storytime

Yeah, butt... the Law was supposed to do what circumcision could not, instill loyalty to their god. I think Moses simply just threw up his hands and said to hell with it all. But god told Moses to teach the traitors a lesson, one that they would remember well. But Israel would continue to be a traitorous people and lose more Israelites each time they went a whoring after other gods. Before Moses went on his last journey to the mountaintop, he warned the Israelites about their unruly behavior. They were a stubborn people after all and never really took what Moses said seriously, even though Moses was the mouth of god. But Moses told them they were left with a blessing and a curse in the Law, reward and consequence. They were to choose which it was they most wanted as god was watching their every move. No matter where the Israelites might travel, no matter the country they decided to live as citizens, god would be watching and ever ready to not let them go unpunished. The Israelites lived in fear and dread from one generation to another. Those who could not bear their frightful existance any longer said "we're not gonna take it anymore" and they left Yahweh to bake cakes for the Queen of Heaven. She treated them much more humanely and didn't send earthquakes to gobble them up, or wild beasts to devour them. And they lived happily ever after.

Julio

Dear Iskander, you wrote:
The promises made to Abraham and others, however, have a deeper, spiritual meaning that remains intact. The “land” promised to Abraham is interpreted in a spiritual sense to mean the kingdom of heaven, that is to say, the new earth to be inhabited by the saints in eternal life. Paul understands the “progeny of Abraham” to mean all who share the faith of Abraham. The Davidic kingship becomes, in the New Testament, the glorious reign of the risen Christ, the son of David. And the New Testament authors see the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church as the realization of the New Covenant.

"Deep spiritual meaning that remains intact."

That's YOUR private interpretation, not mine.
I see NO such thing in a story that portrays an incompetent demiurge by the name "Jehovah" which takes to KILL those who "disobey" his commandments, even before those were proclaimed!
Preposterous.
The Jews had BAD LUCK with that god of Moses from the beginning to the very tragic end at Armageddon, sometime.
There is no deeper meaning when a god kills three thousand slaves in one day for a minor offense.
Now, if the whole story is imbedded with a "spiritual meaning" then the "Exodus" never happened.
If then it is allegorical, how can we personalize Jehovah and accept his Decalogue as genuine?
All is allegorical, what the hell!
Why not tell the story from a literal and realistic view, for Pete's sake?!...
Bottom line: a decent god would have had a BETTER PLAN than killing the people the text classifies as "Chosen"!

Credulity and delusion is a pair of cousins.

Iskander

Dear Julio, it is not my private interpretation, but the interpretation of the Catholic Church. In this interpretation the “promised land” becomes eternal life in Heaven The Holy Spirit guides the Church and this makes prophets unnecessary and also that the chosen people are now the whole of the human race.

The Catholic interpretation says that the Church is a new beginning not bound by the dissolved covenant.

PhilosopherJay

Hi ph2ter,

I also think semiopen's catch of Kings 12:28 is important as obviously giving an earlier version of the story where both the God's El and Yaweh are involved with the exodus. Perhaps Aaron represented an El faction and Moses a Yaweh faction.

I am not sure if we need attribute any monotheism at all to the Jews before Cyrus the Great sends the 42,462 (according to Josephus) exiles back to Jerusalem to worship Yaweh and his Messiah Cyrus. It seems to me that the retelling and revaluation of the wandering in the wilderness tales would only be necessary after the real wandering in the Babylonian wilderness.

Given the usual exaggeration of numbers in ancient reports, we may suppose that several hundred Jews and their families were transported to Babylon in the exile. By the time of Cyrus, they had grown to a small community of perhaps four or five thousand. Having a good Babylonian education, this new generation of Babylonian Jews under the guidance of the Zorastrian Cyrus could go back and rewrite the history of their people to conform to a mixture of Babylonian and Persian ideals.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

semiopen

Covenant theory is an important part of textual analysis. This is most obvious in Deuteronomy.

Mainstream scholars consider this modeled on Assyrian structure (Esarhaddon) while more conservative ones claim a 2nd millenium origin.

I agree that the Exodus (and Deuteronomy) calf stories are late additions and don't make a lot of theological sense. This more or less political, where this seems to address issues about what lineage will get cushy priestly jobs. Note that Moses says God wanted to kill Aaron in Deuteronomy whereas in Exodus that's not mentioned.

Just noticed ph2ter has previously posted probably a better written explanation of this.

bacht

Maybe the Exodus is really about the influx of northern refugees after the fall of Samaria in the late 8th C. And maybe Moses is really the lawgiver Josiah or his monolatrous predecessor Hezekiah.

Julio

Reply posted at another forum:
"Because his people had already Broken the Covenant that God laid before them.
It was a symbol that they had really messed up."
Once again the nuance is that it wasn't Moses' fault.
I find this totally ridiculous and preposterous.
Moses was guilty of not arriving EARLIER in the camp.
[Of course, taking the story literally... another aberration in itself].

Julio

Is it admissible that only the higher hierarchy could read and write? That is, Moses and some few more?

ph2ter

King Jeroboam and calf episode in Exodus parallels each other. Jeroboam had also been in exile in Egypt and came out and established calf worship (1 Kings 11:40:Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon's death.)

Preferance of the Levite priesthood in Exodus 32 is also obvious, because king Jeroboam expelled the Levite priesthood from the northern kingdom:

2 Chronicles 11:13.17: The priests and Levites from all their districts throughout Israel sided with him. The Levites even abandoned their pasture lands and property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the Lord. And he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat and calf idols he had made. Those from every tribe of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the Lord, the God of Israel, followed the Levites to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the Lord, the God of their fathers. They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam son of Solomon three years, walking in the ways of David and Solomon during this time.

It is somehow complicated to explain the two calves. Why the two of them?
2 Kings 16-17:
They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire.
One was in Bethel and the other in Dan. Writer mentions an Aserah pole in conjunction with the calves in Bethel and Dan. This forms some kind of tripartite structure of shrines. Two for the male deities, and one for a goddess Asherah. Sacrifice in the fire is mentioned as the most important cult.

Someone could then think that Yhwh wrote with his own finger the Egyptian hieroglyphs on the tablets.

Julio

Hilarious video about Moses breaking the tablets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE7tT...layer_embedded