1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.Fasten your seatbelts, folks, it's going to be a bloody ride.
2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.
6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
7 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.
16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.
19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
23 For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.
27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves today to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.
30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
31 And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.
32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
34 Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.
35 And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
- Panicked by Moses' delayed return, the Israelites ask Aaron to "make us gods," i.e., to create idols for them to worship. This violates the deity's second commandment. But sometimes people need a binky to cling to like, I don't know, a cross or something — maybe with a guy nailed to it. Just an idea....
- Without objection, Aaron — God's #2 go-to guy — tells the scaredy-cats to break the golden earings (no clip-ons, I guess) off their wives, sons (!), and daughters, and then he melts them into a golden calf. So, squandering a nation's treasure on quixotic homeland-security measures is a time-honored idea.
- The people considered the calf their gods (not sure how one calf is a plural), and credit it/them with delivering them from Egypt, which seems rather unearned no matter how you look at it.
- Aaron builds an altar for the golden god and proclaims a feast for YHWH (other translations confirm that the "Lord" the feast is for is the "real one"). If the cow-god is just a tchotchke honoring the big guy, why should this be such a big deal?
- The people served up burnt offerings, and "peace offerings," and they "sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." If you don't mind the burnt-offering part, sounds like a nice little affair.
- But Yahweh is furious, and he tells Moses that the people "have corrupted themselves." He's plainly feeling forgotten as the dude that got 'em out of
DodgeEgypt and the all-around right guy to sacrifice to, etc. Like the man said in Exodus 20, "I the LORD thy God am a jealous God." So admirable. - He calls the people "stiffnecked," i.e., "stubborn"
- Then he threatens some Tarantino-esque bad-ass shit: "Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation." That is, "I'll destroy the nation in order to save it."
- Moses asks him to chill, arguing that the Egyptians will assume that slaughtering the Israelites was God's plan even as he was freeing them from Egypt. I'm not sure why YHWH would care what the Egyptians think — though he created everything, he shows absolutely no interest in being their god.
- Moses reminds God of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel: to give them many descendants and land they shall inherit forever
- And the Lord turns out not to be stiffnecked, as he repents "the evil which he thought to do unto his people." So far, so good...
- Moses leaves with the tablets, which it turns out are written on both sides
- Joshua, last seen fighting the forgotten war with Amalek, tells the descending Moses of noises that he misinterprets as battle sounds. The world's first case of shell-shock?
- Moses realizes it's not war cries or suffering they're hearing, it's a par-tay!
- Moses isn't the man who loved calf dancing. When he reaches the camp, his "anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." Too bad there was no Jed Leland there to say, "I'd like to keep those particular pieces of stone myself. I have a hunch it might turn out to be something pretty important. A document." Oh well, easy come, easy go. And so much for chilling out.
- Moses burns the calf, grinds it into powder, puts it in water and makes the Israelites drink it. As David Cross (and how's that for an all-purpose Biblical name?) observes, "tasteless, odorless gold. to EAT! and i thought, 'wow man, if that isn't the ultimate 'FUCK YOU!' to poor people, then I don't know what is." Actually, forcing the poor people to eat the little gold they have is a bigger fuck you. Also, I wonder if "Mythbusters" ever tried burning gold and then grinding it into powder. How you do that?
- Moe asks his bro "wha' hoppen?"
- Aaron doesn't want God to be angry, and he blames it on the mischievous people (not mentioning that he didn't object at all, despite his legendary oratory skills)
- Moses then notices that the people were naked (a quick study, that one), which turns out to be Aaron's way of making them ashamed in the eyes of the enemies (nice excuse for hosting a drop-trou party, BTW)
- Moses asks who's still a Yahweh man, and the sons of Levi (Moses' own tribe) join him
- Moses, who just secured the Lord's mercy on the people says "Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour." WTF, seriously, WTF!?
- And the Levites do just that and kill "about three thousand men." For dancing around a metal cow. So, who was left alive, outside the Levi line, to consecrate themselves and for Moses to atone for about the offending bovine trinket?
- Moses asks God to forgive the sinners or make him unlisted in the book. (Which book? Is God writing a book? I wonder what it's called, and where you can get a copy.)
- YHWH tells Moses to take the people to a previously disclosed location, where God's angel will be waiting. And when God visits, he'll "visit their sin upon them." Again, assuming some of the sinners weren't stabbed to death.
- And sure as shooting (or stabbing), God visits one or more plagues upon the people "because they made the calf, which Aaron made."
13 comments:
There's a lot more going on in this story than you'd think at first glance.
Firstly, it's Elohist - which dates to about the 7/8th century BC, around the time of (king) Jeroboam I (of Israel - and not Judah). If you skip ahead to the middle of the first Book of Kings, you'll see it talk about Jeroboam, and how he set up two Golden Calfs; one at the northernmost sanctuary in Israel, and the other at the southernmost.
The book castigates Jeroboam for doing so, treating it as Idolatry, but that's misleading. Remember the pair of golden Cherubim on the Ark, which represent the sides of a throne for God? Well, by setting up the Calfs, Jeroboam was saying that God was over the whole kingdom of Israel, rather than just on a tiny Ark; the Calfs take the place of the Cherubim.
The Elohist was based at Shiloh, in Israel, but the priesthood there (who sometimes are referred to as "Mushite", a word derived from the Hebrew for "Moses") was quite set against Jeroboam's religious reforms. So the Elohist's story is a disguised attack on Jeroboam.
But it serves another purpose too. The other enemy of the Elohist, and of the other Mushites at Shiloh, was the Aaronid priesthood at Hebron. The Aaronids thought they had exclusive right to be priests, but the Mushites disagreed.
The Priestly Source is Aaronid; note how it is always so positive about Aaron, and always puts him between God and the people; note how it emphasises that Aaron and his progeny (the Aaronids) were exclusively to be the priests. The Elohist, by contrast, denigrates Aaron; the Elohist's Golden Calf story portrays Aaron as helping, even encouraging, the Israelites to sin, and has Moses tell him off. At the end it even emphasises the fact that it was Aaron who made the calf and thus caused the plague. Deuteronomy is even more scathing towards Aaron.
Another characteristic of the Elohist is that God is hot tempered, but can also be negotiated with; the Priestly Source, by contrast, is more fundamentalist, with God being calm but rigid in position.
The "Book" being discussed at the end is the "Book of Life". In Mesopotamian belief (ie. of Sumeria/Babylonia) there existed a "Book of Life" in which was written the names of all the people who would reach Paradise - as opposed to remaining forever in Sheol (which isn't Hell, its more like Hades - an unexciting "waiting room" type place, rather than a torture chamber). Blotting out a name would hence mean that the person never reached Paradise.
By "destroy" and then "make of thee a great nation", the text actually means "destroy the Israelites and then make Moses' own children and descendants into a new and great nation". Its not a contradiction, it just looks that way because the KJV is an arcane translation.
The bit about the nakedness, and the Levites, is actually part of the Jahwist source, spliced in here from its original text; that's why verse 30 looks a bit strange after verse 29. The next chapter is the reverse splice - mostly Jahwist, with a bit of Elohist spliced in near the start. Basically, it follows immediately on from 24:11 - the 70 elders have just gone up the mountain to see Yahweh, and sat down to a meal; Yahweh now separates the Levites, and tells them to go back to the camp and (human) sacrifice their kin, as an act of consecration (because "Moses had said Consecrate yourselves today... every man upon his son, and upon his brother").
When the Elohist and Yahwist texts were spliced together, human sacrifice had become fairly supressed, and so an editor placed this bit of the Yahwist here to make it more palatable; the same editor doctored the original ending of the sacrifice of Isaac story so that instead of Isaac being killed, an angel intervenes at the last moment. Outside the first five books in the bible, in the earlier of the narratives, pro-Human-sacrifice stories survive to a fair extent; Jephthah's daughter, in the Book of Judges, and Saul's family at Gideon, in the earlier parts of the Books of Samuel, being the prime examples.
The priestly source was written a couple of centuries after the Jahwist, and contains several commands about not sacrificing children "MLK" ("MLK" is often translated as "to Moloch", but "as a Molk" is now considered by academics to be a plausible alternative).
Heaven help anyone who gets their morality out of this book.
And yet by reading this book, you are starting to get an understanding of how we came to be what we are, which is arguably the most important lesson the Bible has to offer.
Anon,
Are you saying that the 3,000 killed were all Levites (the tribe that was, per this chapter, the most loyal to God)?
I guess someone in Levi's line had (and lost to this "sacrifice") a lot of progeny we never heard of.
Dr. S.,
Please do elaborate.
Obviously, the Bible is a major and long-standing part of Western culture, but little I've read in these first couple of books seems to have directly shaped our modern world.
Of course, there are far more pages ahead of me than behind, but at this point I'm not (yet) convinced that the lessons/dogma of this book have had anywhere near the impact of the organizations (nations, churches, synagogues, crusaders/armies/terrorists, schools, evangelical sects, etc.) that have used it as their totem.
Well, there's one single line in Leviticus that ultimately caused the holocaust, and much more besides. A tiny little throw-away remark, you'd miss it if you didn't realise the consequences. It says that interest on loans is banned EXCEPT for loans to non-Israelites.
Because of that 1 line, the exception, Jews were employed as the ONLY money lenders in mediaeval europe, and could charge huge interest rates. In England, the official limit was 86%; a loan of a couple of marks became a repayment of £100 after a few years years (in modern day money, that's a repayment of several million pounds, for a loan of a few thousand).
Because of their status as the worst loan sharks in history (encouraged by the kings, because they could fine the Jews for being Jews whenever they liked, and so could profit heavily from the loans), Jews were victimised - especially in England. After Christian merchants from Lombardy discovered a legal trick to effectively be able to loan money with interest, without it looking like they were on paper, the Jews rapidly lost their status and became increadibly poor, making livings from the rag trade, but the reputation for greed wouldn't go away. Ultimately this hatred caused the Holocaust.
And all because of 1 tiny little line.
The levites are a strange bunch. On the surface its simple - a tribe with 4 clans - Aaronids, Kohathites, Merarites, and Gershonites, named after their founders. But when you pay closer attention it all falls apart.
Look at the priesthood. "Aaron and his sons". Yet in the Books of Samuel its Eli and his family, with Eli's family losing power completely and control going to Ithamar's descendants. And then as soon as David gains control of Jerusalem, Zadok appears out of nowhere, and his family becomes the head priests. And there's simultanously a group of priests at Nob who rival the followers of Zadok.
And, in the Book of Judges, there are even priests in the tribe of Benjamin and Dan.
"Levi" is really a word meaning "priest" (from Minaean) - its a job description not a tribal name. The older the passage you read, the closer it is to a job and the more distant from a tribe. The Elohist is one of the older sources, and mostly preserves "Levite" as a job description rather than a tribal designation; because its now spliced with later sources like the Priestly Source, its harder to notice if you don't pay attention. In the Elohist passages, Moses and Aaron are part of the Joseph tribes.
The Jahwist is slightly more ambiguous, using the phrase "sons of Levi"; this phrase structure is a Hebrew idiom that can mean "people with the qualities of a Levite" [ie. people who are "priestly"], although of course it can also mean "descendants of a guy named Levi" - hence the ambiguity.
For most of the Book of Judges, especially the oldest part of the bible - the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) - the Levites aren't mentioned at all. Very Odd for a tribe (especially in Judges 5, which lists the tribes), but not unusual for a job description.
Since priesthood BECAME hereditary, especially in the Priestly Source, which makes it hereditary for the Aaronids in particular, it would eventually have gained the characteristics of a tribe, and memory of its original origin would have faded away - hence later sources treating it as a tribe.
Notice how in the diagram you link to, Eli and his progeny don't really fit in very well, being shown as the rightful priests somehow at the same time as another family, and only with a dotted line above Eli; in reality, Eli is unconnected with the Aaronids in any way.
Indeed, neither Zadok nor Eli are really people at all. Eli is El - the name's a give away; whenever people pray, Eli is there sleeping, and Eli grants the prayer; Eli is closely attached to a pillar - a phallic totem representing deities. The whole Eli story is about El being superseeded by Yahweh; Samuel = "name of God" is a cypher for Yahweh in the narrative, and represents the new god replacing the old. And Zadok is Tzedek - a deity particularly associated with Jerusalem (hence the name of a pre-Israelite priest-king, Melchizedek = "my king is Tzedek", and people like Adonizedek = "my lord is Tzedek"). Their "sons" were the priesthood; "son of X" is a Hebrew idiom for referring to holy people dedicated to god X ("son of God" being a particularly well known example, that is interpreted completely differently by Christians as compared to Jews).
"Brother" is sometimes used in Hebrew in the sense of "Brotherhood" - a fellow Israelite.
Anonymous,
I'm not sure whether to classify the money-lenders policy as a direct or an indirect effect of the Bible.
Were the material-world ramifications due to a slavish devotion to the texts, or did the Bible provide a handy rationalization for a political/economic agenda? Can't say as I know.
Where I was going with the comment to Dr. S. was that the Bible is held to represent the overarching moral code of our civilization. Nearly two books in, I haven't gained any insight into morality -- or into how religious people perceive morality. Mostly, it seems like stapled-together myths that try to justify taking the Yahweh brand seriously. Again, I've just scratched the surface, so I'm not doubting that there are many parables and such ahead. But Genesis and Exodus (so far) offer little moral guidance, other than obvious human values such as not killing (though that value has been contradicted in the narrative quite extensively).
Hello All,
VLC, you are right in saying that you are at the beginning. There is much more to see. It would be easy to come up with an entirely negative opinion about God from these two books and so you are wise to not do so.
However, if I can give you some light as to the seriousness of the Israelites (and our) situation that might better guide your judgement of the situation.
Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death (but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord). Here is the BIG ISSUE that undergirds EVERYTHING: SIN. Since God is Holy, he cannot be in the presence of sin. As such, since we are sinners there is no hope for rejoining us to God (like in the original Adam & Eve relationship), unless something is first done with this issue of sin.
It can be explained like this: the sun is this big ball of burning hot gas. Around the sun is the coronosphere which is actually hotter than the sun. The coronosphere is so hot that most things burn up as they approach the sun before they get to it. It's that hot!
Well, if God were the sun, then His holiness (not the "pope" but God's actualy quality of holiness ;-) would be the coronosphere. In a few parts of the Old Testament it is said that no one has seen God because if they did they would be dead. That's because God's holiness would simply burn them alive because of their sin. It would do the same to us because of our sin too. THANK GOD FOR STAYING IN HEAVEN or we'd all be dead!
So, it is VERY VERY important that the Isralites get the message that God doesn't play with sin. If they misunderstand, they run the risk of dying in their sin. Without the remission of sin, there is no hope and all of humanity would be lost. Another way to look at is that sin is the theif of man. Sin has stolen man away from God, and God's not happy about it.
Ultimately, as will be seen through out the Isralites history, is that it can't be left to man to be perfect, to be sinless. We fail every time, even after numerous attempts by God to restore us (Israel). We cannot not sin, it is impossible. We are born with sin natures. The 10 Commandments teach us this because we can't ever keep them, that it is impossible to be without sin. Hence the need for a savior, the Christ, Jesus.
If we want to continue in sin, it is if we had no desire to follow God which means that we WANT to go to hell. Many people really WANT to go to hell by virtue of them NOT wanting to follow God. It is their choice. In our day, since the Christ has come, there is nothing left to do but decide. The story is over. The war is over. Jesus paid it all. The only battle left to fight is over your own soul of whether you will accept Jesus as the propitiation for your sins, to accept what He did for you, and that by faith. End of story.
Oh, one more thing. Don't forget context. The commandment is "thou shalt not murder" which is MUCH DIFFERENT than "thou shalt not kill." On top of that, and this is real important to the interpretation of God's justice to the Israelites in this passage, is that, again, the wages of sin is death. Whever we sin, even one little sin, we DESERVE death (remember the coronosphere). I personally desearve to die an infinite amount of deaths by now I confess. And so, it is entirely up to God whether I live another second because the jury is out, I'm a condemned man. Most people don't realize this reality of sin, of how it puts us at odds with God. People just think its about rules, that if they break a rule it isn't the end of the world. Wrong! Sin is like lighter fluid that you pour all over yourself, and God is the bonfire. If you walk toward the fire with your sin, you will be burned alive. We need to get the lighter fluid off before it is too late, we need to be "clensed". So, it is only by God's grace that any of us are still alive, and for that we should be VERY VERY VERY thankful (I am).
That puts a slightly different spin on the interpretation of Exodus, no?
Blessings
m-p
VLC,
The money-lenders policy was a direct consequence. Jews could loan at interest to non-Jews, but not to each other; loaning is a commercial viable venture only when interest is charged. For New Testament reasons, early Christianty forbade money lending; this applied to all Christians, but Canon Law was not considered by Christians to apply to non-Christians, therefore both Christians and Jews agreed that Jews could loan to Christians, and neither group to themselves. Raising finance - taking out a loan - was thus virtually impossible without Jew->Christian loans, which is why European kings encouraged Jewish migration, and why European kings demanded compensation from successful evangelical Christians; they needed money to fight wars.
The laws of property meant that when a Jew died, the king could claim most of their estate; in other words, kings encouraged Jews to loan out money at huge interest rates, so that the kings could take it all for themselves on the (natural) death of each Jew. King John was hated because he raised the maximum interest rate to 86% (even the worst loan sharks today would baulk at that sort of rate)
It must be a US thing for the Bible to be held as the overarching moral code. In the UK we have the Magna Carta, and case law. Of course there are a minority of people who claim the Bible is the overarching moral code, but we also have people who claim that its the Qur'an, or the Talmud, or the Shulchan Aruch. Why single one out above the others?
The best Biblical examples of insight into morality are the Book of Job (which is basically where God and Satan have a bet; its regarded as a classical study of theodicy - the "problem of evil"), and Ecclesiastes (which famously begins "vanity, vanity, all is vanity" - vanity here having its older meaning of "pointless")
"stapled-together myths". Yes, that's basically what it is. The further in you go, the more "whole" the narrative gets; for example, Isaiah is only stapled-together from 2/3 writers ("Isaiah", "Deutero-Isaiah", and the other one), and they are bookended together rather than spliced; Ezekiel is fairly consistent; even the Books of Samuel have a solidity from 2 Samuel 9 to 2 Samuel 20.
M-p,
the Gnostics read all the intervening chapters as well, and concluded that Yahweh was an evil bastard. They championed the serpent in the garden of Eden as the hero of the story. For a brief time, they were the majority Christian group (under Marcion). How things change...
Romans 6:23 is in over 2000 chapters time. Why not leave it until then? What is it about evangelical Protestants that they obsessively quote the New Testament? Intellectuals quote things from all walks of life when discussing parts of the Bible; great historic novels, philosophy, contemporary movements. But you only seem to quote the New Testament; what does that say?
Romans 6:23 has more than one interpretation. If you read it in the Greek its quite ambiguous, and the Gnostics had a great interpretation - death was only a metaphor; they viewed the references in the Epistles to death as symbolic of the destruction of ignorance. It harks back to Plato's allegory of the Cave. Want to know something else (or even if you don't)? At Harvard, that major and very well respected US university, the professorial head of the Biblical Studies department supports the Gnostic interpretation of the Epistles of Paul, not your more literalist one; she used to be like you once too, but she learnt more and it changed her mind.
You know, it wasn't until Augustine (of Hippo) that the doctrine of sin was invented; the early Christians were quite without the doctrine. It came down to a (theological) battle between Augustine and a guy from England called Pelasgius; Augustine obviously won. "Strangely", Augustine just so happens to have had a Gnostic background (specifically the Manichaean variety), not a "mainstream"-Christian one.
The "great fire of london" was so hot that houses 3 blocks from the flames caught fire. But it wasn't that hot; it didn't melt rock. Don't confuse perception with the truth.
As it happens, the Coronosphere is NOT hotter than the rest of the sun. Its only hotter than the bit slightly closer to the centre of the sun; for goodness sake, don't forget that the sun's centre is hot enough for nuclear fusion, while the outside is only hot enough for convection. So, as far as your metaphor goes, there's something more powerful than God outthere; oddly enough, the Gnostics said exactly the same thing. They called it the "Monad".
Its not about punishment for sin; its about brilliance. Your kind of sin doesn't exist in most of the Old Testament; the Jewish concept of "sin" is exactly equal to "ritual impurity". This includes things like not washing your hands after you wake up - even if you had washed them a thousand times just before you went to sleep, and had super hygenic facilities that would make a Level 4 bio-containment facility ashamed; the ritual impurity carries no threat of punishment in the afterlife, and in most cases doesn't in any way exclude anyone from being a full part of ordinary life, or holding high office. When the Old Testament refers to "sin" it is this form of "sin" it means, not your Christian conception of it.
The 10 commandments are very easy to keep, actually, if you chose to do so. Of course, as discussed previously, you have to ask which 10 commandments? The 10 at Exodus 20, or the 10 at Exodus 34. Its only the ones at Exodus 34 that are actually called "The Ten Commandments" by the bible. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, they each come up with a different set when asked to list the 10 at Exodus 20.
Why need 1 saviour? Why not just abolish the idea of sin. That's a lot easier, and a lot nicer. Why not have 27 saviours and a one-eyed sheep?
The commandment is "thou shalt not kill" not "thou shalt not murder". Its only MODERN hebrew that uses the underlying word to mean "murder", in pre-exilic biblical times the word just meant "kill" in general.
I find it disingenuous of you to call your discussion of Romans 6:23 a "spin on the interpretation of Exodus". This chapter is about golden calf(s), Aaron, Levites, and Levites killing people. You haven't addressed those subjects once. Its more like you are randomly preaching, than studying this chapter. If you want to preach on random issues, then why not start your own blog?
Let's take the "coronosphere", which I have been assuming you had intended to mean the Corona.
You say it is hotter than the rest of the sun. This is untrue. It is only true that it is hotter than the visible SURFACE of the sun. The sun's Corona has a temperature of about 1 million Kelvin, the core has a temperature of 15 million Kelvin. The core is hotter, much hotter.
You have jumped to a conclusion based on inaccurate data, and half-truths. You need to do more and better research.
Now lets take this as an allegory. You have jumped to a conclusion about the bible, based on information that clearly isn't anything like complete. Did you know, for example that Nephil (singular of Nephilim - the context of this is Genesis 6) is an Aramaic word; do you know what it means, and what that implies about Genesis 6? You need to do more and better study of the bible. I would hazard to say you only believe what you do because you are ill-informed.
Go anonymous! I am only in the very early stages of my study of the Bible and Christian theology, but I am loving your comments here and learning a great deal. PS please could you enlighten me about the Nephilim?
I read the NT first and then went on to read the OT. 10 minutes ago I read Exodus 32, and for the 55th time since starting the OT(I'm keeping notes) I said WTF!.. then scuttled over to the computer. I haven't read all of the comments because it's far too long.
I'm told constantly that any objections I may have are due to misinterpretation. I'm told that I have to consider the context in order to understand the moral lesson. Can someone tell me for a reality check that 'no, you're not misinterpreting the Bible, it really is that fucked up'... my email is dr.gonzo08@hotmail.com
If anyone else is having similar trouble to me, give me a yell.
I've been asking Christians at a forum (linked below)... can't argue or I get banned.. one quote from one of the guys trying to help me work shit out was 'If scripture seems contradictory on any point, then the reader is at fault. '
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