The Bible would not have been
written by man. Instead, it was written from a divine perspective as the Bible
repeatedly claims: 2 Peter 1:20–21 (NLT) “Above all, you must realize
that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding,
or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and
they spoke from God.” (Matthews 4:4; 5:17-19)
THE
HUMAN TENDENCY: King David – as an adulterer and a murderer. However, an
orthodox Jew informed me that the Talmud had presented David as an absolute
saint. His adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah were
both righteous acts. This is precisely how we humans write our religious books!
However:
THE
PATRIARCHS: Not role-models cowards, deceivers, liars and worse. We
humans don’t create or select such role models, least of all those who we
identify as the Fathers of our
faith.
ABRAHAM:
·
Genesis 12:10–19
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn
there, for the famine was severe in the land.When he was about to enter Egypt,
he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in
appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’
Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that
it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your
sake.” When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very
beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to
Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he
dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants,
female servants, female donkeys, and camels. But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and
his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh called
Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that
she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for
my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”
MINIMIZING
GUILT: “It is hard to see how Sarai would have fared better if he had
died at the hands of the lecherous and adulterous Egyptians.” (Jewish
Study Bible)
Ramban
(“Nachmanides – 13th century) believes that Abraham unintentionally
committed a "great sin" and endangered his wife’s virtue have the
personal assurance of God, one should be permitted to lie. In fact, Abraham
used the same ruse again when sojourning in Gerar (Genesis 20: 1-3). Isaac
also used the same lie when traveling in lands where the morality of the
inhabitants is questionable and claims that his wife Rebeccah is his sister
(Genesis 26:7).
·
Genesis 20:6–7
Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the
integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me.
Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now then, return the man’s wife, for he
is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.
But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who
are yours.”
·
Genesis 20:9–13 “What have you done to us? And how have I
sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You
have done to me things that ought not to be done…” Abraham said, “I did it
because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will
kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of
my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. And
when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is
the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me,
“He is my brother.” ’ ”
“Since ‘sister’ can mean
‘half-sister’ he really was not lying.” (Jewish Study Bible)
JACOB:
“Jacob’s deception of his blind
father, Isaac (Genesis 27). Was Jacob permitted to deceive his father and
pretend to be Esau? Some commentaries take the approach that Jacob did not
actually lie. When asked by his father who he was (Genesis 27:18), he replied:
"I am Esau your firstborn." Rashi [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzḥaqi, born 1040-1105]
and other commentators try to show that this was not really a falsehood.”
MOSES: Deuteronomy 34:10–11 And there has not
arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the LORD sent him to do in
the land of Egypt,
·
Numbers 20:12
And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to
uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not
bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”
Almost forty years earlier, in
similar circumstances, G-d had told him to take his staff and strike the rock.
Now too, G-d told him to take his staff. Evidently Moses inferred that he was
being told to act this time as he had before, which is what he does… Moses’
inability to hear this distinction was not a failing, still less was it a sin.
It was an inescapable consequence of the fact that he was mortal.
If this interpretation is
correct, then Moses did not sin, nor was he punished. To be sure, the
Torah uses language expressive of sin (“You did not believe in Me”, “You
rebelled against Me”, “You trespassed against Me”, “You did not sanctify Me”).
But these phrases may refer, as several commentators suggest … not to Moses and
Aaron but to the people and the incident as a whole. The fact that Moses was
not destined to enter the promised land was not a punishment but the very
condition of his mortality. http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbisacks-on-parsha/covenant_and_conversation_land/
THE ISRAELITES:
•
Deut. 9:4-6 “After the LORD your God has driven them out
before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The LORD has brought me here to take
possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of
the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before
you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are
going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of
these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish
what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then,
that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving
you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
ISRAELITE PROPHETS:
•
Isaiah 1:2-4 “I reared children and brought them up, but they
have rebelled against me. The ox knows its master, the donkey its
owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Woe
to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers,
children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned
the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.”
o
Prophets continually denounced Israel
and Israel killed them. Why would they have preserved their books as canonical?
MOSAIC LAWS:
•
The
covenant was transacted with all
the people, not just the king – an oddity in its day. Kings wrote the laws, and
these laws reflected the fact that the king was morally and religiously above
everyone else.
•
The
king was required to read the Torah (the Five Books of Moses)
to remind him that he was no better than other people (Deut. 17).
•
A
day of rest was mandatory for even animals and foreigners (Exodus
20:10).
Such concerns do not come from
the ruling class but from God who created all!
•
The
Sabbath (7th) year required the cancellation of debts to
protect the poor (Deut. 15:1, 4) – certainly not something that people who make
the laws – the power elite - would tolerate!
•
The
Jubilee (50th) year required that the land be returned to its
original owners. In fact, this law was so radical – so counter to human
economics - that there is no evidence that Israel ever obeyed it:
Lev.
25:11 The fiftieth year
shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or
harvest the untended vines.
It should be noted that such a
law depended upon a supreme trust in God to provide in the absence of sowing.
•
The
priestly caste was denied true wealth – land. Instead, God was to be their
inheritance. What powerful caste would willingly place themselves in such a
disadvantageous position!
•
The
law granted soldiers permission to leave the army if they
feared (Deut. 20). If any nation granted their soldiers such an out, it would
loose its army.
o
Exodus 34:23–24
“Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the LORD God, the
God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders;
no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God
three times in the year.”
MOSAIC THREATS:
·
Deuteronomy 27:26
“’Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’
And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
·
Deuteronomy 28:15
“But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all
his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these
curses shall come upon you and overtake you.”
For instance, Gerald Sigal, The Jew and the Christian Missionary,
wrote:
[Deuteronomy
27:26] does not refer to the breaking of the Law by an ordinary
individual. It is, as the Rabbis explain, a reference to the authorities in
power who fail to enforce the rule of the Law in the land of Israel (J.T. Sotah
7:4). The leadership of the nation is thus charged, under pain of the curse, to
set the tone for the nation and make the Law the operative force in the life of
the nation.
Instead, this verse and many
others damn every Israelite. This is a state-of-affairs that no people would
tolerate. We come to religion for its benefits and not its curses!
DAMNING PROPHECIES:
·
Deuteronomy 29:4
“But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to
see or ears to hear.”
·
Joshua 24:19
But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a
holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your
sins.
·
Deuteronomy 32:28–29
“For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.
If they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern their latter
end!”
GENTILES: Deuteronomy 23:7 “You
shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an
Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land.
PENTATEUCHAL HOLIDAYS:
Of the five prescribed holidays, only
one of them is truly commemorative of an historical event – the Passover/Feast
of Unleavened Bread. The other four seem to be prophetic. They look forward to
God working events to their glorious culmination.
However, this is very unusual –
something we humans don’t do! Holidays commemorate past events, like the
birthdays or deaths of our significant people, military victories, and even
great tragedies like Pearl Harbor Day.
They make us remember events that are key to our national and religious
identity.
Likewise, all of Israel’s non-divinely-ordained holidays are
commemorative. Hanukkah commemorates the cleansing of the Temple and the
Maccabean military victories. Purim commemorates the salvation of the Jewish
people in Persia. T’sha b’Av commemorates the destruction of the Temple.
Simchat Torah commemorates the giving of the Law on Sinai.
No:
·
Birth (or death) of Moses, Joshua, Abraham Day
·
Victory of the Egyptians Day; Victory over
Jericho Day
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