Commentary on Deuteronomy 23:2

 Commentary on Deuteronomy 23:2

 Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The addendum was added in 2023.]

    In the King James Version, Deuteronomy 23:2 reads, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.” In The New Jerusalem Bible, it reads, “No half-bred may be admitted to the assembly of the Yahweh; not even his descendants to the tenth generation may be admitted to the Assembly of Yahweh.”
    The word translated as “bastard” in the KJV and “half-bred” in the NJB is mamzêr, which Strong (4464) defines as “a mongrel.”[1] Thus, according to Deuteronomy 23:2, God prohibits mongrels (mamzêr) from entering into His congregation or assembly. God values racial purity so much that He does not want a racially mixed person to be part of His congregation or assembly.
    Mamzêr occurs in one other place in the Bible and that is in Zechariah 9:6: “And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.” Whereas, the King James Version translates it as “bastard,” The New Jerusalem Bible translates this word as “half-breed.”
    Several translations follow the King James Version in translating mamzêr as “bastard” in both Deuteronomy and Zechariah. The following translations translate mamzêr as “bastard” in Deuteronomy; however, they translate mamzêr as “stranger” or “foreigner” in Zechariah: the Geneva Bible, the Jubilee Bible 2000, the Living Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, the Young's Literal Translation, and the Lamsa Translation. Why do these translations translate mamzêr differently in these two passages? In any event, “stranger” and “foreigner” generally refer to a person of a different race.[2] However, that any of these translations intended to reference a person of a different race in the biological sense as opposed to the nationality sense is doubtful.
    Many translations erroneously translate mamzêr as a person of “illegitimate birth,” “illicit birth,” “illegitimate or unlawful marriage,” “forbidden marriage,” “born out of wedlock,” or a similar phrase in Deuteronomy. Some of these translations translate mamzêr as “stranger” or “foreign” in Zechariah: the International Children’s Bible, the New Century Version, and the World English Bible. Most of them correctly translate mamzêr as “mongrel,” “mixed people,” “mixed race,” “half-breed,” or a similar phrase in Zechariah: the Amplified Bible, the Amplified Bible Classic Edition, the Contemporary English Version, the English Standard Version, the English Standard Version Anglicised, the Expanded Bible, the GOD’S WORD Translation, the Good News Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, the Lexham English Bible, the Modern English Version, the Names of God Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Translation, the New International Version, the New International Version - UK, the New King James Version, the New Life Version, the New Living Translation, the New Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version Anglicised, the New Revised Standard Version Anglicised Catholic Edition, and the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. Why the different translations of mamzêr in these two verses? Are they attempting to deceive? As shown below, mamzêr does not mean born of an illegitimate marriage or born out of wedlock, although interracial marriages are illicit.
    Several commentators believe that mamzêr refers to a child born of an incestuous union in Deuteronomy 23:2 and to a mixed race people in Zechariah 9:6. In his commentary, Gore defines mamzêr or “bastard” in Deuteronomy as probably “the offspring of an incestuous union or of one within the prohibited degrees of affinity.”[3] According to him, it does not mean born out of wedlock. However, in Zechariah, he defines mamzêr as “a mixed breed, a rabble population of half-casts instead of proud Philistines.”[4]
    Laymon in his commentary agrees with Gore on Deuteronomy 23:2. However, he adds “presumably it means any child of an illicit union.”[5] Does he include interracial unions as the Bible clearly treats these unions as illicit?[6]
    Likewise, Peake defines mamzêr in Deuteronomy as the offspring of an incestuous union.[7] As do most other commentators, he defines mamzêr in Zechariah as a mongrel race.
    Dummelow defines mamzêr in Deuteronomy as one “not born out of wedlock (Jephthah was such, Jg 11:1), but the child of adultery or incest.”[8] Was not Jephthah born out of adultery? According to Dummelow, mamzêr in Zechariah probably refers to “a son of a mixed race.”[9]
    Following the above commentators, Pfeiffer believes that mamzêr in Deuteronomy refers to a child of an incestuous union,[10] and in Zechariah, it refers to a mixed people.[11] Likewise, Eiselen believes that mamzêr in Deuteronomy refers to a child of an incestuous union.[12]
    “Bastard” means not only illegitimate but also mongrel or spurious. (A mongrel child is illegitimate because racially mixed relations are scripturally illegitimate.) Those who object to this translation of mamzêr as “mongrel” claim that it means (1) one born of an incestuous relationship, (2) one born out of wedlock, or (3) one born of a prostitute. Someone born of one of these illicit relationships is denied entry into God’s congregation. The Bible refutes these suppositions.
    According to Leviticus 18:15 and 20:12, incest is a father having sexual intercourse with his daughter-in-law. Judah had such a relationship with his daughter-in-law Tamar (Genesis chapter 38). Perez (Pharez) resulted from this illicit union. Aaron’s sons were descendants of Perez (see 1 Chronicles 2:4-10, Exodus 6:23, and Numbers 3:2-3). They participated in God’s congregation. Descendants of an incestuous relationship are not banned from God’s congregation. Thus, supposition one is eliminated.
    Jephthah, who is listed as a hero of Israel (Hebrews 11:32-34), was born of a prostitute and out of wedlock. In Judges 11:1-2, Jephthah is described as the son of Gilead and a prostitute. The sons of Gilead by his lawful wife threw out their half-brother Jephthah to prevent him from inheriting any of their father’s property because Jephthah was the son of a whore. Judges and Hebrews identify Jephthah as part of God’s congregation. Being born out of wedlock or of a prostitute does not ban one from God’s congregation. Thus, suppositions two and three are eliminated.
    If one of these three suppositions is true, then the Bible contradicts itself. As the Bible does not and cannot contradict itself, mamzêr cannot refer to someone born of an incestuous relationship, born out of wedlock, or born of a prostitute. It can mean only one thing — mongrel. Mamzêr is a mongrel, a racially mixed person. According to Deuteronomy 23:2, a racially mixed person is not to enter God’s congregation.
    God abhorred the racially mixed so much under the Old Testament disposition that He prohibited them from entering His congregation. What God abhorred under the Old Testament disposition, surely He abhors under the New Testament disposition. God does not change (Malachi 3:6). If He contemned the racially mixed under the Old Testament disposition, surely He contemns the racially mixed under the New Testament disposition. He did and He does, for He does not change.
    When Jesus ruled the minds of man, parents detested their children marrying outside their race. Now that Martin Luther King rules the minds of man, parents find their children marrying outside their race acceptable and often admirable. Thus, the sin that God abhors so greatly that He will not let the product of that sin into His assembly is no longer considered a sin. As a result, the races are committing genocide via breeding themselves out of existence.

Addendum

Most Christian racial nihilists object to translating mamzêr as “half-bred,” “mongel,” or another similar word. They cannot accept that God would not allow mixed-race people in his assembly or congregation, which they understand to mean that God denies mixed-race people salvation. (Many seem incapable of comprehending what a “race” is.) 

These Christians prefer translating mamzêr as “illegitimate birth,” “illicit birth,” “illegitimate or unlawful marriage,” “forbidden marriage,” “born out of wedlock,” or a similar phrase. (Since the Bible condemns interracial marriages, the offspring of these marriages are illegitimate.) Thus, no person of illegitimate birth is allowed in God’s assembly. Therefore, according to these Christians, God denies salvation to a person of illegitimate birth. (Consequently, a large number of American Negroes cannot be saved because they are born out of wedlock, i.e., their births are illegitimate.)

The problem is associating “not being allowed in God’s assembly” with “denial of salvation.” Changing the translation of mamzêr does not solve this problem. These Christians merely change the people who are denied salvation because of the sexual acts of their parents.

Perhaps, the solution to this problem is “God not allowing certain people in His assembly” is not equivalent to “the denial of salivation.” Of course, if these Christians were not racial nihilists, which may be a sin, they may not conclude that God denies salvation to those whom He does not allow in His assembly. How many of these Christian racial nihilists believe that God denies salvation to people of illegitimate birth because He does not allow them in His assembly? Probably none.

Endnotes
1. James Strong, A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Hebrew Bible with Their Rendering in the Authorized English Version (Madison, New Jersey, 1890), p. 67.

2. See “Stranger in the Old Testament” by Thomas Allen.

3. Charles Gore, Henry L. Goudge, and Alfred Guillaume, editors, A New Commentary on Holy Scripture (New York: The Macmillian Co., 1928), p. 163.

4. Gore, p. 619.

5. Laymon, Charles M., ed., The Interpreter’s One-volume Commentary on the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 114.

6. See, Integration Is Genocide, False Biblical Teachings on the Origins of the Races and Interracial Marriages, and “The Bible, Segregation, and Miscegenation” all by Thomas Allen.

7. Peake, Arthur S., ed., A Commentary on the Bible (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, n.d.), p. 240.

8. Dummelow, J.R., ed., A Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1936), p. 132.

9. Dummelow, p. 607.

10. Pfeiffer, Charles F., ed., The Wycliffe Bible Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1962), p. 186.

11. Pfeiffer, p. 906.

12. Frederick Carl Eiselen, Edwin Lewis, and David G. Downey, editors, The Abingdon Bible Commentary (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929), p. 335.

Copyright © 2017, 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Gold Confiscation

Gold Confiscation

Thomas Allen

    Many American buyers and potential buyers of gold express concern about the U.S. government confiscating gold. This fear is legitimate because rogue governments like the U.S. government can be highly unpredictable and destructive. It can steal not only gold but any thing else that the rulers want.
    Nevertheless, gold confiscation is not likely. Today’s monetary system differs greatly from that of 1933 when President Roosevelt’s great theft occurred. Then gold was the money. Gold coins actually circulated and were used for buying and selling. Federal reserve notes, U.S. government notes, and national bank notes were redeemable in gold coin on demand.
    Today governments officially shun gold and pooh-pooh it as money. Although their central banks hoard large quantities of gold, governments deny that it has any monetary value. It is a barbaric relic that used to interfere with their fiat monetary dreams and deserves to be banished forever from the monetary system. To confiscate gold today would be an admission that they have been wrong for the past eight decades. Moreover, today people who distrust government hold most of the gold outside investment houses, banks, and industry. They would not likely surrender it to the government.
    When Roosevelt stole the people’s gold, his theft was easy. The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve held 93 percent of the country’s monetary gold as trustees for backing gold certificates, federal reserve notes, and national bank notes. With the $100 exemption,[1] he did not have to take any gold coins held by individuals.
    The monetary statistics presented in this article are from Banking and Monetary Statistics, 1914-1941, published by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Section 11, “Currency,” Table No. 110, “Currency in Circulation — By Kind, Monthly, 1860-1941,” page 412, gives the total currency in circulation for February 1933 as $6258 million. Of this amount, gold coins accounted for $284 million; gold certificates, $649 million; United States notes, $301 million; federal reserve notes, $3405 million; and national bank notes, $861 million.
    On page 506 of Section 13, “United States Government — Treasury Finance and Government Corporations and Credit Agencies,” the gold reserves for backing United States Notes are $156 million. Table No. 156, “Analysis of Changes in Gold Stock of the United States, Monthly, 1914-1941,” page 537, gives a monthly average gold stock of $4093 for February 1933.
    For February 1933, the U.S. government held $156 million in gold to back U.S. notes. It also held $649 million in gold to back gold certificates. Thus, the U.S. government held $805 million in gold. Federal Reserve Banks held $3004 million in gold, and $284 million in gold coins were in circulation. These give a total monetary gold stock of $4093.
    Of the $4093 million of the monetary gold, the U.S. government and Federal Reserve held $3809 million in gold or 93 percent of the country’s monetary gold. The people held $284 million in gold coins or about 7 percent of the monetary gold. If the coins were roughly evenly distributed among the population, each person would have had between $2 and $3 in gold coins (c. 123 million population). At this time the smallest gold coin in circulation was $2.50.
    As Roosevelt’s confiscation order allowed each person to keep $100 in gold coins, he did not have to steal any coins that the public held. Between the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, he already had nearly all the gold. All he needed to do, and what he did do, was to violate the U.S. government’s, the Federal Reserve’s, and national banks’ contracts with the people by voiding the redemption clauses in the law and on the paper money.
    Since the U.S. government made using gold coins and gold certificates as money illegal, if a person who held them wanted to spend them, he had to exchange them for federal reserve notes, U.S. notes, or silver coins. Consequently, gold ceased being a medium of exchange in the United States.

Endnote
1. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 34 ‒ Executive Order 6102 ‒ Requiring Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates to Be Delivered to the Government, April 5, 1933,  http://www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14611&st=&st1=#axzz1Kq4ZdySU, April 28, 2011, from John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online], Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/?pid=14611.

Copyright © 2011 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Poor on Aristotle

Poor on Aristotle

Thomas Allen

    In 1877, Henry Varnum Poor (1812-1905) wrote Money and Its Laws: Embracing a History of Monetary Theories, and a History of the Currency of the United States. He was a financial analyst and founder of a company that evolved into Standard & Poor’s. Poor was a proponent of the real bills doctrine and the classical gold-coin standard and, thus, the quality theory of money. He gave little credence to the quantity theory of money — especially if credit money, such as bank notes, were convertible on demand in species. Also, he contended that the value of money depends on and is derived from the value of the material of which it is made and with paper money, its representation of such value.
    In the latter part of his book, he discusses leading monetary theorists from Aristotle (350 B.C.) to David A. Wells (1875). Most of the economists whom he discussed were proponents of the quantity theory of money. We will look at his discussion on Aristotle.
    Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher, educator, and scientist. He is the source of the monetary theories of the ancient world and even modern times. Also, he taught the unlawfulness of usury. He had many false ideas about money that took nearly two millennia to correct. Even today some people still promote several of his false ideas.
    Poor critiques Aristotle’s exposition on money in his Politics. My comments are in brackets. Referenced page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Poor’s book.
    Poor quotes Aristotle’s Politics where Aristotle discusses barter and money (pp. 62-65). Aristotle distinguishes between acquisition with money and acquisition by other means, e.g., natural increases of flocks and herds, and the soil and the spoils of war. Money acquisition is not natural in that it arises from some act or skill. According to Aristotle, “barter in general had its original beginning in Nature, from the fact that some men had a surplus, and others less than was necessary for them. And hence it is evident that the selling provisions for money is not naturally a part of pecuniary science; for men were obliged to use barter as far as would supply their wants” (p. 62). From barter rose the use of money. Money became necessary to import and export goods over great distances.
    Aristotle continues:

Money, then, being devised from the necessity of mutual exchange, the second species of money-getting arose, namely, by buying and selling; and this was conducted probably at first in a simple manner, but afterwards it came to employ more skill and experience as to where and how the greatest profit might be made. . . . For men oftentimes suppose wealth to consist in the quantity of money which any one possesses, as this is that medium with which trading and trafficking are concerned; others regard it as a mere trifle, as having no value by nature, but merely by arbitrary compact; so that, if those who use it should alter their sentiments, it would be worthless and unserviceable for any necessary purpose. . . . [T]he mere getting of money differs from natural wealth, and the latter is the true object of economy; while trade only procures money, not by all means, but by the exchange of it; and it seems to be chiefly employed about trading, for money is the element and the regulator of trade, nor are there any bounds to be set to the wealth which is thereby acquired. . . . [I]n the art of acquiring riches, its end has no limits, for its object is money and possessions; but economy has a boundary, though the former has not; for acquiring riches is not its real end. And for this reason it should seem that some boundary should be set to riches, though in practice we see the contrary of this taking place; for all those who get riches add to their money without end. The cause of this is the near connection of these two arts with each other, for they sometimes change employment with each other, as getting of money is their common pursuit. For they each employ the same thing, but not in the same manner; for the end of the one is something beyond itself, but the end of the other is merely to increase it; so that some persons are led to believe that this is the proper object of economy, and think that for this purpose they ought to continue to save or to hoard up money without end. . . . Such persons make every art subservient to money-getting, as if this was the only end, and to this end every thing ought to contribute (pp. 63-64).

    Aristotle adds:

[A]s to money, in some respects it is the business of the master of the family, in others not, but of the servile art. . . . [S]ince these riches may be applied . . . to two purposes, the one to make money of, the other for the service of the house; of these the one is necessary and commendable, the other, which has to do with traffic, is justly censured, for it has not its origin in Nature, but amongst ourselves; for usury is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune arises from the money itself, and not by employing it to the purpose to which it was intended. For it was devised for the sake of exchange, but usury multiplies it. . . . [U]sury is merely money born of money: so that of all means of money-making this is the most contrary to Nature (pp. 64-65).

[According to an old saying, a Yankee farmer ate what he could not sell; a Southern farmer sold what he could not eat. Thus, based on Aristotle’s reasoning, the Southern farmer acted more naturally than the Yankee farmer.]
    About Aristotle’s ideas on money, Poor writes:

His method of resolving all questions by verbal distinctions, by dialectics, relieved him of all necessity of investigation into, or analysis of their law. Of this, his treatment of money and of loans of it at usury affords a striking illustration. Money was an invention for the purpose of facilitating exchanges of property. To use it for any other purpose was against Nature; usury, — “money born of money,” — a crime (p. 65)!

Thus, Aristotle’s false methodology lead to false conclusions, which, unfortunately, received the status of dogma.
    According to Poor, Aristotle had “an eminently unscientific mind” (p. 65). Moreover, at the time that he wrote, “it was in the highest degree impious to question the beliefs and traditions of the past” (p. 65) on most subjects. and “[p]henomenon still stood for law” (p.65). Poor adds:

His method was necessarily deductive, from his utter ignorance of, or inability to use, the inductive; from the imperiousness and arrogance of his nature, and from the purpose he had in view, which was nothing less than to solve, in an age wholly incapable of any thing like an adequate investigation of natural law, every question coming within the range of human experience. . . . Never disturbed by a doubt as to the soundness of his premises, he assumed to dispose by a single stroke, not only of problems for which, with all the lights of the present day, ages will hardly suffice, but those which wholly transcend human capacity (p. 66).

    Poor continues, “The premises from, which he reasoned were the untrained observations of phenomena, or the extravagant fictions of an ardent and fanciful mind. The conclusions to which he came were as grotesque and fanciful as the premises themselves” (p. 67). Aristotle’s fatal fault was assuming the truth of the premises upon which his system was constructed (p. 70).
    Poor notes that theories and opinions about money and loans of money at interest, usury, during the Middle Ages and even into modern times come from Aristotle and usually without examination or reservation (pp. 72-73). [Usury, as used by Poor and during the Middle Ages, covered any kind of interest-bearing loan, not just loans with exorbitant interest rates. Some people claim that the Bible prohibits charging interest on loans, usury. They quote Deuteronomy 23:19: “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury.” However, the Bible does not forbid usury per se. These people ignore the next verse, Deuteronomy 23:20, which reads “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury. . . .” “Stranger” means a person of a different race {v. “Stranger in the Old Testament” by Thomas Allen}. Although the Bible condemns loans at interest to a person of the lender’s race, it allows interest-bearing loans to people of other races {v. “Questions for Anti-Usurers” by Thomas Allen}.]
    Summarizing Aristotle’s views on money, Poor writes:

With him, money was invented for a specific purpose, and was entitled to no consideration, for the reason that such purposes or objects were contrary to Nature. Those that were according to Nature were war, the chase, the care of herds, and the gathering of the fruits of the fields. Such only were worthy of freemen who had a part in the administration of the government. With him, trade and the mechanical arts were contrary to Nature, were servile; and, as such, were worthy only of those who occupied an inferior political or social condition, and of slaves. Money was held in the same indifference or contempt as were those by whom it was chiefly used. It was unworthy of notice or investigation; it was base because those who used it, and the employments in which it was used, were base (p. 73).

    Summarizing Aristotle’s views on usury, Poor writes:

The views of Aristotle on the subject of usury are a necessary sequence of his views upon the subject of money. If money-getting by trade, or by exchanges in which it was used, was contrary to Nature, loans of it at usury could be no less so. They were only an aggravation of the original wrong (p. 73).

    Poor concludes his discussion on Aristotle with a quotation from William Lecky (1838-1903):

This absurdity of Aristotle and the number of centuries during which it was so incessantly asserted, without being, so far as we know, once questioned, is a curious illustration of the longevity of a sophism when expressed in a terse form and sheltered by a great name. It is enough to make one ashamed of his species to think that Bentham, so late as 1787, was the first to bring into notice the simple consideration that, if a farmer employs borrowed money in buying bulls and cows, and if these produce calves to the value of ten times the interest, the money borrowed can scarcely be said to be sterile, or the borrower to be a loser (p. 73)!

Copyright © 2016 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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