I’m teaching a Bible study this “term” [1] that I have called “Doing It Wrong.” I knew, in the most general terms, what I had in mind. If you survey the biblical material for the different kinds of ways—and by that, I mean categories of ways—that are formally objected to in some part of the Bible, you will have an interesting kind of dilemma before you. As a teacher, I like dilemmas. After a year or so, my students seems to develop a taste for dilemmas, too, so I have had hopes.

This particular group is set up to study the Bible from a secular and scholarly standpoint. That is not always easy. God does things, especially in some of the Old Testament stories, that we find offensive and we want to object. But if you are going to object in a scholarly way, you will first need to lay out the criteria on which the criticism is based and to show that they are criteria appropriate to the case to be judged.

That is hard. You find that you can’t quite get rid of the desire to criticize, nor can you demonstrate that the standards you propose are appropriate to God, as God is described in the text we are using. Today, if all goes well, we will consider the case of Uzzah, the man of good intentions. According to the story in 1 Chronicles 13 and 2 Samuel 6, Uzzah was helping to transport the Ark of the Covenant, which was being drawn on its journey by two oxen. One of the oxen stumbled and there was an immediate danger that the Ark would be dumped beside the road. Uzzah put out his hand to steady the Ark and for doing that God killed him.

My Bible study group is studying “holiness” as a category. This week, the existence of the category makes many things right and wrong. The painstaking cultic purity of Aaron, which he undergoes before sending the scapegoat out to meet his fate, is “right.” Step by step, profanation is avoided; dedicated materials and sacrifices are used. [2] Uzzah (and the sons of Aaron) did it wrong and died.

That doesn’t feel right. Particularly the fate of Uzzah, who seems to be a good guy. My class’s problem will be the one I described above. They know there is no scholarly way to criticize God’s actions so they should not voice their criticisms as part of the class. On the other hand, if their experience is like mine, it is also hard to just let go of it. I want to found a Friends of Uzzah chapter or something.

Now we will be moving on, not looking at the Law of Moses, but at what it means to have a law to follow. The people of Israel, as we have followed the story are now a People of the Covenant. That sounds lofty because right away the mind is drawn to Who It Is you have a Covenant with. But the Covenant itself does not include the intentions you might have for following it; it is the rules and regulations themselves.

And what happens when you have a system held together by rules? Two things—two categories of things— I will argue. The first is that some people will try to game the system. They follow the letter of the Law, but care nothing for its intention,. The second is that if “law-following” is meritorious, some people will pursue all the merit and acquire all the social status that merit earns them and flaunt their “righteousness” before everyone.

I am hoping that the class well help me deal seriously with that, but the fact is that if there are rules, they need to be adequately specified. How far is “a Sabbath day’s journey” exactly? If you specify it exactly, there are ways to get around it. If you don’t specify them adequately, everyone makes up their own mind about how much is enough and what God must have had in mind. In that way, you cease to be a “people” at all; bound by a common Covenant.

That’s the edge of the knife. If the rules are clear enough for everyone to know what is right and what is not, then they are clear enough for evasion and for status games. What to do?

[1] Since I am the one who proposed this particular gathering, I have taken the liberty to define what a “term” is. It is nine weeks.
[2] Two of Aaron’s sons did it wrong and were killed for it. They used “unauthorized fire,” as described in Leviticus 16. I hope the U. S. Forest Service doesn’t hear about that.