Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Sunday Sermonette: More redundancy and repetitiveness

Moses resumes recapitulating events in Exodus and Numbers, and again, he gets some details wrong. As I've said, I think the reason for this is simply to put the highlights of the story in a more compact package. It was probably read aloud on some specific occasions -- remember that very few people were literate -- but as far as I know there isn't any record of how these stories and laws were conveyed to the people in these times. In any case Deuteronomy would have been more convenient, and memorable, than reading the whole thing. I've noted some of the errors and contradictions.


10 “At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Hew two tables of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tables in my hand.

Of course he didn't make the ark personally. You might take this in the sense of he ordered it to be made, as one might say "I built a house" meaning I hired people to do it,  . .. but

And he wrote on the tables, as at the first writing, the ten commandments[a] which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.

 Here it seems more clear that Moses is taking credit for building the ark himself. As Exodus 37 clearly states, Bezaleel made the ark.

(The people of Israel journeyed from Be-er′oth Bene-ja′akan[b] to Mose′rah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and his son Elea′zar ministered as priest in his stead.

Nope. According to Numbers 20, and again in Numbers 33, Aaron died  on Mt. Hor.

From there they journeyed to Gud′godah, and from Gud′godah to Jot′bathah, a land with brooks of water. At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day. Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

10 “I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord hearkened to me that time also; the Lord was unwilling to destroy you. 11 And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I command you this day for your good? 14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it; 15 yet the Lord set his heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as at this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17 

That's a very weird metaphor, to say the least. 

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 

This is just a chapter after commanding the people to murder everyone they meet in Canaan. Go figure.

You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve him and cleave to him, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 10:4 Heb words
  2. Deuteronomy 10:6 Or the wells of the Bene-jaakan


3 comments:

Don Quixote said...

"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

This is just a chapter after commanding the people to murder everyone they meet in Canaan. Go figure."

To be fair, Cervantes, war in insane and irrational to begin with. We have mores for social behavior that are acceptable; the whole idea of humane treatment of certain people in wars is nuts to begin with. But when wars aren't happening, then yes, it makes sense to treat foreigners in our midst humanely.

But during war, the gloves come off. The solution is to outlaw war. I guess I'm kind of a federalist (in the sense of having one government for the entire world). One army. If some dictator wannabe gets out of control, in come the asskickers.

Chucky Peirce said...

There may be some confusion about the word "ark".

We aren't referring to Noah's Ark; that's in northern Kentucky in Ken Ham's Disney World for Born Again's.

Growing up I was taught that the Ark of the Covenant was just a fancy box built expressly to house that document. The illustrations in the religious propaganda I was fed usually showed two priests carrying it between them on poles that rested on their shoulders.

Moses could have constructed it.

Cervantes said...

Chucky, please. We've been reading the Torah chapter by chapter from the beginning. I am well aware of what ark he is talking about. The reference I cite, if you will take a squint at it, is not to Genesis (during which Moses had yet to be born) but to Exodus 37, which describes the construction of the ark in detail and states that it was made by a man named Bezaleel, along with the entire tabernacle and its accouterments. Moses did not make it himself. Exodus 37:

37 Bez′alel made the ark of acacia wood; two cubits and a half was its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 2 And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without, and made a molding of gold around it. 3 And he cast for it four rings of gold for its four corners, two rings on its one side and two rings on its other side. 4 And he made poles of acacia wood, and overlaid them with gold, 5 and put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark. 6