The Braggy King of Babylon
Author:
Yvonne Holloway McCall; Illustrator: Jim Roberts
Concordia Publishing House (Arch Books): St. Louis, Missouri, 1969.
Reviewers:
Julia & Martin Krumma, Katharina Manassis
As this is a
children’s book, I planned to have my children review it. Unfortunately, it’s
March break. “Mom, how can you make us do a book review on March break?” they
ask, horrified. They have a point, so I just ask for their opinions and
thoughts about the book, to include in a review.
The story is that of
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, told in Daniel (chapter 4). The king gloats
proudly over his city, Babylon, taking credit for all its splendor. Suddenly, he
hears a voice announcing that he will lose his kingdom and live like an animal
for the next several years. Sure enough, he is “driven from human society” and
lives among animals for seven years. At that point, he looks to the sky, begins
praising God, and his sanity returns. Once sane, he returns to power. The story
is retold in a cute, rhyming style in this richly illustrated Arch book. It’s
one of a series of religious books for children, telling Bible stories in this
style.
Some thoughts
from Julia and Martin: “The pictures are funny.” “He shouldn’t have been so
braggy”. “You should help people instead of bragging about yourself”. “His
friends weren’t nice: they stopped liking him when he turned ugly”.
I agree with
all of the above. It’s a familiar lesson in children’s literature: pride leadeth
before a fall. The Emperor’s New Clothes, for example, depicts a proud king
being duped into appearing naked in public. The proud, overconfident hare loses
a race to a tortoise in one of Aesop’s most famous fables. It’s nice that my
children picked up on the alternatives to pride as well: the need to help others
and to show empathy when our friends are in trouble. And yes, the pictures are
funny.
I am also relieved
that my children didn’t mention the first “lesson” of the story that came to my
mind as I read the book: “God punishes the proud”. It would be easy to assume
from the text (both biblical and McCall’s) that the voice Nebuchadnezzar hears
is God’s, angry that someone is daring to challenge His authority. This
interpretation leads, unfortunately, to an image of a vengeful, rather
self-absorbed God who smites his (or her) challengers. That view of divine
behavior has always seemed rather hypocritical to me. After all, if we are
encouraged to “turn the other cheek”, then should we not expect similar behavior
from our deity?
It is equally
possible though that the voice Nebuchadnezzar hears is a product of his own
mind. For example, his extreme pride followed by extreme dejection and
self-neglect might suggest, to a psychiatrist, a manic episode followed by
depression.
Perhaps even more
intriguing is the possibility that the story is actually a metaphor for what
happens when we turn away from God. When we turn away from God, or fail to
trust God, it is easy to become preoccupied with our own ‘animal’ needs: the
need to compete and to dominate. In the animal kingdom, these needs enhance the
ability to survive and reproduce. Some have even speculated that animals
(including ourselves) are genetically programmed to behave this way (see Richard
Dawkins’ ‘The Selfish Gene’ for a detailed description of these ideas).
In human terms, we
become preoccupied with “looking out for number one”. We become fearful, as we
see other people as threats to our success. We use success to assuage our fear
of poverty, of disease, of humiliation, of being at the bottom of the social
pecking order, and ultimately of death. We may even become worse than animals.
After all, no creature but homo sapiens engages in organized warfare against its
own species.
By contrast, when trusting in God, there is no such fear. Whether famous or
infamous, rich or poor, well-respected or despised, God is there, providing what
we need. (see Mathew 6, 25-34). We are freed from the ‘animal’ imperative to
compete and dominate. We can become less ‘braggy’, and also less
self-conscious. We can stop navel-gazing. We can focus outward instead. Then,
we start to see what needs doing to help our families, our communities, and our
planet become better. Knowing we are loved, we become instruments of God’s
love.
That’s the real message of this story: God’s love humanizes. As in another
great children’s story, it’s a kiss that turns the frog back into a prince.
Without going into the details discussed above, I added that simple
interpretation to the book for my children.
