Promises, Promises

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Background
We are at the end a list of God-given commandments in Exodus; God's first complete set instructions for mankind, or at least for the Israelites. Many of these laws reveal a just and merciful God, but we have also learned that God definitely approves of capitol punishment, has no issue with inequality under the law based on social class or sex, and was not at all interested in converting those of other faiths to follow Him. In fact, those who worship other gods were to be killed. This is how God is structuring the Law for His representatives on earth, and thereby showing the world His true nature.

Promises, Promises
Before we get to the heart of this study, there is one quick topic to cover. Near the end of God's first complete set of laws, there is a verse which does not get nearly enough attention. Do you think that God views men and women as equals? Think again. In Exodus 23:17, you find this:

"Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD." NIV

God doesn't require women to appear before Him, or even children for that matter. God only seeks a direct relationship with men. There are a number of practical reasons why the whole family would not be required to appear before God. However, with Christianity posturing that God's main goal is to “save” people for the life after death, there is then no logical reason which would prevent God from requiring that everyone appear before Him, men, women, and children, because the fleeting matters of this world are trivial when compared to the eternal next world. That is, unless God just simply does not value women the same as He does men.

All right, on to the main topic: promises. Immediately following the last commandment are promises about what God will do for the Israelites as they enter the Promised Land in Exodus 23:20-33, as well as some miscellaneous instructions and reminders for the Israelites.

God said He would send an angel with His Name in him ahead of the Israelites (Exodus 23:20-21). It's not clear who this angel was. Some scholars suggest it was Jesus, while some others suggest it was the Archangel Michael. Regardless of who the angel was, this angel had complete authority and power to act according to God's will (Exodus 23:22-23).

What was this angel going to do? At first, it seems like the angel would kill the present occupants of the promised land all by himself (Exodus 23:23). But then, in apparent contradiction, it seems that he would simply terrorize and confuse occupants to make them gradually flee at the approach of Israelites (Exodus 23:27-30). Either way, the Israelites were going to acquire the Promised Land with no effort. This promised angelic action had a caveat; the Israelites had to obey God (Exodus 23:22). The books of Joshua and Judges contain a record of many battles fought by the Israelites while taking control of the Promised Land, so obviously the angel did neither of these two actions. However, the Israelites as a whole did not perfectly obey God, so this is not necessarily a broken promise. Yet God (or perhaps this angel) assisted the Israelites in many of the battles, just not consistently in the prescribed manner. So what does this mean, or what can we learn from it? What do you think?

In the midst this elusive promise is another one which is critical to understanding the Old Testament God and His plan for mankind. In God's own words in Exodus 23:25-26:

"Worship the LORD your God, and His blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span." NIV

Simply put, if the Israelites worship God, they can expect long, healthy lives and lots of offspring. God is the original prosperity theology preacher. That is good, but did you catch what is missing? There is no mention of an afterlife. All of the rewards listed here are for their normal lives and are not eternal. In fact, the last verse essentially guarantees death after a long life. It does not make sense that God would fail to mention the best and everlasting reward of worshiping Him; an eternally happy life after life. Unless, of course, the concept of an afterlife was not yet invented by the mind of this Old Testament (OT) author.

One more quick note on this verse: God has control over sickness, miscarriages, and sterility. If you worship God and experience any of these issues, perhaps you are just not worshiping Him correctly. ;-)

Promises are made on both sides. In Exodus 24:3-8, Moses tells the Israelites all of the laws and other information which God had just provided. Moses also writes all of this down in the “Book of the Covenant”. All of the Israelites agreed that they would obey God.

Also in the confirmation of this covenant we see that there were offerings; burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls. Half of the blood of these offerings was put on the altar, while the other half was sprinkled on the (>>600000) people. It is somewhat interesting that this ceremony is performed with both burnt offerings and young bull's blood. After all, if the OT had shadows of what was to come in the New Testament (NT), why were there burnt offerings? And why was bull's blood used as opposed to lamb's blood, which would have provided more consistent symbolism with Jesus being the “lamb of God”? It seems like the OT authors didn't know the end from the beginning.

Perhaps the strangest part of this ceremony is what happened afterwards. Exodus 24:9-11 records how Moses, Aaron and his sons, and 70 elders of Israel went up on the mountain and saw God. God was standing on a pavement of blue crystals! It is yet another confirmation that God is shaped like a man. So much for the NT references saying that nobody has ever seen God (John 1:18, John 6:46, 1 Timothy 6:16, 1 John 4:12)! Perhaps even stranger yet is the content of the last verse; that “God did not raise His hand against...”, or in other words, God did not kill them for seeing Him. As in, normally God would have killed them for seeing Him. If your first instinct is to kill anyone who sees you, then you are probably not the epitome of love.

In Exodus 24:12-18, the matter draws to a close with Moses (and Joshua) going up to see God to get stone tablets containing the laws and commandments (which Moses had already recorded in the Book of the Covenant). It's somewhat amusing to see that God made Moses wait for six days before He let him into His Holy cloud (Exodus 24:16). Perhaps God was just trying to emphasize to Moses that He had complete control over the situation.

Killing and Sacrifice

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Background
Starting back in Exodus 20, God has been giving His commandments to the Israelites through Moses. These commandments are God's first complete set laws for mankind. They should tell us some truths about God. So far we have learned that God definitely approves of capitol punishment and has no issue with inequality under the law based on social class or sex.

What else will we learn about God? Let us continue our study of God's commandments.

Killing and Sacrifice
Nearly all Christians believe that Christianity is a religion of peace and tolerance. For the most part, it is. However, just like words can develop different meanings based on their usage by the general population, so too can religions stray from their original intents as their associated theologies evolve according to the times. Let us explore some of the foundation of the religion founded by the God of the Bible, who is, as we know from the Bible, also purported to be Jesus.

Exodus 22 continues on in a list of commandments given by God to Moses to be the legal foundation for His Chosen People, the Israelites. There have been many spirited debates about whether or not the laws in the Old Testament (OT) are applicable to Christians. Regardless of which side someone takes on this issue, it does not diminish the significance of these laws in revealing God's nature. After all, the Israelites were going to be, in essence, representatives of God on earth. God's sense of righteousness and justice was to shine through them, and one of the most obvious signs to outsiders of God's influence would have been these Godly commandments by which the Israelites lived.

As you read through the list of commandments, you will find that most of them are reasonable. They even include some laws established to be charitable, yet just, to foreigners, orphans, widows, and the poor. You will also find that the punishments are generally proportional to the crime; a hallmark of justice. (Of course, this is quite contrary to the one-size-fits-all eternal torture of Hell which many Christians believe to be the fate of the unsaved.) However, not all of these laws are so palatable.

Exodus 22:18 calls for the death of sorceresses (a.k.a. witches). This is somewhat funny, as there is seemingly no true power in sorcery. It is also somewhat tragic, given that this verse has prompted the slaughter of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in Christian-world witch hunts which occurred back in times when society was much more superstitious in general. However, Hebrew word used here may actually be more applicable to a user of poisonous potions, so perhaps this killing in justified. Or, perhaps in God's mind the power of sorcery came from demons, and therefore was an abomination to God. So maybe this is justified.

(It is strange that this law does not instead call for the death of anyone who practices sorcery, but rather seems applicable only to women. I have seen it explained that it really applied to both sexes, but mentioned only women because people generally would be more lenient in punishing a woman. However, such an interpretation stands in contrast to the format of the remainder of God's laws.)

In Exodus 22:20, God calls for the death of anyone who sacrifices to any other god. In God's defense, these were His Chosen People who were to be representatives of God, so it is perfectly reasonable for God to desire a show of unity and purity in the Israelites. On the other hand, the punishment demonstrates God's lack of mercy, tolerance, and patience. These pagans could have simply been expelled from the land of Israel, left to discover on their own that their false gods could not do anything for them, and thereby allow for a repentant person return to the one true God. Or, God could have withdrawn His blessing from these pagans to let their lives serve as living examples of why you should only worship God. Instead this text suggests that God of the OT was not really interested in making converts or allowing such repentance, paradoxically unlike the God of Christianity.

Speaking of sacrifices, there are some laws in this first set of commandments about sacrifices to God in Exodus 22:29-30:

"Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give Me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to Me on the eighth day." NIV

Note first that it is specifically the firstborn sons which must be given to God. Females were just not as valuable to God.

Then note that these firstborn sons are to be given to God just like the cattle and the sheep. This passage is a bit ambiguous, so you may need to reference Exodus 13:1-16 and Exodus 34:19-20. Unlike the cattle, the firstborn sons are not to be killed. Instead, they are to be redeemed, or in other words bought back, or in other words taxed by the Temple.

The Bible does not cover what happens if you are too poor to redeem your son, but it is possible that such a case would mean death for the son. There are many OT references where God condemns sacrificing sons (and daughters). However, these seem to exclusively deal with sacrificing children specifically in fire and to other gods. Perhaps God would approve of sacrificing a son to him, even as a burnt offering, such as like what almost occurred with Abraham's son Isaac. Plus, let us not forget that even God sacrificed His own Son to Himself (1 John 4:10).

What makes this child sacrifice or redemption silly is that God ends up superseding these laws later on. In Numbers 3:11-13 and Numbers 8:15-18 you see how God instead swaps out the Levite clan for all of the firstborn sons of the Israelites. This change in the law happens within the lifetime of Moses and Aaron! It makes you wonder why the original law existed in the first place. Why would God change His mind, especially in such a short time frame? You are stuck wondering if either God is not omniscient and He does not have everything planned out from the beginning, or if the author was simply making the story up as he went along.

The Plight of a Slave Girl

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Background
At this point in our study of the Book of Exodus, God has just given the popular version of the Ten Commandments and is continuing to provide commandments to Moses for the Israelites to obey. Collectively, all of these commandments will be the first complete set of laws which were given by God.

Because they are coming from God, not from man, it is reasonable to expect that these laws represent the epitome of justice. After all, if mankind can come up with laws which are more just than the laws which God provided, then it follows that God is not perfectly just. Besides, why would an infinitely wise God give man a set of morally imperfect laws? So let's take a look how God's laws stack up to our present-day morality. If there is a moral disconnect, either we need to change our morality or we need to recognize that God is not perfect in His justice.

The Plight of a Slave Girl
In most ancient cultures, women played a subservient position to men. They did not have equal rights. Today, while many countries have instituted equal rights for women under the law, many of those same countries still have strong cultural roles which maintain women as inferior beings. Even in the United States, a country born with the words “all men are created equal”, women were not given the right to vote until 1920 AD. And the former slaves in the U.S.? They didn't get true voting rights in the entire country until 1965 AD with the passing of the Voting Rights Act. Despite the sluggish progress at times, it is clear that the trend in our morality is headed toward an egalitarian world view. Is that what God would want?

Depending on how you choose to parse the previous text, at approximately commandment number thirteen God begins providing laws which govern Hebrew servants, both men and women, in Exodus 21:2-11. These Hebrew servants were more like indentured servants than slaves, but the Israelites had true slaves as well (Leviticus 25:44-46). As best as I can discern, the rules for the slaves and the Hebrew servants were basically the same except that the Hebrew servants could become free again after 6 years of service. Well, at least the male servants, and the maidservants which sold themselves into bondage (Leviticus 15:12), could be free again.

According to Exodus 21:7, a maidservant sold by her father is not to be freed. (Notice that through this law God implicitly gives the father the right to sell his daughter into bondage.) The text of Exodus 21:7-11 seems to suggest that the reason for this is that this maidservant is only to be used for marriage, or at least some sort of consummated relationship. Some Christian commentaries go a step further and say that the reason why she is a maidservant as opposed to simply an espoused woman is that she is sold at young age, before puberty, so she is not fit to marry right away. That does not make make the situation any more morally appealing. Furthermore, it also suggests that the self-sold maidservants in Leviticus 15:12 as really being temporary concubines, because it implies that there are no other uses for maidservants.

Speaking of consummated relationships, this section has a couple to tackle. First, step back to Exodus 21:4-6 where you will see that if a master provides a wife for his servant, the wife and all of the resulting children belong to the master when the servant is freed. So much for the sanctity of marriage! Clearly, God finds that property ownership (the wife and children) trumps marriage. The only way the servant can keep his wife and family is to swear lifelong servitude to the master.

Second, we see in Exodus 21:10-11 that if “he” (which could be the master or his son) marries another woman and then neglects to provide the maidservant with food, clothing, and marital rights, she is free to leave without payment. That is at least somewhat fair, but you might expect some punishment to the husband for neglecting her for full justice. After all, few women were in the position to support themselves back then.

There is one more point to cover on the sexual role of a maidservant, but we have to jump to Leviticus 19:20-22. There you see that if a man has sex with a slave girl who was betrothed to someone else but not yet free, there is a given punishment. However, that punishment is not nearly as severe as it would have otherwise been if she was free (which would have been death). What this implicitly reveals is that unmarried sex with slave girls was normally acceptable. It is only because she was promised to be married that this was a sin, and the severity of that sin's punishment was reduced because she was still a slave. This is probably because part of a maidservant's expected duty was sex. Otherwise, it would make sense to treat it like any other case of adultery.

How maidservants were actually treated probably varied quite a bit from one master to another. However, putting the pieces together from our study thus far, it is reasonable to theorize that sexual gratification, with or without a marriage, was an expected duty of a maidservant.

What could you do if you maidservant did not “perform” for you? Well, as we saw above you could simply marry another woman and neglect the maidservant, thereby enacting a divorce. Also, because she is your property, you could beat your maidservant into submission, so long as she was still able to get up in a day or two (Exodus 21:20-21). Just try to avoid damaging an eye or breaking a tooth, because then she would be free to leave (Exodus 21:26-27).

The final point in our discussion reveals that slaves are not worth the same as free people. They do not get equal protection under the law. In case you did not catch that implication from the study above above, read Exodus 21:28-32 where you will see that if a man's wild bull kills a free person, the bull and the bull's owner get put to death. However, if that same bull kills a slave, the bull gets killed and the bull's owner only has to pay a fine to the slave owner.

So what did we learn here? God made laws regulating, not condemning, slavery, thereby providing implicit approval of slavery. Slaves and servants are considered property. Their marriages are subject to the rule of property. Men could sell their daughters into bondage. Maidservants likely had to fulfill sexual duties. Servants and slaves could be beaten severely as long as they were not killed, and as long as no eye or tooth damage was done. Servants and slaves do not get protection under the law equal that of free men, and furthermore their lives are worth less than free men.

These are God's rules, not mine. They seem to be contrary to our increasingly egalitarian society. And personally, they are offensive to my sense of morality. So what do you think? Is our society headed in the wrong direction by going down the path of equality, or is it simply that God does not have a sense of perfect justice?

The Square Peg of Baptism

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Background
John the Baptist is an enigmatic character for Christianity to grasp. As we've seen, he offered a water baptism for the remission of sins, contradicting God's plan of sin remission through both the Temple system and what was to come through Jesus. Furthermore, what he taught didn't really match the Old Testament prophesies or do much to prepare the way for Jesus' revolutionary system of Salvation.

In this study, we'll cover one of the most controversial episodes involving John the Baptist; the Baptism of Jesus.

The Square Peg of Baptism
You've likely heard the expression before: It's like trying to drive a square peg into a round hole. The only ways you can get a square peg to go into a round hole is to enlarge the hole or remove the squared edges of the peg. Metaphorically speaking, this puzzle accurately describes John the Baptist's baptism of Jesus.

According to the prophesies we covered last time, Jesus couldn't just magically show up on the earth to set things right. He needed a forerunner in the form of Elijah to prepare the way for Him. Who could that be? In the time in which Jesus reportedly lived, there was really only one possible, well-known candidate; John the Baptist.

Being outside of the Temple system's perpetuation of the status quo, John the Baptist seemed to be the only suitable man around who could have been considered a prophet of God at that time. There were false Messiah's of the time trying to lead rebellions, but there were no other men who could be seen as even remotely preparing the way for God to be in accordance with the scriptural prophesies. By necessity (and possibly in an attempt to garnish some of John the Baptist's popularity and credibility) John the Baptist played a part in the story of Jesus.

The problem was that if you include John the Baptist, his namesake, his baptism must somehow play an integral role. You may remember from the previous study that his baptism was for the repentance of sins. Enter; the square peg. That baptism would need to directly apply to Jesus, but Jesus is sinless. Enter; the round hole.

Three of the Gospels record that Jesus was baptized; Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, and Luke 3:21-22. Curiously, you'll see that Luke's account doesn't claim that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Perhaps he was just using the preceding text to imply that John the Baptist was doing the baptism, or perhaps Luke is intensionally vague to alter this incongruency and make it theologically possible that the only baptism Jesus had was one from the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus was sinless, what was the point of His baptism? Matthew 3:13-15 is the only account which seems to regard this conundrum. We see that Jesus requests a baptism, but John the Baptist tries to refuse and instead suggests that Jesus baptize him. Jesus tells him to go on and baptize Him to “fulfill all righteousness”. This seems to appear as though Jesus needed to be baptized with water to fulfill some prophesy, but no such prophesy exists. Perhaps instead this was just to fulfill a necessary part of God's non-communicated plan. The baptism of Jesus still confounds scholars and ossifies critics to this day.

Immediately following the baptism, the three accounts (Matthew 3:16-17, Mark 1:10-11, Luke 3:21-22) claim that Heaven was opened up and the dove-shaped Holy Spirit incarnate came out of that Heavenly hole. This is a rather interesting concept to grasp; not the Dove-Spirit (which is odd in itself to have part of God join with another part of God), but rather the hole in Heaven. That's quite a worm hole! This linguistic artifact preserves the antiquated belief of that time that God's Heaven was situated right above the earth, and that if you could peal back the canopy of the sky, you would see God.

After the dove comes down, God's voice comes from Heaven saying that He is happy with His Son Jesus. Whether or not anyone else heard God's voice at that time is left for speculation.

The Gospel of John isn't entirely left out of the picture here. While John 1:29-32 does not mention Jesus being baptized, it does say that John the Baptist saw the Holy Spirit come down and remain with Jesus. Because the only mention of this happening is when Jesus gets baptized according to the other Gospels, it seems logical to say that John's Gospel implies a baptism by John the Baptist as well. However, given that John the Baptist was somewhat shocked by getting to baptize Jesus per Matthew 3:13-17, it seems very strange that John's account of John the Baptist's testimony doesn't include such an unforgettable and momentous occasion as the baptism itself.

Perhaps the strangest part of John's account of John the Baptist's testimony is in the verse immediately preceding the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In John 1:31, John the Baptist claims that he did not know Jesus prior to His anointing of the Holy Spirit. It's too bad that John did not have a copy of Luke's Gospel handy. Luke 1:36 tells us that Mary (Jesus' mother) and Elizabeth (John the Baptist's mother) were related. Luke 1:39-45 goes on to say how the fetus of John the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth's womb when Mary spoke to her, and how Elizabeth knows that Mary is the mother of yet-to-be-born Jesus (as God). Then Luke 1:56 tells us that Mary stayed for three months with Elizabeth. Yet somehow the author of John expects us to believe that John the Baptist never met Jesus in the nearly 30 year timespan after that. While it is certainly possible, it seems implausible when you consider that Luke paints Elizabeth and Mary as having a tight relationship. After all, Elizabeth was the first person that Mary went to after finding out that she was going to have her holy child.

All of this contextual evidence supports the supposition of skeptics that at least parts of the story of Jesus were fabricated, if not the whole thing. The ill-fitting peg of John the Baptist's baptism was whittled down and glossed over in order to wedge it into the story of Jesus. The fact that the baptism story is similar in Matthew, Mark, and Luke suggests that they had early sources which they shared. The fact that John's Gospel skips the actual baptism and incongruently pieces together with Luke suggests that the story was evolving and developing in different locations which did not always have access to the same original sources.