apparent self-sufficiency,
are dependent on another force, both for further understanding
and for being itself.
The reference to the pen is one of several Quranic metaphors
involving instruments of writing and the tablets on which the
writing occurs. Later Islamic authors interpreted the pen and the
tablet (lawh)Sura 85, final verse in a variety of ways. Some
considered the pen to be the divine intellect and the tablet the
world soul on which the eternal, heavenly Quran is inscribed.
The Sura ends with a warning and an invitation. In the
warning, those who engage in oppression are told that one day
they will be judged, and that if they try to call out their gang of
helpers, they will be met with a group of Zabaniya, believed by
some to be a species of jinn (genies). The reference represents the
kind of rough bedouin society in which force rules, with the deity
suggesting that reliance on such gangs will not prevail in the
ultimate struggle.
In the final invitation, the hearer is invited to touch the head
to the ground in prayer. []
Muslims have explained the sense of peace and tranquility
gained by performing the prayer in a variety of ways: comparing
the movements to Yogic positions, the physical position to that of
an infant in the womb, and touching the ground to an act of
humility and an acknowledgment that the human is part of the
world of creation.
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79
99
The Quaking
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
When the earth is shaken, quaking
When the earth bears forth her burdens
And someone says What is with her?
At that time she will tell her news
5 As her lord revealed her
At that time people will straggle forth
to be shown what they have done
Whoever does a motes weight good will see it
Whoever does a motes weight wrong will see it
As opposed to the cosmic apocalypse in which the sky is
ripped apart, The Quaking (al-zalzala or al-zilzal) presents
what might be called a chthonic apocalypse, with the earth
opening up to yield her secrets. The bearing forth of these
secrets is conveyed through a birth metaphor, with the
earth (al-ard) in the feminine gender governing a series of
feminine grammatical constructions. She bears them forth
as or how (the Arabic construction here is tantalizingly
elusive) her lord revealed them to her.
This implied metaphor and partial personification
resonates powerfully with the metaphor of creation (in
which the deity breathes into Adam the spirit of life);
Muhammads prophecy (where the spirit in a subtle
undertone is depicted as inseminating the night of destiny,
which is partially personified as female); and the
conception of the prophet Jesus within Mary through the
activity of the spirit. Thus, the implied personifications and
sound figures that strengthen them bring together the three
primordial moments of the Quran (creation, prophecy, and
the day of reckoning) in undertones and intimations of an
eternal moment in which the three moments fall into one
another.
The ontological inversal here is most explicit. As the
earth itself is shattered and gives forth its final secret,
human beings will come forth in scattered groups to
encounter what they have been and truly are. Whoever has
done a motes weight good will see it; that is, the
person will see, in all its momentous finality, the act that
might have seemed small at the time. Similarly, whoever
has done a motes weight wrong, an act of injustice or
neglect that might have seemed insignificant at the time,
will see it in its ultimacy. As with many of the shortest
Suras concerning the day of reckoning, the recognition of
what has been done, of good or evila recognition
occurring at a moment when nothing can be changed,
evaded, or rewrittenis the core of the reckoning.
_____________________________________
80 Approaching the Quran
102
Acquisitiveness
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Acquisitiveness turns you away
Until you reach the graves
Oh then you will know
Surely then you will know
Surely you will know with a knowledge certain
5 You will see a blazing fire
Then you will see it with an eye certain
At that time then
you will be asked about true well-being
As part of cultural training for those about to visit bedouin
Arab societies, visitors are cautioned about complementing
anyone on a possession, whether an engraved metal coffee
pot, a precious rug, or a fine horse. The host might well
say to the guest not thank you but its yours and insist
the guest accept it.
This bedouin hospitality was a constant from pre-
Islamic through Islamic times. In the pre-Islamic period it
was associated with the generous hero, the Karim, who
was willing to share all he had with his tribe, including his
camel mare. The Quran kept the emphasis on generosity,
but transferred the ideal of the Karim from tribal leader to
the one God, and changed the mechanism of generosity
from large tribal banquets to organized means of
contributing to the poor. While denunciation of hoarding
and acquisitiveness remained constant in pre-Islamic
poetry and the Quran, the Quranic denunciations added a
new theological twist. Those who spend their lives
acquiring and hoarding possessions end up enslaved by
those possessions and blinded by them to what ultimately
matters.
The Quran repeats certain ideas in different ways and
different contexts. Such repetition is part of its self-defined
role as a reminder, and it insists that those things that
human beings forget are often the most simple and basic.
The early Meccan Suras, for example, repeat the idea that
human beings attempt to ignore their mortality through
incessant acquisition and competition (takathur). By
acquiring things, the Quraysh of Meccaand by extension
all humans are led to think their acquisitions will make
them immortal. The Quranic reminders concerning
acquisitiveness focus on the moment of final realization of
what well-being, plentitude, or the true good life (an-
naim) really isa moment of reckoning when the goods
one has grasped will be of no worth.
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103
The Epoch
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
By the age, the epoch
The human is always at a loss
Except those who keep the faith
who work justice
who counsel one another to truth
and counsel one another to patience
The Epoch offers a condensed version of the ethos of the
early Meccan revelations. There is no doctrine of original
sin in Islam, no doctrine of an innate sinfulness that makes
every human inherently unworthy of salvation without the
saving grace of the deity. Instead, the Qur'an affirms that
humankind is in a state of forgetfulness, confusion, and
loss, and in need of reminder.
This Sura affirms that each human being is at a loss,
except those who engage in four activities. The first
activity is holding or keeping the faith (imn). This word is
often translated as "belief," but imn includes not only
intellectual assent to certain propositions but also
engagement in just actions. These actions include 1)
defending belief in the face of persecution or ridicule; 2)
sharing wealth; 3) protecting those who are disinherited or
in need; and 4) performing the ritual prayer, saltthe
second activity explicitly mentioned in this Sura. The
word imn also has connotations of being secure or
protected. In other words, to keep the faith through an
active witness that exposes one to persecution and danger,
is, ironically, to gain refuge.
The last two items tie two primary virtues, the seeking
of truth (haqq) and patience (sabr), to the social nature of
such activity, the mutual counseling and encouraging of
friend to friend toward such ends.
_____________________________________
Approaching the Quran
104
The Slander
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Woe to every backbiting slanderer
Who gathers his wealth and counts it
thinking with his wealth he will never die
Nay, let him be thrown into the Htama
And what can tell you of the Htama
The fire of God, stoked for blazing
rising up over the hearts
covering them in vaults of flame
stretching out its pillars
If The Epoch offers a condensed version of essential
Quranic virtues, The Slanderer offers a condensed
polemic against acquisitiveness. He who gathers his
wealth and counts it, does he think that his wealth will
make him immortal? Self-delusion occurs when
acquisitiveness distracts a person from acknowledging
mortality.
The Sura ends with an evocation of the finality of the
moment of true recognition, when all that has been
acquired is revealed as ephemeral, and humans face what
they have made of their lives and selves. The Sura ends its
mordant criticism of acquisitiveness with a reference to
those who have wasted their lives acquiring things being
thrown into the Hutama. The Sura then asks what can tell
us what this mysterious Hutama is. The final answer, the
fire of God rising up over their hearts in vaults, is
ambiguously related to the question. The vault of fire
could be something that could tell us or give us a clue as to
what the Hutama is. Or it could be what the Hutama is.
The two possibilities are different. In the first case, the
vault of fire can tell us something about the Hutama, but is
not equated with the Hutama. In the second case, there is a
complete equation.
This is another example of the syntactical ambiguity
that appears after the Quranic expression and what can
tell you what something is. Once again, the ambiguity
keeps the question from being diminished by a facile or
monotonic answer. The question continues to reverberate
for each hearer or reader. It forces a continual meditation
upon what it would be like to have wasted ones life and to
realize that it is too late to change it.
However one interprets the fireas a reified place in
the afterlife or as a metaphor for the painful realization of a
wasted lifethe Qurans condemnation of acquisition has
raised, and continues to raise, questions about the
compatibility of Islamic faith with the more fiercely
competitive aspects of free enterprise capitalism.
_____________________________________
81
107
The Small Kindness
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Do you see him who calls the reckoning a lie?
He is the one who casts the orphan away
who fails to urge the feeding of one in need
Cursed are those who perform the prayer
5 unmindfully of how they pray
who make of themselves a display
but hold back the small kindness
The Small Kindness relates a series of activities in a way
that grounds much of Islamic moral theology. The first act
is rejecting or calling a lie the din, a word that can mean
either the religion or the day of reckoning. Just as the word
often translated as "believe" is more passive than the
Qur'anic conception of holding fast to the belief or keeping
the faith, so the concept of calling the reckoning (or
religion) a lie is more active than standard English
translations such as "unbelief." Those who reject the
reckoningwhich, in early Meccan revelations, is the
foundation of religionare those who abuse the orphan,
who are indifferent to those suffering in their midst, and
who are neglectful in performing the prayer. This
neglectfulness has been interpreted in two ways by
Qur'anic commentators: either as neglecting the proper
timing and posture in performing the physical movements
or as performing them mechanically while thinking about
other things, without following through on the implications
of the prayer for other aspects of life and behavior. The
second interpretation is supported by the fact that the verse
on prayer is followed by two verses on self-display and
neglecting the small kindness.
Display, particularly of one's own acts of worship or
piety, betrays a lack of true generosity. Self-display ends
as a form of self-delusion, as a person ignores what the
Qur'an announces will be ultimate in the evaluation of each
life at the moment of reckoning: a genuine act of kindness,
however small it might seem. There is a moral circle of
causality implied in the Qur'anic passages on this issue.
The refusal to acknowledge the moment of reckoning
results in blindness to the small act of kindness. On the
other hand, the true weight of that small act will be
revealed on the day of reckoning to those who have carried
it out and to those who have neglected it alike.
_____________________________________
82 Approaching the Quran
109
Those Who Reject the Faith
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring
Say: You who reject the faith
I do not worship what you worship
and you do not worship what I worship
I am not a worshipper of what you worship
You are not a worshipper of what I worship
5 A reckoning for you and a reckoning for me
Those Who Reject The Faith contains a series of hymnic
repetitions. In arguing against religious intolerance,
Muslim scholars frequently point to this Sura as a primary
source. The Sura suggests that people worship different
things and that the prophet should resign himself to that
fact. It does not enjoin any kind of force to compel people
to adopt the worship and faith of Islam. The forms of
worship mentioned here in a general sense can be taken as
differing religions or, ethically, in the sense of whatever
one deems of ultimate value (the truth, al-haqq).
The final verse simply states that there is a dn for you
and a dn for me. Dn can mean "religion," "way," or
"reckoning." In first two cases, the implication seems to be
that diversity of beliefs and values is acknowledged
without any call for compulsion or conflict. If dn is taken
as final reckoning, the implication is more specific. There
is no need for compulsion in values or beliefs now; each
person will receive a just and final reckoning at the proper
time.
_____________________________________
112 114

Sincerity / Unity Humankind

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring In the Name of God the Compassionate and Caring

VERSION 1 Say I take refuge in the lord of humankind

Say he is God, one Sovereign of humankind
God forever God of humankind
Not begetting, unbegotten, From the evil of the whispering slinker
and having as an equal none Whispering in the breasts of humankind
Of jinn and humankind.
VERSION 2
Say he is God, one The last Sura is a petition for refuge from the evil of the
God the refuge whispering slinker or snub-nose. Satan was popularly
Not begetting, unbegotten, portrayed as having a stubby nose and as whispering
and having as an equal none murmuring, or insinuating. Indeed, the whisperings of
pride, envy, and other faults are believed by Islamic
VERSION 3 theologians to be produced continually by the ego-self
Say he is God, one (nafs) and the principle of evil (Satan). Taking refuge is a
God the rock form of continuous dhikr or remembrance. It is this
Not begetting, unbegotten, constant remembrance that allows the human being to
and having as an equal none resist the suggestions of the whisperings. The syntax of the
last verse (of jiin and humankind) is ambiguous. It could
The most famous Qur'anic passage of tawhd (affirmation be that the whispering is about the jinn and humankind, or
of divine unity) is among the shortest Suras of the Qur'an. by the jinn and human kinds.
In this passage, Allah is affirmed as one, not begetting, not
begotten, and as samad, an enigmatic term in classical _____________________________________
Arabic. Samad in pre-Islamic poetry meant a person whom
one approached for refuge. Qur'anic commentators have
stressed the notion of perdurance and indestructibility.
Indeed, there is a feminine form of the word samada that
means a large rock. In the translations above I have given
three versions, each attempting to bring out one aspect of
the complex set of meanings this word signifies.
Significantly, this short Sura is called by the
alternative name of sincerity (ikhls). In Islamic theology
the notion of sincerity or authenticity is necessarily
connected with the affirmation of unity. As mentioned
earlier, in Islamic theology and mysticism, the affirmation
of unity has several facets. It affirms that the deity has no
partners or equals. In the moral sense, it has been
interpreted as having no other aims, goals, or thoughts
beyond the one reality or one deity. In other words, any
other object that becomes an end in itself, a goal, is a form
of false deity. In the theological sense, it can refer to the
interior unity of the deity. To give the deity separate
activities (seeing, hearing, knowing, willing) raises issues
about the unity of God. If those attributes are eternal, then
there are an eternal number of differing powers. If they are
not eternal, then God can change, a notion that many
Islamic philosophers, influenced by Aristotelian ideas
about the impassivity of deity, found inconceivable.
Finally, in many mystical theologies, unity involves not
knowing or seeing anything but the one deity andin the
view of some mystical philosophersarrival at a point
where one's own existence passes away into the infinite
reaches of that one God.
_____________________________________

Approaching the Quran 83

 Abrahamic Religions
Selections from the Quran, not included in Approaching the Quran, 610 CE
On Nonbelievers, War, and Women
Selected by Mr. Comeau from various internet sources. Translated by Shakir, M. H., 1997, Tahrike Tarsile Quran,
New York, for the University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center., http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/koran.html

On Jews, Christians, and Nonbelievers
2.47: O children of Israel! call to mind My favor which I
bestowed on you and that I made you excel the
nations.
2.48: And be on your guard against a day when one soul
shall not avail another in the least, neither shall
intercession on its behalf be accepted, nor shall any
compensation be taken from it, nor shall they be
helped.
2.49: And when We delivered you from Firons people,
who subjected you to severe torment, killing your
sons and sparing your women, and in this there was
a great trial from your Lord.
2.50: And when We parted the sea for you, so We saved
you and drowned the followers of Firon and you
watched by.
2.51: And when We appointed a time of forty nights with
Musa1, then you took the calf (for a god) after him
and you were unjust.
2.52: Then We pardoned you after that so that you might
give thanks.
2.53: And when We gave Musa the Book and the
distinction that you might walk aright.
2.54: And when Musa said to his people: O my people!
you have surely been unjust to yourselves by taking
the calf (for a god), therefore turn to your Creator
(penitently), so kill your people, that is best for you
with your Creator: so He turned to you (mercifully),
for surely He is the Oft-returning (to mercy), the
Merciful.
2.55: And when you said: O Musa! we will not believe in
you until we see Allah manifestly, so the
punishment overtook you while you looked on.
2.56: Then We raised you up after your death that you
may give thanks.
2.57: And We made the clouds to give shade over you
and We sent to you manna and quails: Eat of the
good things that We have given you; and they did
not do Us any harm, but they made their own souls
suffer the loss.
2.58: And when We said: Enter this city, then eat from it
a plenteous (food) wherever you wish, and enter the
gate making obeisance, and say, forgiveness. We
will forgive you your wrongs and give more to
those who do good (to others).
2.59: But those who were unjust changed it for a saying
other than that which had been spoken to them, so
We sent upon those who were unjust a pestilence
from heaven, because they transgressed.
1
Musa is Moses.
2.60: And when Musa prayed for drink for his people,
We said: Strike the rock with your staff So there
gushed from it twelve springs; each tribe knew its
drinking place: Eat and drink of the provisions of
Allah and do not act corruptly in the land, making
mischief.
2.61: And when you said: O Musa! we cannot bear with
one food, therefore pray Lord on our behalf to bring
forth for us out of what the earth grows, of its herbs
and its cucumbers and its garlic and its lentils and
its onions. He said: Will you exchange that which is
better for that which is worse? Enter a city, so you
will have what you ask for. And abasement and
humiliation were brought down upon them, and
they became deserving of Allahs wrath; this was so
because they disbelieved in the communications of
Allah and killed the prophets unjustly; this was so
because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits.
2.62: Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews,
and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever
believes in Allah and the Last day and does good,
they shall have their reward from their Lord, and
there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.
4.150: Surely those who disbelieve in Allah and His
apostles and (those who) desire to make a
distinction between Allah and His apostles and say:
We believe in some and disbelieve in others, and
desire to take a course between (this and) that.
4.151: These it is that are truly unbelievers, and We have
prepared for the unbelievers a disgraceful
chastisement.
4.152: And those who believe in Allah and His apostles
and do not make a distinction between any of them
-- Allah will grant them their rewards; and Allah is
Forgiving, Merciful.
4.153: The followers of the Book ask you to bring down to
them a book from heaven; so indeed they demanded
of Musa a greater thing than that, for they said:
Show us Allah manifestly; so the lightning overtook
them on account of their injustice. Then they took
the calf (for a god), after clear signs had come to
them, but We pardoned this; and We gave to Musa
clear authority.
4.154: And We lifted the mountain (Sainai) over them at
(the taking of the covenant) and We said to them:
Enter the door making obeisance; and We said to
them: Do not exceed the limits of the Sabbath, and
We made with them a firm covenant.
4.155: Therefore, for their breaking their covenant and
their disbelief in the communications of Allah and

84 Quran Supplement
 their killing the prophets wrongfully and their
saying: Our hearts are covered; nay! Allah set a seal
upon them owing to their unbelief, so they shall not
believe except a few.
4.156: And for their unbelief and for their having uttered
against Marium a grievous calumny.
4.157: And their saying: Surely we have killed the
Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the apostle of Allah;
and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him,
but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely
those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it;
they have no knowledge respecting it, but only
follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for
sure.
4.158: Nay! Allah took him up to Himself; and Allah is
Mighty, Wise.
4.159: And there is not one of the followers of the Book
but most certainly believes in this before his death,
and on the day of resurrection he (Isa) shall be a
witness against them.
4.160: Wherefore for the iniquity of those who are Jews
did We disallow to them the good things which had
been made lawful for them and for their hindering
many (people) from Allahs way.
4.161: And their taking usury though indeed they were
forbidden it and their devouring the property of
people falsely, and We have prepared for the
unbelievers from among them a painful
chastisement.
4.162: But the firm in knowledge among them and the
believers believe in what has been revealed to. you
and what was revealed before you, and those who
keep up prayers and those who give the poor-rate
and the believers in Allah and the last day, these it
is whom We will give a mighty reward.
4.163: Surely We have revealed to you as We revealed to
Nuh, and the prophets after him, and We revealed to
Ibrahim and Ismail and Ishaq and Yaqoub and the
tribes, and Isa and Ayub and Yunus and Haroun and
Sulaiman and We gave to Dawood
4.164: And (We sent) apostles We have mentioned to you
before and apostles we have not mentioned to you;
and to Musa, Allah addressed His Word, speaking
(to him):
4.165: (We sent) apostles as the givers of good news and
as warners, so that people should not have a plea
against Allah after the (coming of) apostles; and
Allah is Mighty, Wise.
4.166: But Allah bears witness by what He has revealed to
you that He has revealed it with His knowledge, and
the angels bear witness (also); and Allah is
sufficient as a witness.
4.167: Surely (as for) those who disbelieve and hinder
(men) from Allahs way, they indeed have strayed
off into a remote
4.168: Surely (as for) those who disbelieve and act
unjustly Allah will not forgive them nor guide them
to a path
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4.169: Except the path of hell, to abide in it for ever, and
this is easy to Allah.
4.170: O people! surely the Apostle has come to you with
the truth from your Lord, therefore believe, (it shall
be) good for you and If you disbelieve, then surely
whatever is in the heavens and the earth is Allahs;
and Allah is Knowing, Wise.
4.171: O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in
your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah,
but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of
Marium is only an apostle of Allah and His Word
which He communicated to Marium and a spirit
from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His
apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for
you; Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory
that He should have a son, whatever is in the
heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and
Allah is sufficient for a Protector.
5.51: O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the
Christians for friends; they are friends of each
other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a
friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah
does not guide the unjust people.
5.52: But you will see those in whose hearts is a disease
hastening towards them, saying: We fear lest a
calamity should befall us; but it may be that Allah
will bring the victory or a punish ment from
Himself, so that they shall be regretting on account
of what they hid in their souls.
5.82: Certainly you will find the most violent of people in
enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and
those who are polytheists, and you will certainly
find the nearest in friendship to those who believe
(to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is
because there are priests and monks among them
and because they do not behave proudly.
16.106: He who disbelieves in Allah after his having
believed, not he who is compelled while his heart
is at rest on account of faith, but he who opens
(his) breast to disbelief -- on these is the wrath of
Allah, and they shall have a grievous chastisement.
16.107: This is because they love this worlds life more
than the hereafter, and because Allah does not
guide the unbelieving people.
16.108: These are they on whose hearts and their hearing
and their eyes Allah has set a seal, and these are
the heedless ones.
16.109: No doubt that in the hereafter they will be the
losers.
On War
2.190: And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight
with you, and do not exceed the limits, surely
Allah does not love those who exceed the limits.
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2.191: And kill them wherever you find them, and drive
them out from whence they drove you out, and
persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not
fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they
fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then
slay them; such is the recompense of the
unbelievers.
2.192: But if they desist, then surely Allah is Forgiving,
Merciful.
2.193: And fight with them until there is no persecution,
and religion should be only for Allah, but if they
desist, then there should be no hostility except
against the oppressors.
4.74: Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who
sell this worlds life for the hereafter; and whoever
fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he
victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.
4.75: And what reason have you that you should not
fight in the way of Allah and of the weak among
the men and the women and the children, (of)
those who say: Our Lord! cause us to go forth
from this town, whose people are oppressors, and
give us from Thee a guardian and give us from
Thee a helper.
4.76: Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and
those who disbelieve fight in the way of the
Shaitan. Fight therefore against the friends of the
Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak.
60.7: It may be that Allah will bring about friendship
between you and those whom you hold to be your
enemies among them; and Allah is Powerful; and
Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
60.8: Allah does not forbid you respecting those who
have not made war against you on account of
(your) religion, and have not driven you forth from
your homes, that you show them kindness and deal
with them justly; surely Allah loves the doers of
justice.
60.9: Allah only forbids you respecting those who made
war upon you on account of (your) religion, and
drove you forth from your homes and backed up
(others) in your expulsion, that you make friends
with them, and whoever makes friends with them,
these are the unjust.
60.10: O you who believe! when believing women come
to you flying, then examine them; Allah knows
best their faith; then if you find them to be
believing women, do not send them back to the
unbelievers, neither are these (women) lawful for
them, nor are those (men) lawful for them, and
give them what they have spent; and no blame
attaches to you in marrying them when you give
them their dowries; and hold not to the ties of
marriage of unbelieving women, and ask for what
you have spent, and let them ask for what they
have spent. That is Allahs judgment; He judges
between you, and Allah is Knowing, Wise.
86 Quran Supplement
4.89: They desire that you should disbelieve as they
have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike;
therefore take not from among them friends until
they fly (their homes) in Allahs way; but if they
turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever
you find them, and take not from among them a
friend or a helper.
4.90: Except those who reach a people between whom
and you there is an alliance, or who come to you,
their hearts shrinking from fighting you or fighting
their own people; and if Allah had pleased, He
would have given them power over you, so that
they should have certainly fought you; therefore if
they withdraw from you and do not fight you and
offer you peace, then Allah has not given you a
way against them.
4.91: You will find others who desire that they should
be safe from you and secure from their own
people; as often as they are sent back to the
mischief they get thrown into it headlong;
therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and
(do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands,
then seize them and kill them wherever you find
them; and against these We have given you a clear
authority.
4.92: And it does not behoove a believer to kill a
believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a
believer by mistake, he should free a believing
slave, and blood-money should be paid to his
people unless they remit it as alms; but if he be
from a tribe hostile to you and he is a believer, the
freeing of a believing slave (suffices), and if he is
from a tribe between whom and you there is a
convenant, the blood-money should be paid to his
people along with the freeing of a believing slave;
but he who cannot find (a slave) should fast for
two months successively: a penance from Allah,
and Allah is Knowing, Wise.
4.93: And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his
punishment is hell; he shall abide in it, and Allah
will send His wrath on him and curse him and
prepare for him a painful chastisement.
4.94: O you who believe! when you go to war in Allahs
way, make investigation, and do not say to any one
who offers you peace: You are not a believer. Do
you seek goods of this worlds life! But with Allah
there are abundant gains; you too were such
before, then Allah conferred a benefit on you;
therefore make investigation; surely Allah is aware
of what you do.
On Women
4.1: O people! be careful of (your duty to) your Lord,
Who created you from a single being and created
its mate of the same (kind) and spread from these
two, many men and women; and be careful of
(your duty to) Allah, by Whom you demand one of
 another (your rights), and (to) the ties of
relationship; surely Allah ever watches over you.
4.2: And give to the orphans their property, and do not
substitute worthless (things) for (their) good
(ones), and do not devour their property (as an 4.34:
addition) to your own property; this is surely a
great crime.
4.3: And if you fear that you cannot act equitably
towards orphans, then marry such women as seem
good to you, two and three and four; but if you
fear that you will not do justice (between them),
then (marry) only one or what your right hands
possess; this is more proper, that you may not
deviate from the right course.
4.4: And give women their dowries as a free gift, but if 4.127:
they of themselves be pleased to give up to you a
portion of it, then eat it with enjoyment and with
wholesome result.
4.7: Men shall have a portion of what the parents and
the near relatives leave, and women shall have a
portion of what the parents and the near relatives
leave, whether there is little or much of it; a stated
portion. 4.128:
4.15: And as for those who are guilty of an indecency
from among your women, call to witnesses against
them four (witnesses) from among you; then if
they bear witness confine them to the houses until
death takes them away or Allah opens some way
for them. 4.129:
4.16: And as for the two who are guilty of indecency
from among you, give them both a punishment;
then if they repent and amend, turn aside from
them; surely Allah is Oft-returning (to mercy), the
Merciful.
4.19: O you who believe! it is not lawful for you that 4.130:
you should take women as heritage against (their)
will, and do not straighten them in order that you
may take part of what you have given them, unless
they are guilty of manifest indecency, and treat 24.31:
them kindly; then if you hate them, it may be that
you dislike a thing while Allah has placed
abundant good in it.
4.25: And whoever among you has not within his power
ampleness of means to marry free believing
women, then (he may marry) of those whom your
right hands possess from among your believing
maidens; and Allah knows best your faith: you are
(sprung) the one from the other; so marry them
with the permission of their masters, and give
them their dowries justly, they being chaste, not
fornicating, nor receiving paramours; and when
they are taken in marriage, then if they are guilty
of indecency, they shall suffer half the punishment
which is (inflicted) upon free women. This is for
Quran Supplement
him among you who fears falling into evil; and
that you abstain is better for you, and Allah is
Forgiving, Merciful.
Men are the maintainers of women because Allah
has made some of them to excel others and
because they spend out of their property; the good
women are therefore obedient, guarding the
unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on
whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and
leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat
them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way
against them; surely Allah is High, Great.
And they ask you a decision about women. Say:
Allah makes known to you His decision
concerning them, and that which is recited to you
in the Book concerning female orphans whom you
do not give what is appointed for them while you
desire to marry them, and concerning the weak
among children, and that you should deal towards
orphans with equity; and whatever good you do,
Allah surely knows it.
And if a woman fears ill usage or desertion on the
part of her husband, there is no blame on them, if
they effect a reconciliation between them, and
reconciliation is better, and avarice has been made
to be present in the (peoples) minds; and if you do
good (to others) and guard (against evil), then
surely Allah is aware of what you do.
And you have it not in your power to do justice
between wives, even though you may wish (it), but
be not disinclined (from one) with total
disinclination, so that you leave her as it were in
suspense; and if you effect a reconciliation and
guard (against evil), then surely Allah is
Forgiving, Merciful.
And if they separate, Allah will render them both
free from want out of His ampleness, and Allah is
Ample-giving, Wise.
And say to the believing women that they cast
down their looks and guard their private parts and
do not display their ornaments except what
appears thereof, and let them wear their head-
coverings over their bosoms, and not display their
ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers,
or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or
the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or
their brothers sons, or their sisters sons, or their
women, or those whom their right hands possess,
or the male servants not having need (of women),
or the children who have not attained knowledge
of what is hidden of women; and let them not
strike their feet so that what they hide of their
ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of
you, O believers! so that you may be successful.
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