Constitutional Law
Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”
Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”
116. Inventing God and Law: God is Dead
Title: Part J: God is Dead
Panel 1: A map stretching from the foot of Italy to India, from Tunisia to Somalia. The territories of the Neo-Babylonian Empire are colored a dark teal blue, with the territory of Yehudah highlighted.
NARRATION:
Sadly, it couldn’t last.
Soon, Yehudah was once again a small province in a big empire—now the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Then Josiah’s heirs wound up repeating the same mistake that Israel had made…
…allying with Egypt, rebelling against Babylon…
…twice.
-=-
Panel 2: In the distance, Jerusalem is burning. Along a road snaking away from the city, a multitude of people march away, carrying their belongings in bundles or in hand carts. Armed soldiers watch from a hillside.
NARRATION:
Babylon responded in the civilized way.
As usual, they marched off the elites.
They executed all of the king’s sons.
And Jerusalem itself was razed to rubble… its temple utterly demolished.
(Most of Jerusalem’s population had already fled, as refugees, to other provinces with other gods.)
23 years after Josiah’s death, his newly-centralized state had been reduced to an impoverished, sparsely-populated waste.
SOLDIER 1:
That was one way to prevent institutional decay, I guess.
SOLDIER 2:
At least we’ll have no more trouble with these incorrigible Yahweh-worshippers…
…their god is dead.
Saves a lot of time if there is only one temple left to be demolished, as opposed to the many that were there before Josiah’s cleanup-of-the-pantheon …
I have to wonder if all the times when the Jews turned away from God in the Bible and got spanked by various invaders were a mangled and forgotten metaphor for the times when the kingdoms disobeyed their overlords?
I believe we’ll see the beginnings of an answer to that in a few pages. But without spoiling too much, the books of the Old Testament don’t start to get written until well after the events of this page, and they’ll be written and rewritten and recombined with definite motives in specific contexts. That will include the warnings and told-you-sos of turning from Yahweh. Who, it turns out, wasn’t dead after all!
“That will include the warnings and told-you-sos of turning from Yahweh. Who, it turns out, wasn’t dead after all!”
Woah! Spoiler alert! I did not see that one coming!
Whoops! Sorry!
Not relevant here, but I would like to see con law cover why patent and copyright were assigned to federal jurisdiction. It seems oddly specific. Was it always as noncontroversial as it is now? I recall commenting this before, but do not see it posted, so maybe I had a bad connection.
I ought to be able to cover that. Remind me when we get to the powers of Congress if I forget.