Haggai and Chinese People

Summary: God tells his prophet Haggai to order his people to build a new Temple. They start work on it, and it’s not as good as the old one. That’s it.

So, this really isn’t going to have a lot to do with the book of Haggai. I’ve been having enough trouble with the last few books, and honestly, this one is so short that it would probably be hard to come up with something even if it wasn’t going over well-worn territory. I mean, we get it: God wants people to do something, then they do it. God is unhappy, so he hurts their crop production and sends droughts, which somehow convinces the people of Jerusalem to build a new temple.

Okay, fine. But I do want to know one thing: what was going on in China (If you want, you can substitute the Japanese or the Native Americans or any civilization which had no contact with Judaism, but we’re going to focus on China here)?

This is a serious question. Didn’t they have droughts and years with bad crop production in China? Remember, anything bad that happens is due to God’s direct intervention, as he mentions here:

“My people, why should you be living in well-built houses while my Temple is in ruins? Don’t you see what is happening to you? You have planted much grain, but have harvested very little. You have food to eat, but not enough to make you full. You have wine to drink, but not enough to get you drunk on! You have clothing, but not enough to keep you warm. And the working man cannot earn enough to live on. Can’t you see why this has happened…You hoped for large harvests, but they turned out to be small. And when you brought the harvest home, I blew it away. Why did I do that? Because my Temple lies in ruins while every one of you is busy working on his own house. That is why there is no rain and nothing can grow. I have brought drought on the land – on its hills, grainfields, vineyards, and olive orchards – on every crop the ground produces, on everything you try to grow.” (Hg. 1.4-11)

So, as that (possibly unnecessarily long) quote shows, God directly interferes with the workings of society when they are displeasing him. But more than that, his interference is supposed to be proof of their disobedience. Which brings us to China. Now, this book took place in 520 BC, hundreds of years before China was fully unified (and before it had any reason to be called China), but there were smaller kingdoms, one of which (the Zhou) had already developed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven – the concept that the ruler was on the throne by divine right, but if he made mistakes, then he was no longer blessed by heaven and should be removed by the people.

So let’s say China was humming along, with a few good years of crop production and rivers that flowed approximately the same amount year after year. Then the next year, there’s something wrong. There’s just not nearly as much water as there was before. Fields are going without irrigation. People are starving.

Here’s what the Bible would say: there’s a reason. I mean, it would have to say that, right? If you’re claiming that this drought in Israel is caused by a lack of piousness, it would raise questions if that drought in China wasn’t. Questions like, “Does this mean I can get out of this whole divine retribution thing by moving?” Or, “What if droughts are just things that happen naturally and have nothing to do with God’s attitude toward our lack of a temple?” And these are questions that it’d be a little hard to answer, so the priests would probably just say it’s all part of God’s unknowable and perfect plan, and you shouldn’t question it.

But then, sometimes Israel would have bad rulers. Sometimes they would be conquered. And why would they be conquered? Because the people fucked up. Because the people were worshiping Baal in Yahweh’s temple, or because the people were just sinning and sinning without repenting. Those rascally people! But when the same thing would happen in China, when the Zhou conquered the Shang and then later Qin Shi Huang conquered the Zhou, it was because the rulers weren’t good enough. Instead of the people being punished, the emperors lost everything.

Of course, neither of these approaches had any proof or any real reason to think they were true beyond “Everyone knows it’s true.” But that will never dissuade a true believer. Someone who feels defined by their faith will never be able to acknowledge any flaws in it or anything wrong with the sacred texts or leaders or basic tenets of their religion, nor will they be able to look at it objectively. So it’s probably useless to point out any of this to them, that it’s possible droughts and floods are unrelated to piousness, that it’s possible there is no connection between Baal and being conquered, or that it’s possible their deeply held beliefs are just kinda silly. It’s probably useless to point out that their conviction is absolutely meaningless – the conviction of the Chinese people in the Mandate of Heaven was strongly ingrained, and it was just as wrong.

I guess the main point here is that it’s impossible to apply the standards of the Bible to the world and believe that the standards are worth having. And it’s impossible to not apply the standards of the Bible to the rest of the world if it’s something that you believe is true. When you try to apply supernatural explanations to ordinary events, you end up in logical trouble. But when your supernatural beliefs depend on those explanations as proof, you’re already in that trouble. So I can’t see a way to reconcile that and keep that belief. But I’m sure there is one. After all, it’s been thousands of years. Someone must have come up with something.