Category: Old Testament

A Broken Promise

TJM Admin
Feb 12 |20:28

So, the Israelites are wandering through the wilderness eating mana. I am sure that after a while, this got to be quite boring to the palette. Naturally, they call upon Moses and ask when they would be able to eat some real food (of course, when strolling through the wilderness fo 40 years, you would think that someone would have learned how to hunt or forage). So, Moses goes before God and God says,

“Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?” (Num. 11:16-20)

Great! Finally, some meat! And from the sounds of it, a lot of it! In fact, enough to eat for not 1,2,5,10 or 20 days; but at least enough for a month! Sounds like a great promise. And did God deliver? You bet he did!

And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. (Num. 11:31-32)

Now, a cubit is about 1.5 feet (a man’s elbow to fingertip) and a day’s journey is about 7 miles. That’s a lot of quail! But wait, didn’t God promise them that they would eat the quail for a month? Until it was “loathsome” to them? Sure did! (Num. 11:19-20) Let’s see what happens next:

And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. (Num. 11:33)

So much for that promise!

 

Original Crime and Punishment

TJM Admin
Feb 4 |14:25

Original sin; the foundation for Christian belief that salvation is necessary. The idea for this dogma is that due to Adam’s fall, we are all sinners destined for hell and in need of a savior. (Romans 5:12)

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

However, let us examine the original crime and punishment and see if this dogma holds true. First, does God himself believe that we should be damned for the sins of our ancestors? The Bible supports both ideas; yes and no. If you wish to serve a god which is more unjust than our legal system, here are your supporting verses:

Gen. 9:21-25 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father …. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan [Ham's son]; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Exodus 20:5 I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Exodus 34:7 Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children unto the third and to the fourth generation

Num. 14:18 Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Jer. 16:10-11 Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? … Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord.

If you wish to believe that the god you serve is more ethical than that, here are your supporting verses:

Deut. 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

2 Kings 14:6 But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Jer. 31:29-30 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Now, let us examine just what Adam’s punishment was:

Gen. 3:17-19 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Hmmm. No mention of separation from god, or hell for that matter. And I believe that god’s original intent for Adam, before he sinned, was to “dress and keep” the Garden of Eden. (Gen. 2:15) So, Adam’s punishment is to do what god intended him to do in the first place. Okay. As a matter of fact, the Earth gets cursed by god due to Adam’s sin. Eve’s punishment is merely one verse:

Gen. 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Apparently, before the whole apple ordeal, popping a watermelon out of a hole the size of a grape would not have hurt! That’s right, we had no nerve endings or pain receptors before sin entered the world. And to love your husband is a punishment forced on to the woman as well (and thy desire shall be to thy husband).

Keep in mind that in not one place in the verses concerning Adam’s punishment does the Bible mention hell or the concept of his posterity being “born into sin” and, thusly, damned to hell. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of hell anywhere in the Old Testament. Every single place that you find the word “hell” in the Old Testament has been mistranslated. The original Hebrew in its rightful place is “sheol,” which in most of the OT refers to the grave and in some places refers to the underworld below Earth. The ideology of a “hellfire and brimstone” hell comes to us from the New Testament.

And, after all, should you choose to believe in a god that would not punish a man for the sins of the father (as shown by the above scriptures), how could you believe that that same god would damn you to eternal suffering for 75 years of “sin?” Seems like quite the unjust price to pay as our own legal system, while far from perfect, is more lenient than that.

 

In the Beginning: Part 2

TJM Admin
Feb 3 |22:07

So, we all know the first story. Yet there is another story of the Earth’s infancy, somewhat different from Genesis 1. Surprisingly to some, it can be found in the very next chapter. Let’s go through some of the contradictions just within the creation story.

  • Was man created before or after the animals? Well, Gen. 1:25-27 says after:

25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

While Gen. 2:18-19 tells us that man was created before the animals:

18And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

If you want to go one step further, the next verse is a tell-tale sign that God is not the omniscient being that we give him credit to be:

20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

So, here we have a God that knew that the animals needed animals of the same species and different sex, but he expected that Adam would find a “help meet for him” among the animals? Surely an omniscient God would have for-seen this blunder and would have created Eve right along with Adam instead of having him waste the years it must have taken to give names to all the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air. (I suppose that the Penguins and Ostriches got left out of this naming ceremony) Of course, I am getting ahead of myself because the next question is:

  • Man and woman; created at the same time or separately? Keep in mind that Gen. 1 is a chronological account and names just what was made on which day:

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

According to this version, God created woman at the same time as man. The story reads quite clearly: beginning of the 6th day, animals first then man and woman. The second account is quite different (Gen 2:20-22):

20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.21And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

In this account, we have the following order: man first, then the animals and finally woman. Which account is the correct order of creation?

  • Where did the birds come from? Looking at Gen. 1:20-21:

20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Okay, so they came from out of the water. Or, Gen. 2:19:

19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

Well, maybe they came from the ground. And as for the great “meaning of life” everyone is so desperately searching for? It was right in Genesis all along (Gen. 2:19):

15And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Next post: Original Crime and Punishment.

 

In the Beginning…

TJM Admin
Feb 2 |00:09

We all know the story (well, sort of):

Genesis 1

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

We’ve all heard this story before. The last time you may have heard it was in Sunday School. More recently, you may have looked up these verses due to all the debate surrounding the idea of introducing “Intelligent Design” into the public school system. (Folks, let’s face the reality: I.D. is simply another way to say “Creationism” while trying to keep a straight face.) But, have you really read it? I mean, with the logic switch turned on? Let’s take away the stigma and guilt of questioning the Bible, if only for a moment. What exactly can we derive from this first chapter of Genesis?

  1. God created light with no source. After all, the sun is not made until the fourth day. For those that hold true to the idea that God created the universe within the confines of the laws of physics (being that He is the architect of those laws), this simply defies explanation. If this is true, what was the need to create a sun? And why don’t we see this all-encompassing light in the middle of the night? After all, there is no reference to God extinguishing that light…
  2. There is some kind of transparent iron plate between the Earth and outer space. What’s more, there is water just on the other side of it! As you all well know, this “dome” around the Earth has been a complete nuisance to NASA and their useless attempts to launch anything beyond it.
  3. (Time to sleep, more tomorrow.)

Just a quick, random thought. If God is omnipotent, could He not have merely thought everything into existence? I mean, certainly that would have been more time efficient. Maybe he would not have needed to take a day off for “rest.” He could have used the time He saved for the real important questions like, “Do I really want to put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the Garden?” As far as Intelligent Design goes, how intelligent was it to create a tube that leads to both the lungs and the stomach? Surely there must have been a better system than people choking to death.

But folks, this is but one creation story of the two that are in Genesis. Fundamentalists will say that one is a synopsis or commentary on the other. This simply cannot be true, as the two stories conflict and contradict each other too much. The real answer: the Pentauch (first 5 books of the Bible) was not written by one person, Moses, as we are taught. Rather, there were several authors. More on that and the conflicting stories of “Creation” in our next posting, “In the Beginning…2.”