Context? Who needs context if it makes my point?

So I was reading a random article in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Church Effort Slows Philippines Mining, which is about the efforts of the Catholic church, led by Bishop Arturo Bastes to halt the construction of a copper and gold mine in the Philippines (slow day at work).

Now what a church is doing worrying about mining projects that are going to bring a bunch of jobs to an impoverished nation is one thing, but then I read this:

Bishop Bastes is following a tradition of Catholic clergy taking on mining, especially in Central America. Priests in Honduras, for instance, have protested open-pit mining techniques and mining-rights laws which they say grant too many benefits to foreign miners.

"It's written in the Bible," Bishop Bastes says, quoting the book of Numbers, chapter 35, verse 34: "Do not defile the land where you live and I dwell."

Now I am not an expert on the Book of Numbers, but that immediately smelled bad. So, silly me, I went to the Bible to see what the context was. Oddly, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with the Philippines, with mines, environmental concerns or anything like that. It is dealing with the land of Canaan and the cities of refuge for those who shed the blood of others:

30 “If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the l evidence of witnesses. But no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 31 Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. 32 And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. 33 You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.” Numbers 35: 30-34 ESV

Hmm, I don’t see anything about mining or the Pacific Islands in there. Let me look again…..nope, still don’t see it.

But hey, it sounds good in a news sound byte to throw Numbers 34:35 out there and say it applies to mining in the Philippines instead of the shedding of blood in Canaan! I guess if you don’t bother reading the Bible you probably shouldn’t try quoting the Bible. Unfortunately, I imagine that an awful lot of people won’t check to see what Numbers 35:34 says for themselves and will just take what “bishop” Bastes as an accurate quotation.