Legal Commentary

Political Lessons Of Passover

By Big Tent Democrat

Kevin Drum points to Dan Drezner's entertaining piece on the "political lessons of Passover. Here is a taste:

God was not that good at bargaining. For each of the ten plagues, the following pattern recurs:

* Plague descends upon Egypt
* Pharaoh begs Moses to get God to end the plague, promising freedom for the Jews if it happens
* God lifts the plague
* Pharaoh's heart hardens, and he reneges on the deal.

Pharaoh does this nine -- count 'em, nine times -- before God resorts to the grisly tenth plague. No wonder the Egyptian leader kept reneging -- if anything, the Pharaoh's resolve should have increased over time, because he discovered that cheap talk could get God to stop what he was doing.*

This is very clever from Drezner. But I think there is an interesting subplot to Drezner's piece - that no one really teaches as fact the specifics of the Passover story. No one insists that the Passover story be taught in schools or be taught "alongside" conventional ancient history.

And the Passover story is in the Bible. There is no direct compelling evidence that it is not true. Why is there not a clamor from the Religious Right insisting that the Passover story be included in school curriculums? Why is it only Genesis (and yes, intelligent design is in fact an insistence that Genesis be taken into account in science classes) that must be taught in schools according to the Religious Right?

Any thoughts on this?

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 09, 2009 (boomark / email).