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SadistDave -> RE: GOD AND EVIL (10/5/2009 7:37:15 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
quote:
ORIGINAL: TurboJugend
The church adjusted it.
Adjusted isn't the word for it. The Christian canon is the Bible, not the teachings of Jesus. The NT is only a small part of the Bible, the Gospels only a small part of the NT, and the teachings of Christ only a small part of that.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Christian doctrine is principally based on the second creation story in Genesis (the Eden-rib-snake business, which forms the basis for the doctrine of Original Sin) and the Epistles of a sacrificial Jew (Paul) who completely dismissed the fact that Christ -- I and my father are one, as my father hath taught me I speak these things -- said, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice."
Twice no less (in Matthew). The prophets tried to straighten out the same mess before him, with equal lack of success.
Hosea 6:6
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."
Isaiah 1:11
"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats."
Jeremiah 7:22
"For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."
But as always, nobody listened.
The problem arises from the fact that there are actually two Gods in the OT. In what can only be called a colossal mistake, at some point in time the Hebrew priests wove together two irreconcilably different older texts.
You can see the difference most clearly in Genesis, in which the first creation story comes from the "E" text, where at every step of the way Deity is pleased, and where man and woman are created together "in our image" to inherit a world that is fundamentally good.
The "J" text creation story follows, with a different order of creation, woman created as an afterthought, a snake in the garden, and the antithesis of a loving Father running things.
Little wonder that the Gnostics regarded Yahweh as an evil demiurge, and the snake, an ancient symbol of wisdom, as the light-bringing spirit sent to lead us out of the darkness of ignorance.
Or I guess you could say, it tried. In the end, the snake got the shitty end of the stick just like Christ did. And the rest, as they say, is history.
K.
First off, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed that post. This is more of an addition to that line of thought than anything else... Since you're familiar with Wellhausen, I'll try to stick to the JEDP authorship issue and the problem of Biblical sacrifice. However, I'm going to expand the JEDP system just a moment to encompass the entire Bible rather than just the Torah. Instead of authorship, I will be referring to JEDP as the stages of God in the Biblical context. Anyone familiar with JEDP should be able to follow along comfortably with that...
Genesis 4:4
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering.
Genesis 8:20-21
And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour.
Genesis 15:9-10
And he [God] said unto him [Abraham], Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another.
Exodus 20:24
An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
Exodus 29:11-37
And thou shalt kill the bullock before the LORD....
Leviticus 1:5
And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD....
Leviticus 23:12-18
And ye shall offer ... an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD....
Numbers 18:17-19
Thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the LORD.
Deuteronomy 12:27
And thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the LORD thy God: and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the LORD thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh.
I mention these scriptures, because there is another consideration regarding sacrifice. In Genesis, we see Gods first command to man concerning how to perform a sacrifice to the Lord. However, in several instances in the OT, God becomes angry with man, and commands them not to sacrifice something. In this manner, Good punishes mankind be distancing Himself from us, according to the Bible. By the time you get to Psalms, we've managed to piss God off enough that he doesn't allow sacrifices of any kind. After Psalms, God just says he doesn't want sacrifices anymore. In other words, in Genesis, God begins as the loving "E" text diety, instantly morphs into the "J" text diety. After Genesis settles down, we have "JE", which is a combination of both "J" and "E" God aspects from Genesis. Then God slowly begins to evolve into something closer to "JED" type.
Leviticus (See all of Chapters 1 - 9) gives extremely detailed instructions for the proper methods of making sacrifices to God and allegedly these instructions come straight from The Big Kahuna Himself. But in Psalms, we begin to see a change in Gods willingness to accept sacrifices. These are not commandments, but simply the Psalmists writings. Isaiah 1:11 is the very first time in the Bible that God supposedly tells man that he does not want sacrifices. By the time we get to the NT, we have Jesus, the "JEDP" type son of God (who is God) from Genesis.
That becomes a real problem for the Bible. In the NT, we have a God who condemns sacrifice sacrificing Himself to Himself, but not following the proceedures and laws He commanded concerning how a sacrifice to Him must be performed. Consider: Luke 16:17 It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. .That tricky suicide that Jesus pulled off didn't meet a single requirement for a "sin sacrifice" as commanded by God in Leviticus. This sacrifice that isn't a sacrifice is supposed to be the new covenant with mankind. Yet in this new covenant it seems that all of the old covenant still stands with the exception of sacrifice by mankind to God unless you believe the words of Jesus in Luke 16:17.
This brings us to a philosophical point. Gods law states that sacrifices from men must be performed under strict guidelines. Yet, God does not follow his own law when sacrificing Himself as a man to Himself as God. If Luke 16:17 is to be believed, then clearly "one tittle" of the law has failed but heaven and earth have not passed away. At this point, we can conclude that either Jesus was a fictional construct of JEDP, he was crazy and believed himself to be something he wasn't, or he was an inventive con-man who successfully elevated himself to divine status.
-SD-
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