Your heart is where your treasure is, right?
In that case, home is where the heart is for the average American consumer. According to the New York Times, we spend 42% of our income on housing. And only 0.3% on books?!? I am definitely not average.
Although I've often worried about my inordinate attachment to books...
About Me
- lisa c. baker
- I love reading books late into the night, sitting up with friends talking about philosophy and theology over coffee, riding my bike to the farmer's market, and playing guitar very loudly when no one's listening.
2 comments:
Was the god of Israel any different? Think of all of the expense he lavished on the Temple, while making virtually no financial provision for the copying of the Torah. Book production at the time was certainly very expensive, but, then, very, very few books were probably produced. Do we imagine Israel as expending more than a few fractions of a percent of their wealth on books?
You might object that, while the construction of the Temple was ordained, much of its adornment — and, therefore, cost — was the product of the ambition of Man. One would almost be tempted to posit that their god went through the same phases as Americans of the 1960s generation: first he wandered around the desert in an inexpensive tent, and only as he grew towards middle-age did he decide to settle down and pour all of his wealth into a building.
But the objection does not stand; if we take the case one step further back, and look at the fabulously expensive tent in which divinity was housed, we see that he had all along — even when living in a tent — been rather fond of luxury in his housing. While, again, making no provision that we know of for the copying nor maintenance of books. So far as I know, the plans for the tabernacle include not a single, solitary bookcase. So it is not necessarily Americans alone who have the wrong priorities.
That's hilarious! I love the thought of God in the desert as a hippie...
But now the tabernacle is long gone and the temple is destroyed, and Scripture is still central to the Christian faith--and Judaism as well.
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