1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.To quote Aimee Mann, "I should have known." Another chapter of failed attempts to get Pharaoh to let the Hebrew people go. I'm not expecting salvation from this book, but I wish someone would "save me" from the repetition. All the colorful plagues of frogs, lice, and flies don't disguise the fact that we're going nowhere fast in this section of Exodus.
2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:
3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.
5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.
6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
7 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.
8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the LORD.
9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?
10 And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the LORD our God.
11 And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only.
12 And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the LORD because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh.
13 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields.
14 And they gathered them together upon heaps: and the land stank.
15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
17 And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
18 And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast.
19 Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
20 And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.
22 And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth.
23 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.
24 And the LORD did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies.
25 And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.
26 And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?
27 We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall command us.
28 And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me.
29 And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will intreat the LORD that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, to morrow: but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the LORD.
30 And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and intreated the LORD.
31 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one.
32 And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.
In verse 7, it appears that "magicians" refers to Moses and Aaron, as opposed to the "magicians of Egypt" in Exodus 7:11. Re-reading Exodus 7:22 ("And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said."), it seems that someone is confused about who the magicians are, and I'm not sure it's just me.
I'm curious about why God tuns over the nasty magic tricks to the brother duo, while he does the mop-up duty himself. Speaking of mop-up duty, I wonder if God ever cleaned up the river, or are those bloody frogs that are hopping about Egypt (covered in fish blood, no less)?
"Glory over me" in verse 9 was a little hard to figure. Seems it means "it's your privilege, O Pharaoh, to tell us when you want us to get the frogs off your back." Strikes me as a kind of bad-ass faux respect. Again, Moses turns out to be more silver-tongued than he lets on.
In verse 20, Mr. Bible Writer Man is not building up much rooting interest in the God character. YHWH makes it clear that he's raining all this pestilence on the Egyptian people so the Hebrews can "serve" him — you know, with that picnic/sacrifice in the wilderness. Hard to see why Joe and Jane Egypt, and little Egypt, need to eat a series of shit sandwiches for this to happen.
Verse 26 is another ambiguous one. Best I can figure is that it means the Egyptians will be grossed out by the Hebrew sacrifices and will stone them.
Anyway, three plagues later — and a lot of promises by Pharaoh made and unfulfilled — we're back where we started. So, join us next time on Plague Beat, and we'll see if any progress is made.
11 comments:
Hey, VL, here's a little followup on the question you asked about 1-4 Kings.
I discovered that 1-4 kings was the notation used by a number of early Christian comentators (I found it in Eusebius's "Chronicle"), however it seems always to be followed by the modern notations (1 Kings becomes 1 Samuel, 3 Kings becomes 1 Kings) for clarity.
So while it's probably acceptable to use 1-4 Kings, you'll probably avoid less confusion by sticking with the modern standard of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. FWIW.
Like I explained in the post on the last chapter, the messy and somewhat confused behaviour of the pharaoh and Moses is due to the account being spliced together from three different source texts - Yahwist, Elohist, and Priestly source. Each of these is consistent, and tells of a gradual consistent change in the pharaoah's attitude, but because the priestly source has pharaoh's attitude changing in the opposite direction to the other two sources, the combination is a mess.
Verse 7 is actually referring to the Pharaoh's magicians. The phrase "did so" in KJV english here means "did the same", ie "the magicians did the same, and also brought frogs up". Why would they do this? just to prove they can - remember, the bits from the priestly source are just telling the story of a battle to see whose magic is more powerful.
So, why does God clean things up? Well, that's to do with the sources. In the Yahwist, Moses asks for freedom from Pharaoh, Pharaoh refuses so God brings the plagues, and when Pharaoh changes his mind, Moses begs God to remove the plague (then Pharaoh changes his mind back now that there isn't any motivation). Its the Elohist that has Moses bringing the plagues - things are much more supernatural in the Elohist (and the plagues are more dramatic). The Priestly source is the one contributing passages where Moses asks Aaron to ask god to bring the plague.
Why are the sources like this? The Yahwist believes that God is approachable. The Elohist believes in intermediaries (angels, supernatural-Moses, etc). The Priestly source believes that the only intermediaries possible are the Aaronid priests - Aaron and his descendants, so Moses always has to ask Aaron to get God to do things; its biased - the priestly source was Aaronid itself.
A scientific explanation of the plagues (at least the ones in the Yahwist account, before the other sources distort and multiply them) would be simple seasonal features. The Nile flooded every year (until the Aswan Dam was built), and excess silt, from, for example, a volcanic explosion (like the Thera explosion) would naturally turn the river red (the silt is reddish). The silting would in turn make the river more hostile for animal life and push out frogs etc, onto the land (mass swarming of frogs was an feature when the annual nile floods happened anyway). Atmospheric changes (such as volcanic eruptions) would result in locusts being displaced en-masse, which in a swarm would blacken the sky, and would bring pestilence to crops (because they eat them). Hail could be caused by atmospheric changes too - that is if the hail isn't a misinterpretation of volcanic rocks or ash.
Did the river ever get cleaned up? It doesn't matter, because the Nile is a powerful river and floods every year, and that alone would easily wash out the mess.
Verse 9 means " Moses said 'when do you want me to ask, on your behalf, for God to end this plague of frogs?' "
Verse 20 - that's the Yahwist again. In the Yahwist account, YHWH is trying to persuade Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery - and little by little changes Pharaoh's attitude. Its not so easy to see that in the Biblical account because the Yahwist's version is mixed together with the Priestly version which tells the opposite story of Pharaoh's heart hardening.
Verse 26 - where the Bible says "the abomination of X", its generally referring to something which X holds sacred, but which the authors of the bible, in their religiously xenophobic way, regard as wicked. Sacrificing "the abomination of the Egyptians" probably refers to sacrificing an animal which the Egyptians regarded as sacred (cows are a likely candidate here - as Israelites sacrificed them and Egyptians had not only specific cow-deities but also had several living cows which were treated as sacred). In other words, the Israelites wanted to sacrifice something like a cow, which the Egyptians would have found immensely offensive; its a bit like making muslims use bullets which have been covered in pig fat (which caused the Indian Mutiny in 1857).
The issue with 1-4 kings is a bit like 1-4 Esdras. Esdras=Ezra in latin. 1 Esdras = Ezra, 2 Esdras = Nehemiah, 3 Esdras (aka 1 Esdras) = end of Chronicles + start and middle of Ezra + some new bits + bit between start and middle of Ezra + remainder of Ezra + end of Nehemiah, 4 Esdras (aka 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, and 3 Esdras) = mad visions . And just to confuse things, the end of Nehemiah is an exact copy of the middle of Ezra, and the start of Ezra is a copy of the end of Chronicles.
In reply to your comment in the last post:
"I think the belief that knowledge as a spiritual path that leads to salvation would have made christianity's influce much more positive on the world."
A Christian's top priority is (or should be) love (agape), which encompasses truth above flattery - and, of course, the truth is that there is no way to salvation except through Jesus. Good works, knowledge, etc. is all good, but none of those lead to salvation, it's Jesus' death that enables us to live in the presence of God without dieing.
The Gnostic gospels, however, understand how to please people - which is why they wrote the stories they did. They weren't as concerned with Truth.
Concerning this post:
Verse 7 is not talking about Moses and Aaron, of course. (Jews consider magic evil. Jews consider Moses and Aaron righteous. 1 + 1 = ?) The things they did they were only able to do through God.
"I'm curious about why God tuns over the nasty magic tricks to the brother duo, while he does the mop-up duty himself."
They were written different ways; but regardless, the Jews believed that when Moses and Aaron were doing the actions, they were through God. They understand that it takes both human will and the power of God to do such things.
"YHWH makes it clear that he's raining all this pestilence on the Egyptian people so the Hebrews can "serve" him — you know, with that picnic/sacrifice in the wilderness."
Actually, YHWH is freeing them from the horrible bondage they are in, and once the Israelites are grouped under the leadership of Moses, He makes it clear to them that He freed them in order to lead them to a much better land - the land "flowing with milk and honey".
And Egypt is eating "shit sandwhiches" simply because that's where sin inevitably leads. When people to bad things, bad things will happen to them. This is a basic truth not only as presented the Bible, but one that can be seen in most other major religions as well. It's simply a fact of life. The degree to which an individual or nation suffers, however, varies. Egypt is suffering a lot because they continue to repeat thier mistakes, out of flat disobedience to God.
"Best I can figure is that it means the Egyptians will be grossed out by the Hebrew sacrifices and will stone them."
Abomination is meant to imply more of something that is dishonorable than it is something that is unpleasant to the senses.
Concerning supernatural or miraculous events:
(And this is coming from a Christian understanding.)
God created the world, including the laws of nature and what we now call science. He works within our time and space to do things. I have no doubt that, given however many years it takes, all of the miraculous events explained in the Bible can be scientifically verified. God made the natural laws, and He can manipulate them. The things He does, He does through his creation.
Forgot to add my name to the last comment:
-Cormack.
This is a reply to Cormack (with the k, I'm assuming its not Cormac Murphy O'Connor?).
Agape is an interesting word isn't it. Its one of the four greek words for different kinds of love. The thing is, despite the claims of Christian apologists as to what the early christians did in "agape"-feasts (usually translated "love feasts"), in Greek literature it means erotic and romantic love, and was often used as a synonym for eros (lust).
As for truth being salvation through Jesus, I believe I'm correct in stating that the (biblical) Epistle of James states "faith without works is dead". A point that Martin Luther considered so damning against his belief that salvation could come from just believing in Jesus, that Luther concluded the epistle must be apocryphal (ie forged), which is why it is demoted to an appendix in Lutheran Bibles.
Indeed, 1 Corinthians 15:50 states that flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God. Try reading "The Gnostic Paul" by Elaine Pagels , professor of Theology at Harvard (so she has quite a few decent credentials on this issue).
Jesus' death. Well, now, the Gnostics believed that was an allegory for the death of ignorance and rebirth in enlightenment. And the belief that your views are THE truth, is really quite arrogant; where do you get that idea from? Its really just guesswork at one level or another (at some point you have made a guess that the things you were told as a child/adult were true), and to call a guess "THE Truth" without scientifically testable, and verified evidence, is just fatuous.
The Gnostic gospels were certainly not about pleasing people. Some of them are increadibly difficult to understand. And very few contain stories, except on the occasion of flimsy "stories" to frame a list of quotes; the [Coptic] Gospel of Thomas is purely a list of quotes, for example, and the Gospel of Mary is little more. Its only really the Acts of Thomas that has stories, and those stories are all really teaching mediums for deeper truths (its quite obvious when you read them - the Hymn of the Pearl being a quintessential, and deeply respected, example). Anyway, its utterly ridiculous to criticise the Gnostics for writing stories to please people (even though that wasn't their aim), when far more non-Gnostic Christian writers told them - for example, the [infancy] Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Apocalypse of Stephen, and the most self indulgent of all - the Clementine Literature.
Gnostics were very concerned with the truth, indeed, while the non-Gnostic christians were far more concerned with infighting over tiny points of ritual, and fetishising death, the Gnostics were trying to teach esoteric truth, in much the same way as Zen Buddhism tries to bring higher enlightenment via the mechanism of semi-meaningless questions.
Anyway, this is all straying from the topic. We are in the Book of Exodus at the moment. Can we leave Jesus until we get to the New Testament, please.
Not all Jews consider Magic evil. Such a claim clearly evidences very little knowledge about Judaism. For a start there is the kabbalah (that's ancient and medieval kabbalah, as expressed in the Zohar, not the New York based "Kabbalah center" which Madonna belongs to). Lets consider the star of David - great big symbol of Judaism; only its not really got anything to do with David, until the late medieval era it was named the "seal of solomon", and was said to be the magic symbol which solomon had on a ring with which he could control demons - magic in a very definitely positive way.
Not all Jews consider Moses and Aaron righteous, either. Aaron is given really quite a negative portrayal by the Elohist and even more so in Deuteronomy (more on that when we get to it later). And Moses is castigated for smashing the tablets (more on that later too). You should read the Talmud/Mishnah/etc., Jewish tradition was really much more critical and less hero-worshipping than you make out.
If Moses and Aaron could only do the things they did through God, but the magicians could do them too, then presumably the magicians were acting via God too? Which would seem to contradict their portrayal as representatives of the villain of the story. Conversely, if the magicians were just using cheap tricks, then there is nothing to say that the first couple of things which Moses and Aaron do weren't cheap tricks either, since they are similar.
If YHWH was freeing them from the horrible bondage they were in, why did YHWH harden pharaoh's heart against them? That would seem very counter productive.
"Sin" doesn't inevitably lead to eating "shit sandwhiches". For a start there are several characters portrayed as wicked that have long and nice lives, and conversely there is Job, who is anything but sinful, and suffers extremely badly.
It isn't a common idea among other religions. You seem to have confused "sin" with "bad karma". They aren't the same at all, and if you think they are then I'd really encourage you to learn more about Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism (the latter, especially, in this case).
In the Bible, Egypt is never told to do anything by God, so I fail to see how they could be flatly disobeying God, when there is nothing to disobey.
Abomination is the translation of several quite different Hebrew words. These range from meaning "it is an affront to the religion" to "its not a nice thing". Honour doesn't come into it.
The concept of God as a watchmaker, as it were, is an old argument, but also one which has been widely rebuked. Essentially its a cop-out, since the presence of God in the equation wouldn't be required, and according to Ockham's razor you should therefore reject it. And besides, there's nothing preventing you having 2039 part-time watchmakers, and there's no reason it has to be YHWH, rather than, say, Ba'al, or as the Gnostics would have had it, Satan.
Anyway, back to Exodus....
By the way (I know this is a little off topic still), the word for "shameful" was Bosheth - you'll see that as part of some people's names later, where the Bible's authors have censored the name of some other deity - for example, the guy named as Ishbaal in Chronicles is named Ishboseth in Samuel/Kings. The word in Exodus 8 which is translated as "Abomination" is "to'ba", meaning "religious taboo".
I've always percieved the gnostic philosophy/theology the way the non cormak anonymous (add some names fellas as its easier to distinguish) described as akin to buddhism, perhaps because ive always thought buddhism to be the most attractive religion. Anyway as for "truth" that is a grey area for me. It is quite presumptuous to just state "this is the truth, believe it." Whereas gnostics seem to elicit self reflection and meditation, this has always seemed like a much more rewarding and spiritual path than simply belief in dogma.
To anonymous scholar:
Due to the quantity of your words I'll try and be short in giving my cases.
"The thing is, despite the claims of Christian apologists as to what the early christians did in "agape"-feasts (usually translated "love feasts"), in Greek literature it means erotic and romantic love, and was often used as a synonym for eros (lust)."
Indeed, many of the early Christians did a lot of things God would have objected to (many of which Paul DID reject to). The truly Christian feasts (the kind that the 12 disciples would approve of) were to be distinguished from those of the surrounding cultures. Regardless of the number of "christians" who joined them.
"As for truth being salvation through Jesus, I believe I'm correct in stating that the (biblical) Epistle of James states "faith without works is dead".
Of course. We're in agreement here, Faith alone is worthless.
"And the belief that your views are THE truth, is really quite arrogant; where do you get that idea from?"
I don't, where do YOU get that idea from?
"at some point you have made a guess that the things you were told as a child/adult were true, and to call a guess "THE Truth" without scientifically testable, and verified evidence, is just fatuous"
So, you would say that "THE Truth" must be scientifically testable? That would make much of the Gnostic books useless, then, wouldn't it?
I never claimed that I know THE TRUTH. And the things I believe I believe either because a) it's impracticle not to (such as my senses), b) my experiences and logic have told me that it is reasonable, or c) it fits with everything else that I've come to accept using a and b. But, of course, neither I nor anyone else may claim "absolute truth". What I believe is what I THINK is true, but I cannot KNOW without a doubt.
Anyway, when I used the term I was only trying to say that the NT writers lived for what they saw was true, no matter what the consequences were.
"The Gnostic gospels were certainly not about pleasing people."
I meant not to imply that they were "about" pleasing people.
"while the non-Gnostic christians were far more concerned with infighting over tiny points of ritual"
(You just made the kind of claim that you got on my back for making.) People such as Paul wrote letters concerning issues, not concerning how dandy things are, so of course it seems that was a big concern. But you can hardly say that they were more concerned with "infighting over tiny points" than they were with anything else, just because that is what we have the most literature on. Even so, the fact that they were even a little concerned about that verifies what I was saying - that truth was very important to them.
"Can we leave Jesus until we get to the New Testament, please."
Sure, I would love to. I only mentioned him in one paragraph. You tend to be the one who leads us off-topic :)
Granted, you do put the disclaimer "back to Exodus" at the end of your posts... I am merely trying to give cases for some of the things that have been criticized.
"Not all Jews consider Magic evil. Such a claim clearly evidences very little knowledge about Judaism . . . Not all Jews consider Moses and Aaron righteous, either."
Naturally... I was merely using generalizations, not meaning to include minority groups that existed during that time. I was also refering only to the Hebrew nation under Moses. (Is this an example of an inablitiy to take context into consideration? Or do you just like to feel superior? I feel you really do know what I mean most of the time, but for one reason or another just seem to want to strut what you've got.)
"Jewish tradition was really much more critical and less hero-worshipping than you make out."
Critical, yes, though the Jewish traditions I was referring to are quite hero-worshipping.
"If Moses and Aaron could only do the things they did through God, but the magicians could do them too, then presumably the magicians were acting via God too?"
No.
Much of the "magic" that much of the Old Testament refers to is legit - but if not done by God than is done by some other (evil) spirit.
"why did YHWH harden pharaoh's heart against them?"
I already gave a case for that in my comment on the last post.
(Ockham's razor has its criticisms as well.)
" 'Sin' doesn't inevitably lead to eating 'shit sandwhiches'."
It does, except by the grace of God. (Which is an argument for another part of the Bible.)
And, of course, other religions may not call it sin. I use that word, of course, in a Biblical context. Call it evil, immorality, whatever. And I'm aware of the variants. Let's not get into semantics.)
"For a start there are several characters portrayed as wicked that have long and nice lives"
Though one can have a long life, and a "nice" life, and still "eat shit".
"and conversely there is Job, who is anything but sinful, and suffers extremely badly."
If you've read Job, then you should be able to understand the fact that God has all the power to do whatever He sees fit.
And to those who say this is evidence of God not being loving, recognize the importance of God doing what He did. Sometimes one person suffering benefits millions of others. (Plus, God blessed him much more than Job could have at the time imagined.) This was done for a reason, and for someone to say that there is a better way of doing things is arrogant. God (assuming, of course, there is one) has much more wisdom than do we.
"In the Bible, Egypt is never told to do anything by God, so I fail to see how they could be flatly disobeying God, when there is nothing to disobey."
Moses was a prophet to them. Prophets, for the Jews, carry the words of God. They have his authority and truth. If one does not listen to a prophet (for whatever reason), the blood's on their heads.
"Abomination is the translation of several quite different Hebrew words. These range from meaning 'it is an affront to the religion' to 'its not a nice thing'. Honour doesn't come into it."
And I meant for it to mean "it is an affront to the religion". (Again, semantics). Isn't there something better to be doing than talking about the difference between an affront and a dishonor? It doesn't seem that important to me in that context, and wasn't meant to be a direct translation (which is why I said it had more to do with dishonor, not it WAS dishonor).
Krankor:
"Whereas gnostics seem to elicit self reflection and meditation, this has always seemed like a much more rewarding and spiritual path than simply belief in dogma."
I, too, am generally a fan of buddhist thought. And it is indeed very unfortunate so many Christians seem to insist on dogma.
In keeping with Christian thought, however, God set up certain laws when He created the world (not only physical ones, but spiritual) - such as the correlation between "sin" and the spilling of blood. Because we all have handed ourselves over to sin (or evil, or whatever you want to call it), we cannot live in the presence of God. (People die in God's presence, as they did in the presence of the ark of the covenant.) It's like a fire. It purify's gold and burns away chaff. If we have sin, we will die in God's presence. We will "burn away" (figuratively).
God shows us His power and authority and the earth's laws through the ancient Hebrews, (just as He shows his love through Jesus).
BTW, when I said, "Moses was a prophet to them" - what I meant was "Moses was a prophet specifically sent to them" not "the Egyptians considered Moses a prophet". Just wanted to clarify :)
-Cormack.
This is a response to Cormack's recent post:
"love feasts" were a part and parcel of mainstream early christianity. They were the early form of mass/eucharist. Are you saying that the 12 apostles would have disapproved of the eucharist? The "love feasts" are even mentioned in the Biblical Epistles - 2 Peter and Jude. And Paul didn't criticise the feasts themselves, but the ostentation that some people at them displayed.
I would not say that "THE Truth" must be scientifically testable. But I would say that to conclude that something is the truth rather than just a guess, it must be scientifically testable. And you did say "and, of course, the truth is that ....", rather than "from the perspective of many (but not all) Christians, the truth is that...".
"That would make much of the Gnostic books useless, then, wouldn't it?" Well, no. Scientific studies of buddhists, for example, have shown that the brains of buddhists function in a different manner to the rest of the population, and is especially true in long term buddhists - buddhism adds an additional brainwave pattern which is associated with serene calmness.
Its getting into epistemology (I think perhaps excessively) to ask, but why would it be logical to conclude that Christianity is reasonably true, when you would have made the same conclusion about Hinduism, at the expense of Christianity, if you had been born and raised in India by Hindus?
"the NT writers lived for what they saw was true". Or not. There is an increasing suspicion that Mark was deliberately writing a many layered allegory, as suggested by the Mar Saba letter, and the several references to "secrets" in the gospel. For example Barabbas (greek for "bar Abba") was freed while Jesus died, but if Jesus was the "son of the father" then in Aramaic he was "bar Abba", and since Barabbas's first name was Jesus, that makes it Jesus bar Abba who was freed, and Jesus bar Abba who died on the cross; there's that twin theme. What about Thomas Judas Didymus ("St Thomas"), the apostle which Gnostics seem to have rated highly compared to the others; his name roughly means "the twin, the jewish twin". Then there's that figure in the tomb - a man in white, not an angel as the other gospels would claim; he may be the same man as the semi-naked guy just before Jesus' arrest, and you have to wonder, what's that really about? (we should really be covering that much later, when we get to the gospels)
"while the non-Gnostic christians were far more concerned with infighting over tiny points of ritual"
People such as Paul... I wasn't referring to Paul when I mentioned infighting among non-Gnostics. I was referring to Pelasgius, Arius, and so forth. A number of very senior academics (including a professor of theology, at Harvard) think Paul was a gnostic, so I wouldn't have included him in the phrase "non-gnostic Christians". My point was this: have you ever heard of the "people's front of Judea" (think "Brian")? - they were more concerned with minutiae than the truth as a whole.
You indeed only mentioned Jesus in one paragraph, but you mentioned him without it being pertinant. I do indeed veer away from the subject from time to time (something that happens naturally rather than deliberately; if you had as much information as me in your head, some of it would leak), but always in pertinant ways. Many gnostics, for example, had quite strong, interesting, and relevent to the chapter (maltheism, as one reason), views on the God of the Old Testament; I wouldn't object to mentions of Christian views that were relevent. But I fail to see how your Jesus-based soteriology has anything to do with Exodus 8 in particular.
Sorry, but the Talmud is not a minority viewpoint in Judaism, its a major collection of all the wide views in ancient Judaism. The Talmud quite definitely expresses the view of magic for positive extent - the magic stone-cutting worm (the "Shamir"), for example.
IF you were referring to the Hebrew nation under Moses, then you'd need to have quite definitive proof not only that it existed, but that it had the viewpoint where magic was always negative. Since records from this era in Israelite history don't express a view, and since the bible is a later record (and even from a pro-written-by-Moses view, there is no concrete evidence to back it up), I really had assumed you wouldn't be referring to that time, as there is no evidence either way.
How do you tell which "magic" is done by God? Isn't that just you assuming that the Biblical author is utterly without bias, which is a ridiculous claim. Why can't God be working the magic of the Egyptians too? What if Moses was the one whose magic came from evil spirits? You basically can't prove it either way, its just a matter of religious-prejudice-based guesswork on your part to claim one rather than the other.
Ah "... except by the grace of God", great phrase, but its just a cop out: "X is the result of Y, except when it isnt".
Sin in a Biblical context. Do you mean ritual sin? Which isn't evil, but just means you shouldn't perform religous rituals (a topic for Leviticus), a bit like Anglican priests being forbidden to have sex before they hold the eucharist. Evil? Well, punishing the innocent, or allowing such punishment to happen when you can stop it, is evil, yet God does that to Job. Immorality? that depends on whose view of immorality you take; personally, I'd say that genocide was immoral, whether or not it was successful or just the intention to commit genocide, and whether or not the victims were Canaanites.
Me, I view God's treatment of Job as evil. So God made him suffer for a reason, and gave him a prize at the end. Well fuck the reason, and the prize, it was still evil.
"In the Bible, Egypt is never told to do anything by God, so I fail to see how they could be flatly disobeying God, when there is nothing to disobey."
"Moses was a prophet to [Egypt]". Moses wasn't God though. Moses may have, on behalf of God, told the Egyptians to do things. But God didn't.
There is a vast difference between an affront to the religion and honour. The honourable thing in many situations may also be an affront to the religion held by the people doing the honourable thing.
Its a bit petty to say so, but (standard) fire oxidises, it doesn't purify. Oxidation of iron is rust. And a hot enough fire will oxidise Gold just the same (Gold oxide is used in porcelain, for example). And yes, I know you were making the point in a slightly metaphorical way. But so am I.
Why the ancient Hebrews? I mean, the story of the Mesopotamians is much better, its just that no-one has ever tried to tell it in a narrative way and crammed it all into one book. And the story of the Albigensians has just the right level of pathos and victimhood. What differentiates these from the Hebrews? Well, they don't hold quite the same religion. But then mainstream Christians don't either; they are, after all, not normally considered Jews. So really, its just an assumption on your part to believe that the story of the Hebrews is a deliberate demonstration and example from God, rather than the story of numerous other groups.
About the suffering of the Egyptians, how was it that the Israelites also did not suffer from the water turning to blood, locusts eating the food, and frogs being underfoot? And weren't there possibly some Egyptian peasant types who were totally innocent and deserved no suffering? This all goes back to the problems of Noah and the flood, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of God commanding the Israelites to slay entire civilizations including babies in the womb: God, in the Bible, has terrible aim, and can't hit a narrow target for the life of Him.
I want to inject just a note of pandeism into the watchmaker part of the conversation above. Just because God is the watchmaker doesn't mean God is not also the watch. Might seem to be a paradox (how can God make God), but the presumption (of pandeism) is not that God made God, but that God took God and made it into the universe.
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