Face to Faith

In today's Guardian Pete Tobias, the rabbi at the Liberal Synagogue in Elstree, wrote this piece in the Face to Faith column.

Being perhaps slightly relieved to have the opportunity to explicitly criticise a different religion for a change, I sent in this letter.

Contrary to Pete Tobias's whitewash, the central message of the story of the burning bush is not about slavery. In fact, whilst God is speaking to Moses he goes into some detail about the rules for the correct treatment of slaves, in which the manifest inequality of the master-servant relationship is abundantly clear.

The story could just as easily be read as a paean to the bloodlust of the monotheistic God. First he hardens Pharaoh's heart to stop him releasing the Israelites, then he murders a large slice of the population of Egypt in punishment for a crime they bear no responsibility for. After that, he slaughters an Egyptian army presumably mainly consisting of conscripts, and when Moses comes down from the mountain God has him murder three thousand of the wandering Jews for worshipping the wrong God. This hideous massacre is central to the story, and is picked up in the Qur'an, where it is described as necessary for the Jews to earn divine forgiveness.

The simple fact that these events very probably never happened may mitigate our outrage, but their terror lives on in the mind and the actions of those from all the Abrahamic traditions who are inspired by them to commit horrendous acts in the world today.

The book of Exodus is not entirely devoid of virtue - theft is generally to be discouraged - but to come away from it feeling on balance cleansed and edified would require a strong stomach and a highly developed ability to look the other way when necessary.

At some point, monotheists have to address the vicious psychotic savagery that runs through their tradition, parallel to the struggle for a recognisable ethical system. To be fair, many have, and I suspect that Pete Tobias is one of those. However, reinventing horror stories as morally uplifting tales suitable for inclusion in diversity training programs is not helpful.