The Not-Wicked Son
The Jewish holiday of Passover is coming up. (It begins at sundown on April 5.) The first two nights are spent at family or community gatherings called seders ( seder is Hebrew for order ), the ritual meals where the story of the exodus from Egypt is recounted. The book containing the story and the steps in the ritual is called the Haggadah, which is believed to have been first assembled in 1000 CE. I don't wish here to explore the reasons we can be confident that this story is a mere fable. Suffice it to say that archaeologists have yet to find evidence that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt or that 2-3 million Israelites spent 40 years crossing the Sinai wilderness before invading Canaan and slaughtering its inhabitants because Yahweh had promised the land of "milk and honey" to the chosen tribe. Here I want only to draw attention to one important aspect of the seder, namely, the description of four sons, or types of children. The "wise" child wants to kn...