Q & A

Q&A: “How does a gentile pray to Hashem?”

Leave a Comment

Image from essentialthingdevotions.com

[First posted February 6, 2014; revived March 20,2016; now being reposted because of a recent entry in our SITESTAT/SEARCH ENGINE TERMS that was intriguing:  “can gentile pray jewish prayers”.   That was addressed in Yo searchers, need help? August 2016.  The short answer to that was this: 

 

Anyone can pray and if one’s choice is to emulate the formal prayers of any prayerful group/sect/religion, one has freedom to do so provided one agrees with what is expressed, and a universal God is addressed instead of the name of a God that is not one you believe in.

Sample:  Sinaites do not say “amen” to prayers that end up “in Jesus name” when we find ourselves in Christian contexts (funeral rites, mass celebrations preceding investitures, etc.)

Gentiles can pray Jewish prayers if they agree that the One True God is the God of Israel who gave His Name as YHWH.  Even if a gentile does not agree, he can pray the ‘Jewish prayer’, that’s part of individual freedom of religion that Jews themselves respect. But, you must also respect their reasons for avoiding saying the Name of their God, and be satisfied with their substitutions “HaShem”, “G-d”, “L-rd”.

 

 

Now back to the original INTRODUCTION to this post:

 

The Sinaites’ view on prayer has not changed; what might have changed is our growing understanding that our God has left it to us to ‘fixit’, as in ‘tend the garden’, a responsibility He has left for humanity as early as Adam.  This doesn’t mean ‘don’t pray at all’; what it means is don’t turn God into a Santa with a gimme and do-it-for-me list in casual irreverent praying.—Admin].

 

 

———————-

 

This question appeared in “Search Terms”.  When a posted article  already answers a ‘Q’, I merely direct the searcher to it in Yo searchers! Can we help you? if he failed to find it in Updated Site Contents.

 

What made me devote a whole article to this question are two words: 

  • first, “Ha Shem” and
  • second, “gentile.”

 

 Additionally, I would like to share insights on prayer that we Sinaites have gained from years-long study of the Hebrew Scriptures. 

 

First, “haShem.”

The dictionary defines ‘circumlocution’ as “the use of many words where fewer would do, esp. in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive”.  Except for the part “deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive”, the word “HaShem” might be categorized as circumlocution, one of the ways Jews avoid saying the Tetragrammaton Name of God.  The English for ‘ha Shem‘ is “the Name.”  Whose name? The God of Israel.   ArtScroll Tanach (AST), one of the Jewish translations we recommend substitutes ‘HaShem’ for YHWH.  (We have many posts about the Jewish avoidance of saying or writing God’s name, so please read those for further clarification.)

 

The Sinaite’s position on saying/writing the Name of the True God as He Himself revealed it in His Revelation is this:  

 

How can anyone know the name of the True God

if they never read it nor hear it

because there is this avoidance by the very people

to whom it was declared?

 

 Is there any prohibition for saying or writing the Name YHWH?

 

If none, why do the Jewish Scriptures resort to G-D, L-RD,

while the Christian Bibles resort to LORD?

Why not just say the NAME—YHWH with the reverence it deserves?

 

Sinaites believe that reverence for the True God is actually expressed in declaring His Name to all people on earth who so badly need to hear it! If God Himself revealed His Name, we should declare it LOUDLYand CLEARLY!  How else can we identify who is our God if we keep using “Lord” or “Master” or “God” which religions that worship other Gods also use?

 

Name is identity.   Identify your God, and let’s see if we’re on the same page.  This is why the official translation of the TORAH (The Five Books of Moses) that we have chosen for this website is Everett Fox who not only uses a poetic format but more importantly, has restored the Tetragrammaton Name YHWH where all other translations have used LORD or HaSHEM.

 

But back to our question . . . .  As for the word ‘gentile’ – how does a gentile pray to YHWH? Do we gentiles pray any differently from the Jews?

 

If YHWH the God of Israel/the God of the Nations had given specific instructions on ‘how to pray’ in His revelation on Sinai, this question would not even be asked.  Does His TORAH teach Israel how to pray?  And if so, would it be different for Jew or Gentile?

 

Image from www.christian-faith.com

The TORAH usually teaches through its narratives about the beginnings of humankind and the beginnings of a people named after its patriarch Jacob/Israel, set apart for God’s purposes of teaching the whole world (yes, Israel and the nations, Jews and Gentiles) HIS WAY of living on planet earth.  Hence, it records key figures (i.e.the first couple, the first brothers, Noah, Israel’s Patriarchs and Prophets),  conversing and interacting with the God who calls them, directs them, gives them instructions.  Would we consider such conversations as ‘prayer’?

 

The TORAH also includes ‘tributes’ and ‘songs’, all declaring the greatness of their Deliverer and His acts on behalf of Israel. Are they samples of how we should pray to God?

 

The TNK has many other examples in Neviim (The Prophets) and Ketuvim (The Writings) of prayers written by men inspired by love, awe and reverence for the God of Israel: read Solomon’s prayer after finishing the Temple in Jerusalem; David’s personal prayers at different stages of his life are part of the Psalms, considered as the prayer expressions of Israel.

 

 The custodians of the Divine Revelation, the Jews, have resorted to their own specific ways of addressing God; Judaism has its SIDDUR which has prayers for every conceivable occasion and they traditionally begin their prayers by blessing God first.

 

Are non-Jews, gentiles supposed to follow their lead?

 

Outside of the Hebrew Scriptures, there are prayers from all over the world by gentiles who love and worship the God they do not know (specifically through the TORAH), and yet they reflect almost the same expressions of awe and reverence for the God whose existence they acknowledge in prayer. They see His Hand in His visible creation;  His invisible workings they understand from natural phenomena, the balance and harmony and beauty they attribute to a Designer of all things that sustain life on earth.

 

Christianity has its own prescription for prayers for its flock, depending on the sect or denomination.

  • Catholics pray their way through their many mediators (Mother Mary and beatified saints) aside from the name of the Son of God.
  • Protestants/Evangelicals pray their way, ending in the name of the only mediator they not only acknowledge but revere as God the Son, “In Jesus Name!”
  • Messianics pray like Jews, except they infuse their Christocentric theology, though emphasizing the Jewish roots of their Christian Messiah, “In the name of Yeshua HaMachiach!”

 

Really, does YHWH need a mediator between man and Him? How difficult is it to reach a God Who condescends to communicate and explain Himself to humanity?  Read the TORAH and find out for yourself.

 

Now, how indeed ‘does a gentile pray to hashem’ ?

 

The Jews have the Siddur to guide them, but what is an unaffiliated gentile’s guide?

 

I for one have bought about as many ‘how to’ books on prayer as I have every translation of the Christian Bible and the TNK.  Have these books taught me how to pray? Occasionally I have learned how NOT to pray . . . but yes, I’ve learned much about how OTHERS pray.   So would I simply recommend what so-called ‘prayer warriors’ prescribe, like a formula that works for getting prayers answered the way the prayor wants? ‘How to get your way with the Heavenly Father’ . . . . virtually ‘my will be done’.

 

Image from www.hashtagsmag.com

  • Individual expression is an individual’s choice; this God of Providence we understand as OMNIscient,
  • OMNIpresent,
  • OMNIPOTENT,
  • loving-merciful-and full of grace

—most likely hears any sincere utterance from the heart in whatever language expressed, simple or elaborate.

  • A child’s simple words;
  • a dying person’s last words;
  • and everything said between the beginning and end of one’s life,
  • addressed to that SOMEONE he needs to communicate with,
  • whom he presumes would hear him anytime, anywhere;
  • WHO would hopefully understand his expressions of every emotion he feels whether joy or anger, desperation in need, maybe even hate . . . .
  • after all, HE created man with all those emotions,
  • wouldn’t HE understand more than anyone else?
 

Is this presumptuous thinking?  Really, would God be picky about what, where and when He wants to hear from us? If so, He’d have included it in His Guidelines for Life.

 

Connection with Him is the first step, in whatever way it happens in one’s life, in good or bad times.  Any time of connection is an ideal time. He is the Eternal while our time on earth is assured only in the ‘now’ moment.

 

Would He answer ASAP? “It depends”, say prayer-book authors:   “always” there is an answer but it could be any of the three:  ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Maybe’, or ‘in His time’.   Noticeably, I conclude that in their opinion, ‘Unanswered prayer’ only means that God did not answer the way we wanted or expected.

 

Some people set limits to prayer, where to do it, how to do it, what to say; others require specific positions, kneel, clasp hands, bow heads, or raise arms, heads up, individual preference is part of free will!  There is a time and place for such requirements, sometimes conditions are set and promises are made.  In a foxhole, it is said there are no atheists.  When the earth shakes, guess what word is on everyone’s lips ‘Oh my God!’?  Would you consider such as ‘prayer’?

 

 Connection is key, right? We Sinaites simply say, ‘JUST PRAY!’  Individually we’re free to pray as we are inclined to; corporately or in church; formal prayers understandably follow traditional patterns of prayers for their faithful.

 

Image from www.cartoonstock.com

Have you been guilty of resolving to focus on God in your prayer, only to resort to turning the focus back to yourself, your need, your this, your that?  What we Sinaites have finally understood about prayer is — to quit telling God what to do, the ‘gimme’ self-centered prayer, the ‘change my will, the other person’s will (according to what I want or expect on my time schedule, please God!)’.  God will never invade our will or another’s will; CHOICE is His gift to us.

 

Free will is a gift and a blessing when we use it as we should, according to His will.  He might arrange circumstances to make us or the other change our direction or choice pattern, but the changing is always up to the individual.  There are people we have prayed for (like forever!) who have remained unchanged, until we were the ones who eventually had to adjust, resigned to the fact the other will probably never change and actually never did! But in the process, God heard frequently from us and we probably heard from Him, we just weren’t listening because we were too full of “my wants”!

 

So again, ‘how does a gentile pray to Hashem’?

 

First and last advice:

  • Seek to KNOW
  • and try to UNDERSTAND
  • this awesome GOD through His declarations in His Revelation on Sinai.

He explains Himself in the Torah. The more you get to know Him through His self-declarations, the more reverent you will act toward Him and approach Him in prayer/worship as is fitting for the Creator, the One you regard as your King, your Lord and Master.

 

The original ending of this post was 3 words: “JUST DO IT!”

 

Add to that simple advice:  Pray . . .  but this time with reverence to an awesome God,  and call on His Name . . . YHWH.  Would the One True God Whose Name is YHWH respond to prayers addressed to other gods not bearing His Name?  What do you think?

 

 

 

NSB@S6K

logo

CHRISTIANITY

The Ark of the Covenant: Was it in the Holy of Holies on the day Jesus died?

Leave a Comment
Image from chapelofhopestories.com

Image from chapelofhopestories.com

[First posted in 2012;  examines a gospel text that  Sinaites never questioned when we were Christians because well, what ‘believer’ dares question “Gospel Truth”?  However, as we started reading the Hebrew Scriptures, some passages in the Newer Testament stood out as ‘questionable’.  For another such passage, check this link:  

Revisit: What?! There were resurrected saints at Jesus’ resurrection? — Admin 1.]

 

———-

 

Matthew 27:50  

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.   And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom . . . . 

 

Sinaites have never questioned this NT claim before; it was part of the gospel narrative, one of many verses linking the second Person of the  Christian Trinitarian God, Jesus Christ,  to a piece of furniture that had centrality in the Sanctuary, not only because it was located in the Holy of Holies behind the curtain but mainly because it represented the very Presence of the God of Israel, YHWH, Who resided in the midst of His chosen people, according Torah accounts..  By the time of Jesus, the text presumes that the Ark was in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Well, was it?

 

From the time the Ark was first constructed according to the instructions given to Moses, the Ark was situated in the Holy of Holies, behind the curtain [veil] in the Tabernacle in the wilderness.  Only the High Priest was allowed to enter once a year at Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] to sprinkle the blood of the goat upon the mercy seat.

 

It remained in the Temple built by Solomon until the Babylonians came, destroyed the Temple, and carried off the Temple artifacts as part of their spoils.  There is no mention of the Ark of the Covenant thereafter; whatever happened to it is the subject of much speculation. 

 

With that in mind, the logical progression of thought:  was there an Ark in the existing Temple at the time Jesus was crucified?

  • If there was no Ark in the rebuilt Temple,
  • why would the “veil of the temple be torn in two from top to bottom” according to the gospel of Matthew?   
  • It has been taught that “Jesus is the Way, and that nobody comes to the Father except through him”.  
  • This tearing of the temple curtain is supposed to be the sign
    • that the Way has been opened by the sacrifice/shedding of blood/death of Jesus
    • which is the only payment for sin
    • acceptable to the Father.  

 

Really?   A human sacrifice? What does the God of Israel, the Revelator on Sinai, YHWH, say about that? 

 

Where in the Tanach does it say that YHWH is pleased with human sacrifices?  On the contrary it is an abomination to Him!  More of this in:   Q: Where in the original revelation of God does He ever express His demand for human sacrifice?

 

Think about it — if the Ark is not even at the Temple, and the Glory of Adonai withdrew from the Temple before the Babylonians came (as per one of the visions described by the prophet Ezekiel 10:17-18),  this verse and the NT interpretation of it just does not make sense! 

 

God’s Glory Exits the Temple
17   When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still; and when they rose up, the wheels would rise with them, for the spirit of the living beings was in them.

18   Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim.

19   When the cherubim departed, they lifted their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance of the east gate of the LORD’S house, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them.…

 

Please read the rest of Ezekiel to understand the context of why YHWH’s Glory departed and withdrew from the very place where He has emphasized will bear His Name. and where His Presence would dwell among His chosen people in the Land of Promise and specifically the city of Yerushalayim/Jerusalem.

 

Image from st-takla.org

Image from st-takla.org

Let us therefore try to understand what the Ark of the Covenant was all about in the Tanach.    Some verses refer to it as the Ark of the Testimony because the 2nd set of tablets (10 commandments)  as well as the Book of the Law were placed in the Ark.  

 

Please note when you read the Hebrew Scriptures that there is something consistent you might almost miss :   you will find no trace of anything related to or representing YHWH that might be turned into an object of worship.  Why? Because man is so inclined to venerate material “sacred” things!   Even the bronze serpent [Numbers 21:4-9 ] had to be destroyed because it became an idol to Israelites [2 Kings 18:1-6].  Thankfully, only God knows where Moses was buried or that would have turned into another shrine.

 

Worse, just look at the idolatry relating to Jesus since Christianity decided YHWH was human-divine in His Son, the second person of the Trinity.  Once that Pandora’s box was opened, a church-tolerated idolatry was unleashed! People are so prone to idolizing man-made representations of not only Jesus, but his mother, step-father, apostles, or anyone else remotely related, who was a devout worshipper, died and then canonized as a saint . . . who all are imagined to be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent enough to answer prayers of anyone at anytime, anywhere, just like OmniPresent-OmniPotent-Omniscient Almighty God YHWH Himself!

 

We have emphasized over and over that Truth-quest is a personal journey each seeker must undertake for himself.  Self-study is ideal, and bible study with other like-minded independent thinkers is even better because a healthy exchange of diverse ideas provides balance.  

 

This website simply offers alternatives to centuries-old teachings to open up other possibilities from the traditional or unquestioned way of interpreting verses .   Also, reading the Hebrew-English Translation is better than the Christian Old Testament version; the Jewish translation here is ArtScroll Tanach [AST].  [Note: We are in the process of adding the translation of Robert Alter; and still awaiting ,Everett Fox to finish his translation of the whole TNK.].

 

Sig-4_16colors

 

 

 

 

 logo

 

———————————–

 
 
ARK OF THE COVENANT / ARK OF TESTIMONY
 
  Exodus 16:34 – As HASHEM had commanded Moses, Aaron placed it before the Ark of Testimony for a safekeeping.
 
 
  Exodus 25:22 – It is there that I will set My meetings with you, and I shall speak with you from atop the Cover, from between the two Cherubim that are on the Ark of the Testimonial-tablets, everything that I shall command you to the Children of Israel.
 
  Exodus 26:33-34 – You shall put the Partition under the hooks. You shall bring there, inside the Partition, the Ark of the Testimonial-tablets, and the Partition shall separate for you between the Holy and the Holy of Holies. You shall put the Cover upon the Ark of the Testimonial-tablets in the Holy of Holies.
 
 
  Exodus 30:6 You shall place it before the Partition that is by the Ark of the Testimonial-tablets, in front of the Cover that is on the Testimonial-tablets, where I shall set My meetings with you.
 
 
 
Exodus 30:26 –With it you shall anoint the Tent of Meeting and the Ark of Testimonial-tablets . . 
 
 
 
Exodus 40:3,5,21 – There you shall place the Ark of Testimony and screen the Ark with the Partition. You shall place the Gold Altar for incense in front of the Ark of Testimony, and emplace the Curtain of the entrance of the Tabernacle. He brought the Ark into the Tabernacle and emplaced the Partition sheltering the Ark of Testimony, as HASHEM  had commanded Moses.
 
 
 Numbers 7:89 – When Moses arrived at the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he heard the Voice speaking to him from atop the Cover that was upon the Ark of the Testimony, from between the two Cherubim, and He spoke to him.
 
 
  Numbers 10:33 – They journeyed from the Mountain of HASHEM a three-day distance, and the Ark of the covenant of HASHEM journeyed before them a three-day distance to search out for them a resting place.
 
 
  Number 14:44 – But they defiantly ascended to the mountaintop, while the Ark of HASHEM’s covenant and Moses did not move from the midst of the camp.
 
 
Deuteronomy 10:8 – At that time, HASHEM set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the covenant of HASHEM, to stand before HASHEM to minister to Him and to bless in His Name until this day.
 
 
Deuteronomy 31:9 – Moses wrote this Torah and gave it to the Kohanim, the sons of Levi, the bearers of the Ark of the covenant of HASHEM, and to all the elders of Israel.
 
 
Deuteronomy 31:25,26 – Moses commanded the Levites, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, saying, “Take this book of the Torah and place it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, your God, and it shall be there for you as a witness.
 
 
  Joshua 3:3 – They commanded the people, saying, “When you see the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM , your God, and the Kohanim, the Levites , carrying it, then you shall move from your place and follow it.
 
 
  Joshua 3:6,8 – Joshua then spoke to the Kohanim, saying, “Carry the Ark of the Covenant and pass before the people”; so they carried the Ark of the Covenant and went before the people. You shall command the Kohanim, bearers of the Ark of the Covenant, saying, “When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan.’”
 
 
 
Joshua 3:11,14,17 – Behold, the Ark of the Covenant of the Master of all the earth is passing before you in the Jordan. . . .It happened when the people moved from their tents to cross the Jordan, and the Kohanim, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant, were in front of the people: . . . The Kohanim, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, stood firmly on dry ground, in the middle of the Jordan, all Israel crossing on dry ground until the entire nation finished crossing the Jordan.
 
 
 
Joshua 4:7,9,18 – You shall tell them, ‘[They signify] that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM – when it crossed the Jordan the waters of the Jordan were cut off’ – and these stones shall remain a remembrance for the Children of Israel forever.” . . .  Joshua erected twelve [other] stones in the middle of the Jordan, under the station of the feet of the Kohanim, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant; and they remained there to this day. . . . . It happened when the Kohanim, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, ascended from the middle of the Jordan and the soles of the Kohanim’s feet were removed to the dry ground: The waters of the Jordan returned to their place and flowed – as [they had] yesterday and before yesterday – upon all its banks.
 
 
Joshua 6:6 – Joshua son of Nun summoned the Kohanim and said to them, “Carry the Ark of the Covenant, and seven Kohanim shall carry seven ram-shofars before the Ark of HASHEM.”
 
  Joshua 8:33 – And all Israel and its elders and officers and its judges stood on this [side] and that of the Ark opposite the Kohanim, the Levites, bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, proselyte and native alike, half of them on the slope of Mount Gerizim and half of them on the slope of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of HASHEM had commanded, to first bless the people of Israel.
 
 
 
Judges 20:27 – The Children of Israel then inquired of HASHEM (the Ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days…
 
 
 
1 Samuel 4:3-5 – The people came to the camp, and the elders of Israel said, “Why did HASHEM smite us today before the Philistines? Let us take with us from Shiloh the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM that He may come in our midst and save us from the hands of our enemies!” So the people sent to Shiloh and carried from there the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, Master of Legions, Who dwells atop the Cherubim, and the two sons of Eli – Hophni and Phinehas – were there along with the Ark of the Covenant of God. When the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM arrived at the camp, all of Israel sounded a great shofar blast and the ground shook.
 
 
 
2 Samuel 15:24 – Behold, Zadok and all the Levites with him were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of God. They set down the Ark of God – and Abiathar came up [as well] – until all the people of the city finished passing from the city.
 
1 Kings 3:15 – Sol′o·mon awoke, and behold, it had been a dream. When he came to Jerusalem, he stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and brought up elevation-offerings and offered peace-offerings; and he made a feast for all of his servants.
 
 1 King 6:16-19   . . . he built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary . . .Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.

 

1 Kings 8:1- Then Solomon gathered together the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral families of the Children of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM from the City of David, which is Zion.
 
 
 
1 Chronicles 15:25,26 – David and the elders of Israel and the officers of thousands who went to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM from Obed-edom’s house were exuberant. It happened that because God helped the Levites who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM, they offered as sacrifices seven bulls and seven rams.
 

1 Chronicles 16:6 – and Benaiah and Jahaziel, the Kohanim, always being with the trumpets before the Ark of the Covenant of God.

 

1 Chronicles 16:37 – [David] left Asaph and his kinsmen there before the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM to minister before the Ark permanently, each day according to what was appropriate on that day, 1 Chron. 16:37 – So he left Asaph and his relatives there before the ark of the covenant of the Lord to minister before the ark continually, as every day’s work required;

 

1 Chronicles 17:1 –It happened after David was settled into his home that David said to Nathan the prophet, “Behold I am living in a house of cedar while the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM dwells under curtains!”

 

1 Chronicles 22:19 – Now apply your heart and soul to seek HASHEM, your God; get up and build the Sanctuary of HASHEM, God, to bring the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM and the sacred vessels of God into the Temple that will be built for the sake of HASHEM.    

 

1 Chronicles 28:18 – and refined gold for the Altar of Incense by weight; and for the image of the Chariot, the golden Cherubim that spread out [their wings] and covered the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM.  

 

2 Chronicles 5:2 – Then Solomon gathered together the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the leaders of the ancestral families of the Children of Israel to Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of HASHEM from the City of David, which is Zion.      

 

THE NEW TESTAMENT

 

Hebrews 9:4 – having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant;

 

Revelation 11:19 – And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and at the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.

OPINION

This Upside Down World

Leave a Comment

[Another revisit originally posted January 13, 2013, reposted October 11, 2014 and August 10, 2015 , still and even more so relevant to our times though probably getting outdated in a rapidly changing world.—Admin1.]

 

 [AST] Isaiah 5:20-21, 24, 25:  

Woe to those who speak of evil as good and of good as evil;

 who make darkness into light and light into darkness;

they make bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter!

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,

and in their own view, understanding. . . .

they have abhorred the Torah of HaSHEM [YHWH] Master of Legions,

and they have scorned the word of the Holy One of Israel . . . .

Yet still His wrath has not ceased and His hand is still stretched out.

 

The prophet Isaiah laments that the people who have been divinely chosen to model YHWH’s WAY of life as a nation miserably failed to be the true light to the gentiles.  Exactly how did they fail?  They knew “good” and “right” and yet they lived just the opposite,  termed “evil” in their Elohim’s sight. To find out specific details of their failure, read the prophets of Israel who mince no words and in fact use graphic language,  calling Israel an unfaithful wife who commits spiritual adultery.  You get the idea that adultery, unfaithfulness is tantamount to idolatry in the metaphorical language of Scripture.

 

The words of Israel’s prophets continue to reverberate through the ages in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures.  When we look at the world today and its value system turned upside down, we can easily relate to the prophets’ lamentations about their times.

 

 

Image from jonathanstanfield.com

Image from jonathanstanfield.com

Here’s a lamentation by a non-prophet, just a simple observer of the world today,  ‘yours truly’.

 

There is a saying that ‘art’ imitates life though sometimes you wonder if it is life that imitates art.  Substitute ‘multimedia’ for ‘art’  and look at the invasion of family living rooms by one insidious influence of an invited guest which never leaves but worse, dominates personal and family life.  This guest?  Television.  Its conventional fare is constantly pushed upon televiewers so that you wonder if censors are a thing of the past.  Anything goes, it’s a free-for-all; even advertisements pander to baser instincts and the children are exposed to salacious images and language way before bedtime, in fact during “family time.”   [Update 2016:  But never mind television, techtoys in the hands of children opens them up to the NO-CENSORSHIP world of the WorldWideWeb, the Internet—unsupervised, accessible anytime anywhere, pandering the best to the worst, child-in-wonderland indeed!]

 

There is no more comfortable position left for a conservative value system, or a biblical world view which is condemned as ‘narrow’ if not ‘irrelevant’, nay, obsolete!  Sodom and what Babylon symbolized  have resurrected and become the new ‘normal’.  Liberal feminist friends are  aghast that I don’t believe in evolution, and seriously wonder if I was ‘left behind’ in biblical antiquity.

 

[Update 2016:  Think about it—there is a difference in 3 words applicable to this:  “natural”, “normal”, and “legal”.  “Natural” refers to original creation, as the Creator has intended.  “Normal” refers to what has become accepted by the majority that imposes its thinking/values upon the minority and in due time, majority demands that laws adjust according to what has become widely acceptable, i.e., legalize the behavior.   On the opposite end of this pendulum,  some religious laws demand legal limitations on the female gender such as the covering of their face as well as the legal extreme, execution of sexual aberrants. ]

 

 

Homosexuality is not a “sin” nor a “gender choice” because they are “born” that way, like it’s “natural” and they’re  simply being who they really are. The Bible is condemned for condemning it, such that apologists strike back by explaining God did not create “Adam and Steve.”  If so, the Bible would have ended in Genesis 2.  Gays and lesbians coming out of the closet is likened to race issues and ‘women’s lib’ demanding equality. That has progressed to same-sex couples who now want to redefine “marriage.”  It has become a major political issue at least in the USA.  Women mate women, men mate men and because they can’t reproduce themselves, they adopt children and are, admittedly, very conscientious parents but for certain, also  influence the next generation’s thinking about same-gender-choices.   It is good that children have loving gay parents, but that still does not make it right in the eyes of the Creator who designed two genders to ensure procreation among humans as well as animals.  Just think:  had Noah loaded only one gender of his family, could they have obeyed the Creator’s command to “go and multiply” even if they wanted to? Certain Christian denominations have allowed gay pastors in the pulpit as well as perform same-sex marriages with the blessings of their congregation.  If they’re still teaching from the same Christian New Testament and ignoring Paul’s epistle to the Romans, that’s their congregational choice.

 

I better quit on this subject before I end up with hate mail and labeled homophobic.  Don’t get me wrong, I respect gay rights and have no problem recognizing same-sex civil unions, I’m simply discussing here how tables have turned in the last half of the 20th century and in this second decade of our 21st the same momentum keeps going in the same direction.  Pandora’s box has indeed been opened to unleash unbelievable trends that the previous generation had not imagined possible and perhaps that is why there is a gap between the older and the younger and why generations do come and go. But then again, if the whole world turned homosexual, we will finally not only control the population but end humanity as a created species by the 7th millennium.   [Update 2016:  the LGBT movement has asserted itself aggressively, sparking controversies, the least of which concerns toilet topics,  as in which ‘Restroom’ do transgenders use,  Male, Female, or an extra provision, maybe two extras for the third sex?]

 

Virginity is old-fashioned, outdated, abnormal, embarrassing, if not outright weird.  While extra-marital affairs among men of stature are frowned upon, TV and Hollywood tell us these are about as normal as choosing a different fare from your regular menu. In fact why bother with marriage when living together is the acceptable norm. Television’s most popular series show how the general public continue to respond favorably to situations, plots, reality shows that would have been unacceptable, frowned upon condemned, or outright censored once upon a time, not so long ago, within a generation’s lifetime.  Life imitates art, that’s for sure.

 

Are the children confused? It’s a monkey-see-monkey-do world, they’re like sponges lapping up anything and everything.  What’s normal for the parents gets passed on to them. Birth control is taught to children before they understand the birth process or how they were conceived. TV hosts feature children choosing to dress and act like their opposite sex as early as 5 years old, (see, they’re “born” that way!).  Toddlers are dressed up like adults to compete like beauty queens, by their own mothers. Pedophiles make it as boy scout leaders, sports coaches; priests abuse altar boys, etc. And these are just sexuality concerns, there is of late alarming signs of how gun-toting youth exposed to violence in video games and films are acting out their vendetta against society, claiming innocent victims in movie houses, shopping malls, schools. 

 

 

Image from www.sisodia.in

Image from www.sisodia.in

Since words influence attitudes, even language is being sanitized so as not to offend one’s neighbor, and that is a good thing.  One has to mind one’s terms to comply with what is “politically correct” so that labels are not used to demean people.  But while we’re sensitive to people’s sensibilities, just listen to how often the word “God” is linked with “damn” and nobody blinks anymore. I made a resolution once that I would change the TV channel if I heard the word uttered in any show, series or film; I often could not finish what I was watching.  It got to the point that in my desire to finish one freakin’ movie, I started rationalizing — “the word “God” is not the True God’s Name, so what if the “G” word is uttered like an unbreakable habit together with other cuss words”? To my credit, I figured the mindless cusser would still be cursing the True God, he simply does not know His Name and therefore uses the generic word for deity.  Now isn’t it interesting that “Satan-damn” or “Baal-damn” never made it into foul speech? As one writer justifies the Jews’ avoidance of saying God’s True Name, it would have been profaned had it been widely known and used. Perhaps so.

 

[AST] Exodus 20:7 

You shall not

take the name of the Lord your God

in vain,

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless

who takes his name in vain.

 

I could go on and on with this list of how things have turned around from the standards set in YHWH’s TORAH or its shorter version of the 10 Commandments which is more familiar. You get to where you wish you could say as one play title says it, “stop the world, I want to get off!” But there is no other “world” to get off to; man is placed on one planet which was designed perfectly to sustain life, whether flora or fauna or human life.  This beautiful earth is IT for generations who have been born and passed on.  Humankind was given the mandate to steward one planet by the Creator Who, as Revelator followed up His initial instructions with how to relate as humans in communities of families and nations. Would the maker of any gadget such as a computer not provide instructions for users?  The Creator has done the same by leaving His Revelation so that humankind could best fulfill the divine purpose for which they were created. 

 

 

Image from calvarysouthbury.com

Image from calvarysouthbury.com

TORAH is Other-entered and God-centered. If each person thought of heeding God’s instructions, and showing as much concern for others’ welfare as much as his own, this would be a different world indeed.  I know, I know, easy to say . . .the fact is man goes his own way instead of YHWH’s Way. Lucky for man, despite his insistence on his way, that is ignoring TORAH, our awesome and merciful YHWH has the last word!  

 

 

The last statement in the Isaiah verse reminds us: 

 

Yet still His wrath has not ceased

and His hand is still stretched out. [AST]

 

Here’s a timely reminder from YHWH’s self-description in Exodus/Shemoth 34:6 [EF]:

 

6 And YHWH passed before his face

and called out:

YHWH YHWH

God,

showing-mercy, showing-favor;

long-suffering in anger,

abundant in loyalty and faithfulness,

keeping loyalty to the thousandth (generation),

bearing iniquity, rebellion and sin,

yet not clearing, clearing (the guilty),

calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers

upon the sons and upon sons’   sons,

to the third and fourth (generation)!

 

Exodus 20:6 [AST]

 . . .  but lovingkindness to thousands,

to those who love Me

and keep My commandments.

 

 

Sig-4_16colors

logo
DAILY POSTS

Yo searchers, need help? August 2016

Leave a Comment
Image from www.crosscards.com

Image from www.crosscards.com

Search term entries:

 

08/20/16 –

  • “origins o prophecy in israel vielled in obscurity discuss”
  • origins of prophecy in israel vielled in obscurity discuss?

Q&A: “Israel prophecy” – “veiled in obscurity”?

 

08/17/16 – “the origins of prophecy in israel is veiled in obscurity” – 

08/17/16 “can gentile pray jewish prayers” –

Anyone can pray and if one’s choice is to emulate the formal prayers of any prayerful group/sect/religion, one has freedom to do so provided one agrees with what is expressed, and a universal God is addressed instead of the name of a God that is not one you believe in.

 

Sample:  Sinaites do not say “amen” to prayers that end up “in Jesus name” when we find ourselves in Christian contexts (funeral rites, mass celebrations preceding investitures, etc.)

 

Gentiles can pray Jewish prayers if they agree that the One True God is the God of Israel who gave His Name as YHWH.  Even if a gentile does not agree, he can pray the ‘Jewish prayer’, that’s part of individual freedom of religion that Jews themselves respect. But, you must also respect their reasons for avoiding saying the Name of their God, and be satisfied with their substitutions “HaShem”, “G-d”, “L-rd”.

 

 Here’s the  Sinaite’s viewpoint on prayer:

 

08/13/16  – “shabbat shalom” – We have a Category that features the Sinaite’s Liturgy for every Sabbath of the year.  Our prayers are faith expressions, just like the Psalms of Ketuviim, which acknowledge everything we know about the Self-revealing God of Sinai whose name is YHWH.  Our liturgies are focused on praising, thanking and following the example of our only ‘Sabbath Role Model’, the true LORD OF THE SABBATH, the One Creator who, Himself, rested from His “work” on the 7th day, Saturday which is the true Sabbath before it was moved to Sunday by Christianity and Friday by Islam.  We pattern our liturgy after the Jewish Sabbath celebration, family oriented, home-based.  The basics are:  YHWH, Rest, Joy.

 

To save this searcher the trouble of scrolling through the SITEMAP, here’s the whole content:

A Sinaite’s Sabbath Liturgy

 

08/12/16 – “the five books of moses everett fox pdf”

And a bonus for this searcher as well as others interested,  please note that we have also acquired the other MUST READ/MUST HAVE book which we will soon be featuring, another excellent highly recommended translation w/commentary by Robert Alter:

08/09/16 – “jacob and his 12 sons” – 

—————————

[A new month, new week, new day signals a new start on anything we’ve been wanting to do but have put off, such as dieting, exercising, failed resolutions of to-do or to-not-do.  We are half-way through year 2016, any success w/New Year Resolutions?  Actually the best time for change is always ‘the moment’ . . . why wait when you can do it NOW, right this hot minute when you’re motivated!  Who knows what the future has in store for us in an hour, tonight, tomorrow? Those who have experienced a 7.8 magnitude earthquake (that’s us, Sinaites on July 16, 1990) know full well how life can suddenly change in 24 seconds which is about the length of time our earthquake shook not only our present but had many consequences for our future . . . and now it’s all past.  So, learn from it, or so we should . . . but unfortunately, old habits are hard to break and even earthshaking experiences sometimes fail to make us turn around from a direction we have intended to change.  NOW is always a good time.

 

As usual, while waiting for search term entries, here’s trivia about the month of August.  Until we started this monthly aid for searchers, we never had any curiosity about the origin of calendar details.  Moderns take such things for granted, what is the point of knowing?  Just like we hardly question the source of religions we were born in or converted to, most of us don’t bother.  But why not?  Shouldn’t we? It doesn’t hurt to know and who knows when it might come in handy, particular if you land in a QUIZ show where right answers might win you the jackpot.   So, like it or not, here’s August!

August is the eighth month of the year, has 31 days, and is named after Augustus Caesar.

August is the eighth month of the year in our modern day Gregorian calendar.

Naming August – Augustus Caesar

August is the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and its predecessor, the Julian calendar. The month of August was originally named Sextilis in Latin since it was the sixth month in the ancient Roman calendar. The name of the month was changed to August in honor of Augustus Caesar in 8 BCE.

  • Latin name – Augustus mensis – Month of Augustus
  • Latin – sextilis mensis – Sixth month
  • Anglo-Saxons – Weod Monath – Weed month

History of August

August was originally Sextilis, the sixth month in the Roman calendar and consisted of 31 days. It became the eighth month with a length of 29 days around 700 BCE when Januaryand February were added to the year. Julius Caesar added two days to the month around 45 BCE. It was later renamed to honor Augustus Caesar in 8 BCE.

Eighth Month in the Year

August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendar and is 31 days long. It is considered the busiest time for tourism because it falls in the main school summer holiday period. It is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern hemisphere.

 

August does not start on the same day of the week as any other month in the year in common years, but ends on the same day of the week as November every year. During leap years, August starts on the same day as February and still ends on same day as November.

 

Augustus for ‘August’

After Julius’s grandnephew Augustus defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra, and became emperor of Rome, the Roman Senate decided that he too should have a month named after him. The month Sextillus (sex = six) was chosen for Augustus, and the senate justified its actions in the following resolution:

 

Whereas the Emperor Augustus Caesar, in the month of Sextillis . . . thrice entered the city in triumph . . . and in the same month Egypt was brought under the authority of the Roman people, and in the same month an end was put to the civil wars; and whereas for these reasons the said month is, and has been, most fortunate to this empire, it is hereby decreed by the senate that the said month shall be called Augustus.

Not only did the Senate name a month after Augustus, but it decided that since Julius’s month, July, had 31 days, Augustus’s month should equal it: under the Julian calendar, the months alternated evenly between 30 and 31 days (with the exception of February), which made August 30 days long. So, instead of August having a mere 30 days, it was lengthened to 31, preventing anyone from claiming that Emperor Augustus was saddled with an inferior month.

To accommodate this change two other calendrical adjustments were necessary:

  • The extra day needed to inflate the importance of August was taken from February, which originally had 29 days (30 in a leap year), and was now reduced to 28 days (29 in a leap year).
  • Since the months evenly alternated between 30 and 31 days, adding the extra day to August meant that July, August, and September would all have 31 days. So to avoid three long months in a row, the lengths of the last four months were switched around, giving us 30 days in September, April, June, and November.

Among Roman rulers, only Julius and Augustus permanently had months named after them—though this wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of later emperors. For a time, May was changed to Claudius and the infamous Nero instituted Neronius for April. But these changes were ephemeral, and only Julius and Augustus have had two-millenia-worth of staying power.

DAILY POSTS

UPDATED SITE CONTENTS – August 2016

Image from www.stlucasucc.org

Image from www.stlucasucc.org

Welcome to Sinai 6000!

This is a back-up

“table of contents”

in case our SITEMAP 

fails to completely load

(which it has been doing lately).

We have over 800 articles

on various categories;

we hope this helps you

navigate your way

through our website.

Happy reading,

dear visitors!

————————————-

Pages:

 

 

Post:

 

CHRISTIANITY

 

 

DAILY POSTS

 

 

DISCOURSE

 

MUST READ

MUST READ: A World of Deceptions and Forgeries – 1

Leave a Comment

51ijk9vgS+L._AC_US160_[First posted May 26, 2014.

 

This is from our MUST READ/MUST OWN book by Bart D. Ehrman, Forged. There are 4 posts from this book, please check them all out: 

This author, just like James D. Tabor (Restoring Abrahamic Faith), has greatly influenced us Sinaites in seriously re-examining with utmost scrutiny the roots of our Christocentric faith and its foundational scriptures, the New Testament.  Admittedly, these 2 books among many others, were instrumental in making us rethink the direction we had been on, some of us for almost a lifetime of loyalty to the religion we had embraced and shared. In fact each of us had our own following, most of whom still acknowledge us as “the one who introduced me to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior”  . . . then quickly distanced from us, like we suddenly contracted a contagious disease like spiritual leprosy.

 

Not a surprise, our turnabout has not drawn anyone from those circles. We had not expected anyone else to take a leap of faith like we did, but we did hope that truth-seekers as they are, they would do their own investigating even if only to prove us wrong!  Instead we have lost friends and colleagues and even got shunned by family. Intolerance does that, you know?

 

In fact, one colleague has recently written that when he shared his Sinaite faith with his daughter while visiting her abroad, her reaction was:  “where we are now is a dangerous path to tread” and she warned him not to proselytize her children.  Even as the daughter trusted her parents’ judgment, she did not trust them enough to check out why they had taken this new path away from their former faith.  

 

So this is what we keep wondering about:  people who have known each of us for decades now, who know we have been faithful to Christ for decades, should be intrigued and question what is it that we’ve discovered or rediscovered such that we would take such a radical step in turning away from our long-held faith toward a totally different direction and a God that has not been acknowledged except by observant Jews!  (That’s where the Jew-wannabe conclusion about us comes from.)

 

Yes, we’ve lost not only friends but family as well . . . but then, look at WHO we have we gained!!  

  • The Creator God Himself,
  • YHWH the One True God
  • Who still reigns supreme,
  • Who has never changed from what He declared about HImself in His Sinai revelation and the Torah of the Hebrew Scriptures.
  • He is knowable through the Scriptures of His chosen people.  

Everyone should check HIM out and begin to understand why we have arrived at where we are now.

 

This post features excerpts from Chapter One of the book; we encourage all Truth-seekers to include this book in your library, it is worth reading through the whole book and not just the few chapters we have featured here.  Reformatted and highlighted.—Admin1.]

 

————————————————–

 

Chapter One

Forgeries in the Ancient World

 

WHEN I GIVE PUBLIC LECTURES ON FORGERY, I am often asked, “Who would do such a thing?”  The answer is, “Lots of people!”  And for lots of different reasons.  The most common reason today, of course, is to make money. . . . The forgery trade continues to thrive; forgeries in the names of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Byron, Robert Frost, and many, many others continue to flood the market, as recent literature on modern forgery so aptly attests. These forgeries are almost always produced in order to be sold as authentic. There was a good deal of that kind of activity in the ancient world as well (and far fewer forgery experts who could detect a forgery if they saw one), although it was not a major factor within early Christianity.  This was for a simple reason: Christian books were not, by and large, for sale.

 

Other scoundrels today will occasionally forge a document just to see if they can get away with it.  This too is something that occasionally happened in the ancient world. . . . there is scant evidence to suggest that any Christian authors forged documents, probably for lots of reasons.  As I pointed out in the Introduction, we still have numerous forged documents that emanated from the early church, numerous Gospels, Acts, letters, and apocalypses (these are the four literary genres of the New Testament), all of them claiming to be written by apostles.

 

Many of these noncanonical books are fascinating and still worth reading.  Among the Gospels for example, there is an account allegedly written by Peter that gives a detailed narration of the resurrection.  This is striking because—most readers have never noticed this—the New Testament Gospels do not narrate the resurrection.  They do say that Jesus was buried and indicate that on the third day his tomb was empty, but they do not narrate the account of his actually emerging from the tomb.  There is such an account in the Gospel of Peter; however.  In it Jesus walks out of the tomb supported by two angels who are as tall as mountains, although Jesus is taller still; behind them, out of the tomb, emerges the cross, which speaks out to God in heaven.  Other “apostolic” Gospels tell yet other amazing stories about Jesus or record bizarre teachings supposedly spoken by him, Gospels allegedly written by Jesus’s brother Thomas, his disciple Philip, and his female companion Mary Magdalene.  All of these books claimed to be authentic, but each of them was classified as a “forgery” by other early Christians who did not believe the apostles had actually written them.

 

There are also noncanonical Acts, books that narrate the adventures of Jesus’s apostles after his ascension, such as the Acts of Paul, in which Paul preaches that, to have eternal life, followers of Jesus must refrain from sex even if married and avoid marriage altogether if single.  This book was fabricated by a church leader in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in the second century.  We know about it because a famous church father Tertullian, indicates that the person was caught and put on trial in the church for producing the account and then unceremoniously removed from is leadership position.  Most church leaders did not appreciate fabricated documents. But there were plenty to go around.  Today we still have extensive copies of Acts of John, Peter, Andrew and Thomas as well as fragments of earlier works that no longer survive intact.

 

There were also forged letters, including a set of letters between Paul and the most famous philosopher of his day Seneca, which showed not only that Paul was on intimate terms with the greatest minds of the empire, but also that he was respected and revered by them.  Some later church leaders maintained that these letters were authentic, but others thought they had been forged for the purpose of making Paul look good.  There were also debates over the authenticity of other letters of Paul and of Peter, and even of Jesus. Some of these other writings still survive.

 

So too forged apocalypses dotted the Christian literary landscape, including a fascinating account discovered in 1886 in a tomb in Egypt, a firsthand account allegedly written by Peter in which he is given a personal guided tour, by Jesus himself, of heaven and hell and the respective blessings of the saved and the gruesome torments of the damned.  This book, as it turns out, almost made it into the New Testament, as there were church leaders well into the fourth century who claimed that it was Scripture.  Others, though, claimed it was forged.

 

These are just a few of the documents that were disputed in the ancient world.  Some early Christians claimed they were really written by apostles and belonged in the New Testament.  Others insisted that they were not written by apostles, but were forgeries.  How many other such documents were there?  We will never know.  At present we know of over a hundred writings from the first four centuries that were claimed by one Christian author or another to have been forged by fellow Christians.

 

 

Part II:  Early Christian Forgeries

 

 

Genesis/Bereshith

Becoming Israel – "God of my father Avraham, God of my father Yitzhak, O YHVH"

Leave a Comment
 [First posted September 1, 2012.  Here’s the original introduction:
“Becoming Israel’ is a series that feature the Sinaite perspective on this chapter.  It features Chapter 32 without intrusive commentary so you can read straight through without having to read through the three commentaries we feature on the post that usually follow this series.  Translation is Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses. –Admin1.]

—————————————

Image from johnmarkum.com

Still called by his supplanter’s name when Yaakov and his uncle Lavan part ways, this is the chapter when Yaakov undergoes a name change. . . finally.

 

 It happens in connection with his much-feared encounter with the twin to whom he had done much wrong two decades before.  Yaakov comes to terms with all the wrong he had done and thinks of ways to pacify the angry Esau who swore revenge as his mother had warned him when she sent him away for his safety.  That image in Yaakov’s mind when he left is the same image in his mind as he prepares for the confrontation.

 

The God of the Patriarchs —YHWH— is well aware of Yaakov’s apprehensions and allows him to see the divine messengers usually called “angels.” We had a discussion of what “angels” or God’s “messengers” look like. We’ve gotten used to artists’ imaginary representations of these beings.  Cherubims — babies with wings, or baby-heads with wings; long-haired blond men in white robes with wings, female-fairy-like with wings. Dark angels with black hair and evil features — without wings. What’s with the wings, do they really need wings to fly up and down from heaven?

 

In Jacob’s dream about the ladder, angels were going up and down through the ladder, not flying up and down.  Where do the wings come from?  Most likely if not surely, it’s from the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant which YHWH Himself designs and orders the craftsmen to make. We are told that the cherubim appear only in two places in the Hebrew scriptures:  first in the garden of Eden where they guard the Tree of Life with flaming swords to make sure the first couple do not partake of its fruit; strange, the prohibition was not there before their failing the test.  The second mention of cherubim is exactly as the figures with wings guarding the Ark where the 10 words etched on the second tablets of stone are kept.  Commentators have connected the Tree of Life with the Torah because of the cherubim. . . but back to ‘angels.’

 

Image from www3.telus.net
The cherubim on the Mercy Seat

If angels are disembodied spirits like God, Scripture describes them appearing to humans in human form, such as the three men who visited Abraham before they executed the Divine order to get Lot and his family out of Sodom.  If you remember the narrative, it is not the angels who caused the destruction of Sodom, it was YHWH the Consuming Fire who threw brimstone from heaven.

 

Why are we taking pains to explain the appearance of angel-messengers as humans? Because for one, we have stated earlier that as far as we have investigated, YHWH never has appeared as a “man” in the TNK; and for another, in this chapter Jacob wrestles with a “man.”  

 

The “man” asks Jacob what is his name and renames him Israel; then Jacob asks the “man” his name and the “man” does not give it and simply blesses Jacob as he had requested before he lets the “man” go.  In Exodus, Moses would ask the God on Sinai His Name and Moses gets an answer.

 

If this “being” were the same God of Sinai, why would he not identify himself?  Isn’t God eager to make Himself known to the key figures in His plan for Israel?  Here is the third patriarch from whom will spring 12 sons, 12 tribes, a nation . . .is it not the proper occasion to reveal His Name?

 

Jacob, now Israel, realizes he had a strange encounter with an “other” being.   Jews interpret “the Divine” here as “the angel” (Artscroll note). We concur. 

 

 

Sig-4_16colors

 

logo

 

 

 

 

 

——————————-

 

 

 

Chapter 32

1 Lavan started-early in the morning, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed 
them,
and Lavan went to return to his place. 
2 As Yaakov went on his way,
messengers of God encountered him. 
3 Yaakov said when he saw them:
This is a camp of God!
And he called the name of that place: Mahanayim/Double-camp. 
4 Now Yaakov sent messengers on ahead of him to Esav his brother in the land of Se’ir, in the 
territory of Edom, 
5 and commanded them, saying:
Thus say to my lord, to Esav:
Thus says your servant Yaakov: I 
have sojourned with Lavan and have tarried until now. 
6 Ox and donkey, sheep and servant and maid have become mine.
I have sent to tell my lord, to find favor in your eyes. 
7 The messengers returned to Yaakov, saying:
We came to your brother, to Esav—
but he is already coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him! 
8 Yaakov became exceedingly afraid and was distressed.
He divided the people that were with him and the sheep and the oxen and the camels into two camps, 
9 saying to himself:
Should Esav come against the one camp and strike it, the camp that is left will escape.
10 Then Yaakov said:
God of my father Avraham,
God of my father Yitzhak,
O YHVH,
who said to me: Return to your land, to your kindred, and I will deal well with you!— 
11 Too small am I for all the faithfulness and trust that you have shown your servant.
For with only my rod did I cross this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 
12 Pray save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav!
For I am in fear of him, 
lest he come and strike me down, mothers and children alike! 
13 But you,
you have said: I will deal well, well with you,
I will make your seed like the sand of the sea, which is too much to count! 
14 Spending the night there that night,
he took a gift from what was at hand, for Esav his brother: 
15 she-goats, two hundred, and kids, twenty,
ewes, two hundred, and rams, twenty, 
16 nursing camels and their young, thirty,
cows, forty, and bulls, ten,
she-asses, twenty, and colts, ten; 
17 he handed them over to his servants, herd by herd separately,
and said to his servants:
Cross on ahead of me, and leave room between herd and herd. 
18 He charged the first group, saying:
When Esav my brother meets you
and asks you, saying: To whom do you belong, where are you going, and to whom do these ahead of you belong? 
19 Then say:
—to your servant, to Yaakov, it is a gift sent to my lord, to Esav,
and here, he himself is also behind us. 
20 Thus he charged the second, and thus the third, and thus all that were walking behind the 
herds, saying:
According to this word shall you speak to Esav when you come upon him: 
21 You shall say: Also-here, your servant Yaakov is behind us.
For he said to himself:
I will wipe (the anger from) his face
with the gift that goes ahead of my face;
afterward, when I see his face, 
perhaps he will lift up my face! 
22 The gift crossed over ahead of his face,
but he spent the night on that night in the camp. 
23 He arose during that night,
took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children
to cross the Yabbok crossing. 
24 He took them and brought them across the river; he brought across what belonged to him. 
25 And Yaakov was left alone—
And a man wrestled with him until the coming up of dawn. 
26 When he saw that he could not prevail against him,
he touched the socket of his thigh;

<addre

ss>the socket of Yaakov’s thigh had been dislocated as he wrestled with him. 

27 Then he said:
Let me go,
for dawn has come up!
But he said: I will not let you go
unless you bless me. 
28 He said to him:
What is your name?
And he said: Yaakov. 
29 Then he said:
Not as Yaakov/Heel-sneak shall your name be henceforth uttered,
but rather as Yisrael/God-fighter,
for you have fought with God and men and have prevailed. 
30 Then Yaakov asked and said:
Pray tell me your name!
But he said: Now why do you ask after my name?
And he gave him farewell-blessing there. 
31 Yaakov called the name of the place: Peniel/Face of God,
for: I have seen God,
face to face, 
and my life has been saved. 
32 The sun rose on him as he crossed by Penuel,
and he was limping on his thigh. 
33 —Therefore the Children of Israel do not eat the sinew that is on the socket of the thigh until 
this day,
for he had touched the socket of Yaakov’s thigh at the sinew

 

NEVIIM - The Prophets

Ezekiel 28:1-19 is NOT about the Devil

Leave a Comment

[First posted April 26, 2012; part of our series on the controversial figure in Christian and other religions referred to as the “devil” or Satan who is mis-named “Lucifer” but let’s not get into all that in this introduction.  Other posts in this series, in case you have not read them, are:  

—Admin1]

———————-

 

This is an example of either mistranslation, or tampering with the original Hebrew verses. But let us give well-meaning scholarly Christian translators the benefit of the doubt;  we will presume that this was simply mistranslation, done unintentionally, not outright tampering with the original verses to fit Christian doctrine.

 

When you are after THE TRUTH, it does not help much to read the “Old” Testament in the Christian Bible; you have to read the Jewish/Hebrew English translations.  When you keep reading the same verses in any Christian translation of the Old Testament, you will keep seeing the devil and Jesus all over the OT.  You will begin to understand why this is so when you read one key verse —-Ezekiel 28:13—as one of many examples.

 

 

This requires a longer article than Isaiah 14 so please don’t lose interest while reading through ArtScroll Tanach [AST] and New American Study Bible [NASB]. And by the way, if you own a Study Bible whether Christian or Jewish, the background notes are helpful as far as history, geography, culture, word study are concerned; just don’t swallow the interpretation of verses without checking them out to your satisfaction, because Study Bibles have an agenda.

 

 

To understand any reading material, it helps to be aware of the following:  

  • Who is speaking [narrator, character]; 
  • who is being referred to.  
  • If there are three speakers, figure out who’s saying what.  
  • The narrator is always the invisible presence, so don’t forget him and his point of view.  
  • The other invisible Presence is of course the God of Israel who uses His prophets as His mouthpiece.
  •  Learn to recognize when the text suddenly shifts to metaphorical and figurative language.

 

Since these verses are in the book of Ezekiel, the narrator is the prophet Ezekiel.  It helps to know —

  • when he lived,
  • under which king in the divided kingdom, 
  • and which conquering power was threatening the nation of Israel. 
 

In brief, Ezekiel was among the Israelites who were exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE.  While in exile, he received his call to become a prophet, though he was of a priestly family, the son of Buzi the priest.  His wife was left behind in Israel so that when Jerusalem was under seige and would surely fall, he knew he would lose his wife, and the Israelites would lose their beloved Jerusalem.

 

 

Preceding chapters starting from Chapter 25 announce YHWH’s judgment on 7 gentile nations; Chapters 26 and 27 focus on Tyre and by Chapter 28, the focus further narrows to the king of Tyre.  With that in mind, read the two versions and see if you notice a difference in the rendering of certain  verses, specifically vs 13.  This time we will start with the Christian translation to get the gist of what’s going on in the chapter:

 

 

Image from www.irishoriginsofcivilization.com

Image from www.irishoriginsofcivilization.com

[NASB] – Tyre’s King Overthrown

1 The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, 
2 “Son of man, say to the leader of Tyre, 
‘Thus says the Lord GOD, 
“Because your heart is lifted up
 And you have said, ‘I am a god, 
I sit in the seat of gods In the heart of the seas ‘; 
Yet you are a man and not God, 
Although you make your heart like the heart of God – 
3 Behold, you are wiser than Daniel; 
There is no secret that is a match for you. 
4 “By your wisdom and understanding 
You have acquired riches for yourself 
And have acquired gold and silver for your treasuries. 
5 “By your great wisdom, by your trade 
You have increased your riches 
And your heart is  lifted up because of your riches – 
6 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
 ‘Because you have made your heart 
Like the heart of God, 
7 Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, 
The most ruthless of the nations. 
And they will draw their swords 
Against the beauty of your wisdom 
And defile your splendor. 
8 ‘They will bring you down to the pit, 
And you will die the death of those who are slain 
In the heart of the seas. 
9 ‘‘Will you still say, “I am a god”
 In the presence of your slayer, 
Though you are a man and not God,
In the hands of those who wound you? 
10 ‘You will die the death of the uncircumcised 
By the hand of strangers, 
For I have spoken!’ declares the Lord GOD!'”
11 Again the word of the LORD came to me saying, 
12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation 
over the king of Tyre and say to him,
 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, 
“You had the seal of perfection, 
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 
13 “You were in Eden, the garden of God; 
Every precious stone was your covering: 
The ruby, the topaz and the diamond; 
The beryl, the onyx and the jasper;
The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; 
And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, 
Was in you. 
On the day that you were created 
They were prepared. 
14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers, 
And I placed you there. 
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. 
15 “You were blameless in your ways 
From the day you were created 
Until unrighteousness was found in you. 
16 “By the abundance of your trade 
You were internally filled with violence, 
And you sinned; 
Therefore I have cast you as profane
From the mountain of God. 
And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, 
From the midst of the stones of fire. 
17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; 
You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. 
I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings, 
That they may see you. 
18 “By the multitude of your iniquities, 
In the unrighteousness of your trade 
You profaned your sanctuaries.
Therefore I have brought fire from the midst of you; 
It has consumed you, 
And I have turned you to ashes on the earth 
In the eyes of all who see you. 
19 “All who know you among the peoples
Are appalled at you; 
You have become terrified 
And you will cease to be forever.”
 

The way verse 13 is translated “You were in Eden, the garden of God” — it suddenly transports the reader from the reference to the earthly king of Tyre to a character in Eden–[AHA, who else?] the talking serpent— which Christian interpreters connect with Satan, the Devil.  Then, since the next few verses do not fit the serpent (covering of every precious stone), the thought of Lucifer comes to mind, “seal of perfection,” “full of wisdom,” “perfect in beauty.”  And to bolster all that,  “You were the anointed cherub” who was “on the holy mountain of God” and “walked in the midst of the stones of fire.”

 

What does one do with all these verses that seem to talk about the most beautiful of angels according to Christian teaching?

Strangely, and to their credit, the translators and interpreters of the NASB themselves do not connect these verses with Satan.   Surprised?  Notice how they explain the verses:

 

You were in Eden. “Like Adam (Gen. 2:15), Ezekiel continues to use imagery of the creation and the fall to picture the career of the king of Tyre (see 31:9,16, 18).

Every precious stone. Unlike Adam, who was naked (Gen. 2:25), the king is pictured as a fully clothed priest, ordained to guard God’s holy place.  The 9 stones are among the 12 worn by the priest (Ex. 28:17-20). (The Septuagint lists all 12).

vs. 14 cherub who covers.  The Genesis account has cherubim (plural) stationed in the border of the garden after the expulsion of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:24).

vs 15  You were blameless . . . Until . . . The parallel to Gen 2-3 is clear (see Gen 6:9, 17:1).

vs 17.  cast you to the ground. Expulsion from the heavenly garden.

 

In fact, the commentary continues explaining the subsequent verses as related to the history of Israel, against the seven nations under judgment here, Sidon and Tyre, etc. There was not one reference to Satan in these notes!  It appears some modern biblical scholars are re-examining traditional interpretation and are more objective and careful in their interpretation of verses within the larger context and true to the progression of thought leading to the isolated “proof texts”.

 

With that in mind, please read the same verses in the Hebrew translation below and again, notice how verse 13 is translated:

 
Ezekiel 28:1-19
[AST] – 1 The word of HASHEM came to me, saying:
2 Son of Man, say to the prince of Tyre:
Thus said the Lord HASHEM/ELOHIM:
Because your heart has grown proud
and you have said, ‘I am a god:
I occupy the seat of God
in the heart of the seas!’ –
but you are a man and not a god,
though you set your heart like the heart of God!
3 Are you wiser than Daniel? Does no mystery perplex you?
4 Through your wisdom and discernment you have acquired
wealth for yourself and amassed gold and silver in your treasuries.
5 Through your abundant wisdom in your commerce,
you have increased your wealth,
and your heart became proud with your wealth.
6 Therefore, thus said the Lord HASHEM/ELOHIM:
Because you have set your heart like the heart of God,
7 therefore, behold, I am bringing foreigners upon you,
the fiercest of the nations, and they will draw their swords
against the beauty of your wisdom, and they will defile your splendor.
8 They will bring you down to the grave, and you will die
the death of the slain, in the heart of the seas.
9 Will you say, ‘I am a God,’ before your killer?
You are a man and not a god in the hand of your slayer!
10 You will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners,
for I have spoken – the word of the Lord HASHEM/ELOHIM.
11 The word of HASHEM came to me, saying:
12 Son of Man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre.
Say to him: Thus said the Lord HASHEM/ELOHIM:
Are you [Adam] the culmination of perfection,
full of wisdom, perfect in beauty?
13 Were you in Eden, the garden of God;
Was your canopy of every precious stone –
Odem, pitdah, and yahalom; tarshish, shoham,
and yashfeh; sapir, nophech, and barkas – and gold?
The work of your drums and wind instruments was in you;
They were established on the day of your creation.
14 You were a great sheltering cherub,
and it is I [who] granted you this;
You were upon the holy mountain of God;
you walked among fiery stones;
15 Perfect were you in your ways from the day of your creation –
until wrongdoing was found in you.
16 Because of your abundant commerce,
your midst filled with injustice and you sinned;
So I desecrated you from the mountain of God and destroyed you,
O sheltering cherub, from among the fiery stones.
17 Your heart became proud because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.
So I have thrown you to the ground
and I have set you before kings to gaze upon you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities, 
by the dishonesty of your commerce,
you desecrated your sanctities;
so I drew out a fire from within you. It consumed you;
thus I made you into ashes upon the earth in the eyes of all who see you.
19 All who knew you among the peoples were astonished over you;
You were a terror, but you shall be no more, forever.
 
In modern lingo, ‘hey emperor without clothes, who do you think you are?’
 


In sum:  Adam, a man . . . king of Tyre, a man . . . angel, a messenger of God . . . .fallen angel, an invention of pagan idolatrous man-made religions which believe in dualism.

 

 

End of discourse.

 

Sig-4_16colors

 logo
 
A Sinaite's Sabbath Liturgy

A Sinaite’s Musical Liturgy – 1st Sabbath of August

Leave a Comment
Image from kapelya-kabbalat-shabbat1-e1408685100741.jpg

Image from kapelya-kabbalat-shabbat1-e1408685100741.jpg

[A musical liturgy every other Sabbath of the year has become traditional for Sinaites.  As we frequently remind our visitors,  while we have shed the doctrines of Christianity, we have not shed its hymnody — we love the music but no longer agree with the lyrics.  Hymnodists of old taught the flock what they might have been missing from the preaching by writing stanza after stanza of doctrinal statements. Music has a strange effect on the brain; seniors with dementia will forget almost everything but they can still sing lyrics to songs they learned as far back as childhood.  Music is a great teaching tool in any learning context.   So here’s a sampling of borrowed music with revised lyrics according to Sinaite creed.  If you are not familiar with the melody, reading through the lyrics work just as well, in fact it reads like poetry.     Have a good restful and enjoyable Sabbath, folks!—Admin1.]

 

————————————

 

KINDLE THE SABBATH LIGHTS

 

[The God of Abraham Praise/Slightly Revised Lyrics]

Image from actsofhope.blogspot.com

Image from actsofhope.blogspot.com

1.  The God of Abraham praise,

Who reigns enthroned above; 

Ancient of everlasting days, and God of love;

Yahuwah, great I AM,

by earth and heav’n confessed,

I  bow to praise the Sacred Name, be forever blest.

 

2.  He by Himself hath sworn, I on His oath depend;

I shall on eagle’s wings upborne to heav’n ascend;

I shall behold His Face, I shall His power adore,

And sing the wonders of His grace forevermore.

 

3.  The God who reigns on high,

the great archangels sing,

And “Holy, Holy, Holy” cry, “Almighty King!”

Who was and is the same,

and evermore shall be,

Yahuwah, Thou the great “I AM”,

we worship Thee.

 

4.  The whole triumphant host

give thanks to God on high;

“Hail El Shaddai, Almighty God,

they ever cry.

Hail Abraham’s God and mine, I join the heavenly race,

All might and majesty are Thine, and endless praise.

 

 The Saga of Three Mountains

 

[Original Music: Victory in Jesus/Revised Lyrics]

 
Image from www.flickr.com

Image from www.flickr.com

1. I heard an old, old story

how our great, great God of glory,

Descended on a mountain top on the desert of Sinai; 

He’s chosen all these mountains,

for some reason why, we wonder,

Aside from Sinai there are other famous sacred mounts.

CHORUS:  

O climb the highest mountain, 

so many men aspire to conquer heights

beyond the reach of common folk like me,

take courage, faint of heart,

these peaks are worth the climb,

when God calls, He enables,

so leave all results to Him!

 

2.  There is another story  about another mountain,

Where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son,

Unquestioning this Isaac, just followed his father,

He carried all the wood and asked

“but where’s the sacrifice?”

 CHORUS:  

O climb your Mount Moriah,

dear Abraham and Isaac,

The same God who appeared on Sinai,

He appeared to you,

You’ve passed the highest testing,

You’ve reached your peak, your mountain,

Moriah is forever etched in scriptural history!

 

3.  There’s yet another mountain

where an ancient priest and king,

Melchizedek of Salem in the book of Bereshith,

This ancient place called ‘Salem’ became ‘Jerusalem,

All pilgrims journey up and sing their psalms, songs of ascent.

CHORUS:  

The Temple Mount is there,

where the Glory Cloud once rested,

until it left and lingered on the Mount of Olivet,

This makes us realize,

we have our peaks to conquer,

if God is on the ‘highest mountain’,

let us start our climb!

 

 

Psalm 127  (ESV)

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

 

127 Unless the Lord builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
    and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
    for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
    the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
    are the children of one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
    who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
    when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

 

B L E S S I N G S

 

[Tune:  Oh how He loves you and me/revised lyrics]

 

Image from www.startribune.com

Image from www.startribune.com

1.   Blessings in life come from You,

YHWH Who’s faithful and true,

wine symbolizes  the joy that we feel,

bread from Your Hand, Lord, daily provided,

thank You each day of the year.

 

2.  Joyful are we as we sing

Praises are due to our King,

Thank You for family, those dear to our hearts,

beloved husbands, wives, sons and daughters,

Friendships that last through the years.

 

[Name each of your loved ones, after which, following the Jewish tradition of sharing bread and wine, make a toast and say ‘to Life’, ‘l’chaim’, ‘mabuhay’.]

 

SHABBAT MEAL

shabbat_hakallah_by_badusev-d5veid1

shabbat_hakallah_by_badusev-d5veid1

 

TORAH STUDY

living_torah

Image from home.jemedia.org

 

HAVDALAH

 

“There’s a blessing in saying the NAME”

[Original Tune: “Are You washed in the blood of the Lamb?”/Revised Lyrics]

 

[Sing the 1st melody 2X before going to CHORUS.]

1.  Have you been to Sinai where the One True God

gave His Name, His ineffable Name,

Which His chosen people dare not say out loud,

out of reverence and awe for His Name.

2.  So they called Him ‘Adonai’ and ‘Elohim’,

and devised other titles for Him,

And in time it happened that not one could say

how the Name is pronounced to this day.

CHORUS:  Yod Heh Vav Heh, Yod Heh Vav Heh,

Yah forgive, we don’t know how to say—

Yah-weh, Ya-hu-weh,Ye-ho-vah, Ya-hu-wah,

There’s a blessing in saying His Name.

 

3.  So He’s known by many other titles like—-

El Shaddai, Eluheinu, HaShem,

He’s Creator, Master of the universe,

He’s the Rock, He’s Provider, He’s God.

 

4.  How can anyone who’s never heard His Name

ever call on a God they don’t know?

Are they faulted for not knowing to this day,

when they can’t read His Name in THE BOOK?

 

CHORUS: Ya-hu-wah, Ya-hu-wah,

is it so wrong to call on His Name,

All the world will never know the One True God,

if we don’t say ‘Yahuwah’s His Name!’

 
Image from numelesfant.wordpress.com

Image from numelesfant.wordpress.com

 

Shabbat shalom!

Sig-4_16colors

logo

OPINION

"Angry, vengeful God" of OT vs. "Merciful loving God" of NT

Leave a Comment
Image from redeeminggod.com

Image from redeeminggod.com

[First posted October 21, 2012, one of our earliest posts when we first started this website.  

This is from www.thereddoorcommunity.org, authored by Jeffrey Cranford.  We will use this as a springboard for another series of articles by discussing its claims and the scriptural references used to back up the claims. It appears to be a systematic presentation citing many verses from both Testaments, so it is wise to check the CONTEXT of the verses, particularly the ones from OT, if it at all connects with the NT. Reformatted for posting.—Admin1.]

 

—————————–

 

Reconciling

the “Angry, vengeful God” of the Old Testament

with the

“Merciful, loving God” of the New Testament

New Year’s Series/ 2012

 
  • Do you struggle to understand how the Old and New Testaments could reflect the same God? 
  • Do you purposefully avoid the Old Testament because it just seems to challenge your faith and even give ammunition to those who would want to discredit Christianity? 
  • Is Christianity a radically different religion than what Abraham, Moses, King David and many of the prophets understood faith to be? 
  • By the way, what are we to do with the law? 
    • Do we keep some of them and ignore others. 
    • And, if we do, which laws are in and which laws are out? 

This is going to be challenging, and we may not all agree, but that’s just the kind of discussion I like. The depth of our faith depends on some good answers – probably more than you or I am aware!

 

The church has dealt with this question before:

  • Marcion around 144 AD (Gnostic tendencies) 
  • Dualist: created world evil and non-material world good. 
  • Maltheistic views of God (God of Old Testament hopelessly failed).
  • Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah, so we can rid ourselves of all the prophecies concerning Him.
  • Jesus was a spiritual entity sent to reveal truth by the Monad (absolute, the one), unlike the lesser creation God of the evil material world.
 

With this in place, it was easy to for (sic) Marcion to overcome the difficult questions everyone tends to ask. Some of Marcion’s strongest arguments came from Luke 5:36-38. He ignored Matthew 13:52. In fact, he eliminated the entire Gospel.

 

So, in short, you can see that these questions that concern us about our God, have been big issues in the past as well. So, how do we reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable Gods?

 

1. Jesus made it clear that the God of the Old Testament was both His Father and the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:13,14; John 9:35; John 3:13; Luke 19:9,10; John 12:20-26)

2. There were magnificent acts of mercy displayed by God in the Old Testament (Genesis 15: 16, Genesis 6:3, Ezekiel 18:23)

3. There were stern words used by Jesus in the New Testament regarding current realities and future judgments to come (John 8:43, 44; Matthew 10:28-36; Revelation 19:15)

4. Jesus made it clear that both Moses and Abraham saw Him on the horizon (John 5:39-47; John 8:31-59)

5. To believe Moses was to believe in Jesus. So, to believe in the Law/Torah/Penteteuch (which was penned by its author Moses), is to understand Jesus and the kingdom He was, and still is, inaugurating.

6. Are we still under the Law for righteousness? That’s a clear no! (Romans 10: 1-4, Galatians 2: 21) 7. What do we do with (Matthew 5:13-20)?

 

The Torah/ Law was given for 3 primary purposes

 

1.  Keep Israel together as a nation until the  “enabler”of the promise to Abraham appeared (Galatians 3:19).  God knew that they would not be able to keep the Law.  In fact, the Torah (read Law) prophesied that they would fail, be dispersed all over the planet and one day return to finally get circumcised hearts (Deuteronomy 29:22 – 30:6; Ezekiel 36:22-28) We will discuss what it meant when God said the Israelites would one day “...walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

2.   Prophecy about the Messiah who was to come

    • Through the atonement (Genesis 3:15; 12:3; Galatians 3:13,14; Exodus 12; Leviticus 13-14; 16; 23; Numbers 2; Numbers 21:6-9; Exodus 21:32) 
    • The Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:18,19; John 1:45)
    • The Star (Numbers 24:17)
    • The High Priest (Genesis 14:17-20; Hebrews 7-8)
    • All kinds of metaphors 1. 2. 3.
      • Rock (Exodus 17:6; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4) 
      • Water (Exodus 17:6; John 7:37,38; Jeremiah 15:18; John 4:10-16) 
      • Manna and Oil ( Numbers 11:1-9; John 6:48-51; 1 John 2:20,27; Exodus 30:25; Ecclesiastes 10:1)

3.  Act as a template for those who would try and navigate the waters of the “new kingdom”

    • Oxen (1 Corinthians 9: 1-14) 
    • Law viewed as the Torah narrative (Matthew 5:17-19) 
    • Separation from the nations. 

Isn’t this just racism at its core and something that perpetuates religious wars and sectarian strife?

    • The priests (Numbers 8:14; 1 Peter 2:9) 
    • The nation (Exodus 12:43; 19:6; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Ezekiel 37:27) 
    • The story of Phinehas ( Numbers 25; 2 Corinthians 2:11; 1 Corinthians 5:9-11)

*What did it mean that Phinehas would be given God’s covenant of peace? (Malachi 2:1-9) *Phinehas was uncompromising in his actions. We too, are to be uncompromising in our battle against the enemy of our souls – Satan himself!

    • The entire Exodus (Salvation from Egypt, through the sea, learning to walk with God in the wilderness, crossing the Jordan, conquering the land until the righteous king could be set on the throne) (1 Corinthians 10:11; Amos 9:12; Acts 15:15-18)

– Why so much warfare? (Judges 3:1-4; 1 Peter 4:12; Ephesians 6:10-20; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

    • Giving of the Law analogous to giving of the Spirit but with radically different results (Exodus 32:19-28; Acts 2)
    • Laws of the clean and unclean/ from the physical to the spiritual (Leviticus 11; Acts 10) 
    • Law of the trees (Leviticus 19:23-25; Exodus 23:29-30/ little by little) 
    • The twelve tribes and the twelve disciples
    • The recruitment of the 70 (Exodus 18:17-23; Numbers 11:16,17; Luke 10)
    • Strange fire (Leviticus 10:1-3; Leviticus 9:23,24; Isaiah 50:11) 
    • The two radically different covenants (Genesis 16:15; 21:2; Galatians 4:21-31) 
    • What about observing the Sabbath? (Exodus 20:8-11; Colossians 2:8-23; Galatians 4:9-11; Romans 14:4-10; Hebrews 4:1-11; Exodus 33:13-16) 
    • What about tithing? (Malachi 3?)
      • *Leviticus 27 Tithe
      •  *Deuteronomy 14 Tithe 
      • *The Tithe from the third year of the seven year cycle

In short, the New Testament seems to introduce us to these amazing realities – often hidden to those without eyes to see (Deuteronomy 29:1-4; Proverbs 25:2; Matthew 13:10-17)

 

Thanks for being kings through this series!

 

Jeffrey Cranford thereddoorcommunity.org, linksplayers.com.