David Graeber's excellent book Debt: The First 5000 Years, helps to explain why the Tower of Babal, which was the ziggurat built in Babylon that served as the "temple" of the Babylonian high God, Baal, and likewise served as the Wall Street of Babylonian commerce as well, is actually a condemnation to the Temple of Solomon, which would later become the temple of finance by which the Davidic kings would reenslave the Hebrews all over again, by necessarily relying on religion. Today, of course, Christianity is used to do the exact same thing - Thanks be to God (i.e. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand).
As Graeber continues...
We begin with the king wishing to "settle accounts" with his servants. The premise is absurd. Kings, like gods, can't really enter into relations of exchange with their subjects, since no parity is possible. And this is a king who clearly is God. Certainly there can be no final settling of accounts. So at best we are dealing with an act of whimsy on the king's part. The absurdity of the premise is hammered home by the sum the first man brought before him is said to owe. In ancient Judea, to say someone owes a creditor "ten thousand talents" would be like now saying someone owes "a hundred billion dollars. " The number is a joke, too; it simply stands in for "a sum no human being could ever, conceivably, repay."
As Graeber continues...
We begin with the king wishing to "settle accounts" with his servants. The premise is absurd. Kings, like gods, can't really enter into relations of exchange with their subjects, since no parity is possible. And this is a king who clearly is God. Certainly there can be no final settling of accounts. So at best we are dealing with an act of whimsy on the king's part. The absurdity of the premise is hammered home by the sum the first man brought before him is said to owe. In ancient Judea, to say someone owes a creditor "ten thousand talents" would be like now saying someone owes "a hundred billion dollars. " The number is a joke, too; it simply stands in for "a sum no human being could ever, conceivably, repay."
Faced with infinite, existential debt, the servant can only tell obvious lies: "a hundred billion? Sure, I'm good for it! Just give me a little more time. " Then, suddenly, apparently just as arbitrarily, the Lord forgives him.
Yet, it turns out, the amnesty has a condition he is not aware of. It is incumbent on his being willing to act in an analogous way to other humans-in this particular case, another servant who owes him (to translate again into contemporary terms) , maybe a thousand bucks. Failing the test, the human is cast into hell for all eternity, or "until he should pay back all he owed, " which in this case comes down to the same thing.
The parable has long been a challenge to theologians. It's normally interpreted as a comment on the endless bounty of God's grace and how little He demands of us in comparison-and thus, by implication, as a way of suggesting that torturing us in hell for all eternity is not as unreasonable as it might seem. Certainly, the unforgiving servant is a genuinely odious character. Still, what is even more striking to me is the tacit suggestion that forgiveness, in this world, is ultimately impossible. Christians practically say as much every time they recite the Lord's Prayer, and ask God to "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. "
It repeats the story of the parable almost exactly, and the implications are similarly dire. After all, most Christians reciting the prayer are aware that they do not generally forgive their debtors. Why then should God forgive them their sins?
What's more, there is the lingering suggestion that we really couldn't live up to those standards, even if we tried. One of the things that makes the Jesus of the New Testament such a tantalizing character is that it's never clear what he's telling us. Everything can be read two ways. When he calls on his followers to forgive all debts, refuse to cast the first stone, turn the other cheek, love their enemies, to hand over their possessions to the poor-is he really expecting them to do this? Or are such demands just a way of throwing in their faces that, since we are clearly not prepared to act this way, we are all sinners whose salvation can only come in another world-a position that can be (and has been) used to justify almost anything?
This is a vision of human life as inherently corrupt, but it also frames even spiritual affairs in commercial terms: with calculations of sin, penance, and absolution, the Devil and St. Peter with their rival ledger books, usually accompanied by the creeping feeling that it's all a charade because the very fact that we are reduced to playing such a game of tabulating sins reveals us to be fundamentally unworthy of forgiveness. World religions, as we shall see, are full of this kind of ambivalence. On the one hand they are outcries against the market; on the other, they tend to frame their objections in commercial terms-as if to argue that turning human life into a series of transactions is not a very good deal. What I think even these few examples reveal, though, is how much is being papered over in the conventional accounts of the origins and history of money. There is something almost touchingly naive in the stories about neighbors swapping potatoes for an extra pair of shoes. When the ancients thought about money, friendly swaps were hardly the first thing that came to mind.
What's more, there is the lingering suggestion that we really couldn't live up to those standards, even if we tried. One of the things that makes the Jesus of the New Testament such a tantalizing character is that it's never clear what he's telling us. Everything can be read two ways. When he calls on his followers to forgive all debts, refuse to cast the first stone, turn the other cheek, love their enemies, to hand over their possessions to the poor-is he really expecting them to do this? Or are such demands just a way of throwing in their faces that, since we are clearly not prepared to act this way, we are all sinners whose salvation can only come in another world-a position that can be (and has been) used to justify almost anything?
This is a vision of human life as inherently corrupt, but it also frames even spiritual affairs in commercial terms: with calculations of sin, penance, and absolution, the Devil and St. Peter with their rival ledger books, usually accompanied by the creeping feeling that it's all a charade because the very fact that we are reduced to playing such a game of tabulating sins reveals us to be fundamentally unworthy of forgiveness. World religions, as we shall see, are full of this kind of ambivalence. On the one hand they are outcries against the market; on the other, they tend to frame their objections in commercial terms-as if to argue that turning human life into a series of transactions is not a very good deal. What I think even these few examples reveal, though, is how much is being papered over in the conventional accounts of the origins and history of money. There is something almost touchingly naive in the stories about neighbors swapping potatoes for an extra pair of shoes. When the ancients thought about money, friendly swaps were hardly the first thing that came to mind.
True,
some might have thought about their tab at the local alehouse,or, if they were
a merchant or administrator, of storehouses,account books, exotic imported
delights. For most, though, what was likely to come to mind was the selling of
slaves and ransoming of prisoners,corrupt tax-farmers and the depredations of
conquering armies,mortgages and interest, theft and extortion, revenge and
punishment,and, above all, the tension between the need for money to create
families,to acquire a bride so as to have children, and use of that same money
to destroy families-to create debts that lead to the same wife and children
being taken away. "Some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already:
neither is it in our power to redeem them."
One can only imagine what those words meant, emotionally, to a father in a patriarchal society in which a man's ability to protect the honor of his family was everything. Yet this is what money meant to the majority of people for most of human history: the terrifying prospect of one's sons and daughters being carried off to the homes of repulsive strangers to clean their pots and provide the occasional sexual services,to be subject to every conceivable form of violence and abuse, possibly for years, conceivably forever, as their parents waited, helpless,avoiding eye contact with their neighbors, who knew exactly what was happening to those they were supposed to have been able to protect.
Clearly this was the worst thing that could happen to anyone-which is why, in the parable, it could be treated as interchangeable with being"turned over to the jailors to be tortured" for life. And that's just from the perspective of the father. One can only imagine how it might have felt to be the daughter. Yet, over the course of human history,untold millions of daughters have known (and in fact many still know)exactly what it's like.One might object that this was just assumed to be in the nature of things: like the imposition of tribute on conquered populations, it might have been resented, but it wasn't considered a moral issue, a matter of right and wrong. Some things just happen. This has been the most common attitude of peasants to such phenomena throughout human history.
What's striking about the historical record is that in the case of debt crises, this was not how many reacted. Many actually did become indignant. So many, in fact, that most of our contemporary language of social justice, our way of speaking of human bondage and emancipation, continues to echo ancient arguments about debt.
It's particularly striking because so many other things do seem to have been accepted as simply in the nature of things. One does not see a similar outcry against caste systems, for example, or for that matter,the institution of slavery. Surely slaves and untouchables often experienced at least equal horrors. No doubt many protested their condition.Why was it that the debtors' protests seemed to carry such greater moral weight? Why were debtors so much more effective in winning the ear of priests, prophets, officials, and social reformers? Why was it that officials like Nehemiah were willing to give such sympathetic consideration to their complaints, to inveigh, to summon great assemblies? Some have suggested practical reasons: debt crises destroyed thefree peasantry, and it was free peasants who were drafted into ancient armies to fight in wars.
No doubt this was a factor; clearly it wasn't the only one. There is no reason to believe that Nehemiah, for instance,in his anger at the usurers, was primarily concerned with his ability to levy troops for the Persian king. It is something more fundamental.What makes debt different is that it is premised on an assumption of equality. To be a slave, or lower-caste, is to be intrinsically inferior. We are dealing with relations of unadulterated hierarchy. In the case of debt,we are dealing with two individuals who begin as equal parties to a contract. Legally, at least as far as the contract is concerned, they are the same.We can add that, in the ancient world, when people who actually were more or less social equals loaned money to one another, the terms appear to have normally been quite generous. Often no interest was charged, or if it was, it was very low. "And don't charge me interest,"wrote one wealthy Canaanite to another, in a tablet dated around 1200 BC, "after all, we are both gentlemen."
Between close kin, many" loans" were probably, then as now, just gifts that no one seriously expected to recover. Loans between rich and poor were something else again.The problem was that, unlike status distinctions like caste or slavery,the line between rich and poor was never precisely drawn. One can imagine the reaction of a farmer who went up to the house of a wealthy cousin, on the assumption that "humans help each other," and ended up, a year or two later, watching his vineyard seized and his sons and daughters led away. Such behavior could be justified, in legal terms, by insisting that the loan was not a form of mutual aid but a commercial relationship-a contract is a contract. (It also required a certain reliableaccess to superior force.)
But it could only have felt like a terrible betrayal. What's more, framing it as a breach of contract meant stating that this was, in fact, a moral issue: these two parties ought to be equals, but one had failed to honor the bargain. Psychologically, this can only have made the indignity of the debtor's condition all the more painful, since it made it possible to say that it was his own turpitude that sealed his daughter's fate. But that just made the motive all the more compelling to throw back the moral aspersions: "Our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children." We are all the same people. We have a responsibility to take account of one another's needs and interests.
How then could my brother do this to me? In the Old Testament case, debtors were able to marshal a particularly powerful moral argument-as the authors of Deuteronomy constantly reminded their readers, were not the Jews all slaves in Egypt,and had they not all been redeemed by God? Was it right, when they had all been given this promised land to share, for some to take that land away from others? Was it right for a population of liberated slaves to go about enslaving one another's children?
But analogous arguments were being made in similar situations almost everywhere in the ancient world: in Athens, in Rome, and for that matter, in China-where legend had it that coinage itself was first invented by an ancient emperor to redeem the children of families who had been forced to sell them after a series of devastating floods.Through most of history, when overt political conflict between classes did appear, it took the form of pleas for debt cancellation-the freeing of those in bondage, and usually, a more just reallocation of the land. What we see, in the Bible and other religious traditions, are traces of the moral arguments by which such claims were justified, usually subject to all sorts of imaginative twists and turns, but inevitably, to some degree, incorporating the language of the marketplace itself.
One can only imagine what those words meant, emotionally, to a father in a patriarchal society in which a man's ability to protect the honor of his family was everything. Yet this is what money meant to the majority of people for most of human history: the terrifying prospect of one's sons and daughters being carried off to the homes of repulsive strangers to clean their pots and provide the occasional sexual services,to be subject to every conceivable form of violence and abuse, possibly for years, conceivably forever, as their parents waited, helpless,avoiding eye contact with their neighbors, who knew exactly what was happening to those they were supposed to have been able to protect.
Clearly this was the worst thing that could happen to anyone-which is why, in the parable, it could be treated as interchangeable with being"turned over to the jailors to be tortured" for life. And that's just from the perspective of the father. One can only imagine how it might have felt to be the daughter. Yet, over the course of human history,untold millions of daughters have known (and in fact many still know)exactly what it's like.One might object that this was just assumed to be in the nature of things: like the imposition of tribute on conquered populations, it might have been resented, but it wasn't considered a moral issue, a matter of right and wrong. Some things just happen. This has been the most common attitude of peasants to such phenomena throughout human history.
What's striking about the historical record is that in the case of debt crises, this was not how many reacted. Many actually did become indignant. So many, in fact, that most of our contemporary language of social justice, our way of speaking of human bondage and emancipation, continues to echo ancient arguments about debt.
It's particularly striking because so many other things do seem to have been accepted as simply in the nature of things. One does not see a similar outcry against caste systems, for example, or for that matter,the institution of slavery. Surely slaves and untouchables often experienced at least equal horrors. No doubt many protested their condition.Why was it that the debtors' protests seemed to carry such greater moral weight? Why were debtors so much more effective in winning the ear of priests, prophets, officials, and social reformers? Why was it that officials like Nehemiah were willing to give such sympathetic consideration to their complaints, to inveigh, to summon great assemblies? Some have suggested practical reasons: debt crises destroyed thefree peasantry, and it was free peasants who were drafted into ancient armies to fight in wars.
No doubt this was a factor; clearly it wasn't the only one. There is no reason to believe that Nehemiah, for instance,in his anger at the usurers, was primarily concerned with his ability to levy troops for the Persian king. It is something more fundamental.What makes debt different is that it is premised on an assumption of equality. To be a slave, or lower-caste, is to be intrinsically inferior. We are dealing with relations of unadulterated hierarchy. In the case of debt,we are dealing with two individuals who begin as equal parties to a contract. Legally, at least as far as the contract is concerned, they are the same.We can add that, in the ancient world, when people who actually were more or less social equals loaned money to one another, the terms appear to have normally been quite generous. Often no interest was charged, or if it was, it was very low. "And don't charge me interest,"wrote one wealthy Canaanite to another, in a tablet dated around 1200 BC, "after all, we are both gentlemen."
Between close kin, many" loans" were probably, then as now, just gifts that no one seriously expected to recover. Loans between rich and poor were something else again.The problem was that, unlike status distinctions like caste or slavery,the line between rich and poor was never precisely drawn. One can imagine the reaction of a farmer who went up to the house of a wealthy cousin, on the assumption that "humans help each other," and ended up, a year or two later, watching his vineyard seized and his sons and daughters led away. Such behavior could be justified, in legal terms, by insisting that the loan was not a form of mutual aid but a commercial relationship-a contract is a contract. (It also required a certain reliableaccess to superior force.)
But it could only have felt like a terrible betrayal. What's more, framing it as a breach of contract meant stating that this was, in fact, a moral issue: these two parties ought to be equals, but one had failed to honor the bargain. Psychologically, this can only have made the indignity of the debtor's condition all the more painful, since it made it possible to say that it was his own turpitude that sealed his daughter's fate. But that just made the motive all the more compelling to throw back the moral aspersions: "Our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children." We are all the same people. We have a responsibility to take account of one another's needs and interests.
How then could my brother do this to me? In the Old Testament case, debtors were able to marshal a particularly powerful moral argument-as the authors of Deuteronomy constantly reminded their readers, were not the Jews all slaves in Egypt,and had they not all been redeemed by God? Was it right, when they had all been given this promised land to share, for some to take that land away from others? Was it right for a population of liberated slaves to go about enslaving one another's children?
But analogous arguments were being made in similar situations almost everywhere in the ancient world: in Athens, in Rome, and for that matter, in China-where legend had it that coinage itself was first invented by an ancient emperor to redeem the children of families who had been forced to sell them after a series of devastating floods.Through most of history, when overt political conflict between classes did appear, it took the form of pleas for debt cancellation-the freeing of those in bondage, and usually, a more just reallocation of the land. What we see, in the Bible and other religious traditions, are traces of the moral arguments by which such claims were justified, usually subject to all sorts of imaginative twists and turns, but inevitably, to some degree, incorporating the language of the marketplace itself.
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