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September 29, 2007

Mark Twain on One of My Abnormal Interests

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't really produced a substantive post in a while. I have several excuses and two reasons: 1) over the last several weeks, my 20% part time job hasn't exactly been 20% and 2) I've been working against a deadline to produce a formal paper on מַשְׁתִּין בְּקִיר, "he who pisseth against the wall." Some may remember my post on this pressing matter. While working on my paper this morning, I suddenly remembered that Mark Twain had written on this very subject in Letters from the Earth. Here is old Mark's take on pissing against the wall in Biblical context. [Note: if you find biblical language in English offensive, this Twain quotation may not be for you.]

Some Midianite must have repeated Onan's act, and brought that dire disaster upon his nation. If that was not the indelicacy that outraged the feelings of the Deity, then I know what it was: some Midianite had been pissing against the wall. I am sure of it, for that was an impropriety which the Source of all Etiquette never could stand. A person could piss against a tree, he could piss on his mother, he could piss on his own breeches, and get off, but he must not piss against the wall -- that would be going quite too far. The origin of the divine prejudice against this humble crime is not stated; but we know that the prejudice was very strong -- so strong that nothing but a wholesale massacre of the people inhabiting the region where the wall was defiled could satisfy the Deity.

Take the case of Jeroboam. "I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall." It was done. And not only was the man that did it cut off, but everybody else.

The same with the house of Baasha: everybody was exterminated, kinsfolks, friends, and all, leaving "not one that pisseth against a wall."

In the case of Jeroboam you have a striking instance of the Deity's custom of not limiting his punishments to the guilty; the innocent are included. Even the "remnant" of that unhappy house was removed, even "as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone." That includes the women, the young maids, and the little girls. All innocent, for they couldn't piss against a wall. Nobody of that sex can. None but members of the other sex can achieve that feat.

A curious prejudice. And it still exists. Protestant parents still keep the Bible handy in the house, so that the children can study it, and one of the first things the little boys and girls learn is to be righteous and holy and not piss against the wall. They study those passages more than they study any others, except those which incite to masturbation. . . .

I continue to think that Mark Twain was a great theologian and his use of scripture in his pastoral ministry unsurpassed. This passage from Letters from the Earth well illustrates my last point. But his exegesis seems a little weak. I will point out that Twain was correct about the genocidal implications of the biblical stories upon which he relies, but I doubt that I can use any of this in my paper. But don't worry, I will have something more colorful to say than did John Gray who penned these immortal words, "denoting all males, ("pisser against the wall") is a typical example of the direct, graphic, uninhibited speech of the Israelite peasant, particularly of the prophets." I think Gray said a few other things but I fell asleep at this point.

Posted by Duane Smith at September 29, 2007 1:44 PM | Read more on Mark Twain |

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Posted by: Claude Mariottini at October 1, 2007 8:39 AM

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