Background
After having a blaspheming half-breed stoned to death in Leviticus 24, God continues on in Leviticus 25 with laws regarding the selling of land and the buying of slaves. That nearly completes God's list of laws in Leviticus, so now it is time to reveal what the Chosen People will receive for obeying the laws, and what disobedience will cost them.
God's Altered Promise
There is a mark of a man of integrity: you can believe his word. If he says he will do something, then he will do that very thing. He will not delay, put conditions on it, or make you jump through hoops before he will do it. His word is golden, and his respect is thereby earned. One should expect no different behavior in God, for how can a man be better than God. Let us take a look at Leviticus 26, and consider God's integrity.Leviticus 26:1-2 lay down the final two of a long list of laws which began in Leviticus 1. Do not worship any images, such as Jesus on a crucifix for example, and respect the Sabbaths and the Sanctuary.
With the laws complete, God outlines the great benefits for obeying this long list of laws Leviticus 26:3-13. These include abundant harvests, safety from beasts and enemies, and many offspring. Maybe the best benefit of all is that God would dwell with them, and they would be His people. In Leviticus 26:13, God reminds them that He brought them out of the Egyptian slavery, yet He conveniently fails to remind them that they were slaves in Egypt because of Him!
God then reveals the punishments for not obeying His laws in Leviticus 26:14-39. First God will bring “sudden terror,” harsh illnesses (some of which will cause blindness and death), and they will be captured by their enemies (Leviticus 26:14-17).
If they then do not repent, God will punish them “seven times over” by making their harvests minuscule (Leviticus 26:18-20).
If they then do not repent, God will punish them “seven times over” by making wild beasts attack their flocks, their children, and the people themselves until the population is scarce (Leviticus 26:21-22).
If they then do not repent, God will punish them “seven times over” by making enemies attack them, capture them, and cut off their food supply (Leviticus 26:23-26).
If they then do not repent, God will punish them “seven times over” by making them so hungry they resort to cannibalism, destroying their cities and sanctuaries, and laying their land to waste. The remnant that survives will be scattered among foreign nations, and where they will live in a state of fear and submission to their enemies (Leviticus 26:27-39).
Finally, if they repent, then God will remember His covenant which He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Leviticus 26:40-42). Perhaps we should take a closer look at those covenants.
God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15:4-21 stating that his offspring would be innumerable, that his offspring would be enslaved and mistreated 400 years, and that they would come out of their enslavement with great wealth and then occupy the Promised Land.
God promises Abraham in Genesis 17:4-14 that he would have numerous offspring which became nations and kings, and that as an everlasting promise God would be their God and they would have the Promised Land forever. Circumcision was required for this covenant.
Then, after Abraham nearly sacrifices his son, Isaac, at God's request, God promises in Genesis 22:15-18 that He will surely bless Abraham's offspring, that they will be innumerable, that they will capture their enemies' cities, and that all nations of the earth will be blessed through them.
As for Isaac, God promises him in Genesis 26:2-5 that his descendants will get the Promised Land which was promised to Abraham, that his offspring will be innumerable, and that all nations of the earth will be blessed through his offspring. Why? Per Genesis 26:5:
"because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My requirements, My commands, My decrees and My laws." NIVMind you, Abraham did not have many requirements, commands, decrees and laws to follow from God, at least not that the Bible recorded.
Isaac's son, Jacob, gets his promises from God in Genesis 28:13-15, that his descendants will get the Promised Land which was promised to Abraham, that his offspring will be innumerable, and that all nations of the earth will be blessed through his offspring.
God also tells Jacob in Genesis 35:11-12 that nations and kings would come from his offspring, and that they will get the Promised Land.
Now, did you notice anything in all of those promises? First, you may have observed that they came about due to God's approval of Abraham's actions. Second, you may also have realized that, other than circumcision, there were no conditions required for Abraham's offspring to inherit these blessings.
Coming back to Leviticus, we just read that if and only if the Israelites obey God's long list of laws and regulations, which now spans the books of Exodus and Leviticus, will God follow through with the promise that He made to Abraham. And furthermore, if they do not obey, not only will God not keep His original promise, but He will also punish them severely.
In effect, God is making a new promise, a new covenant with the Israelites. God has altered His original promise to Abraham by adding new terms and conditions which effectively null and void the original covenant, because they provide God the opportunity to fulfill that covenant only when it is pleasing to Him.
A man of integrity will fulfill his promises despite the costs involved. I guess you cannot say the same for God.
Do not get me wrong. I do understand why God would not want to fulfill His promise to a wicked and undeserving people. Yet if God is not bound by His word despite any circumstance, what real hope is there of an eternal Salvation?
"God has altered His original promise to Abraham by adding new terms and conditions which effectively null and void the original covenant, because they provide God the opportunity to fulfill that covenant only when it is pleasing to Him."
ReplyDeleteIf you don't read the text as literal history but rather as an apologetic for God which someone wrote as a story maybe it makes more sense? We have all these evidences (good harvests, failed harvests, etc.) and we believe God does it all, so in story form the conditions change. Yeah, why make up the changed conditions, but maybe that kept it consistent with a certain view of God (omnipotent and good) which they already held?
Thanks for the comment atimetorend.
ReplyDeleteThat is one of those sticky points: allegory versus history. To those who believe the New Testament to be history, there is an obligation to believe the Old Testament was literal history. Jesus certainly is portrayed as believing in the literal history of the OT.
I'm guessing that the apparent changes in the covenant were just the result of imprecise or inconsistent story telling. Given all of the typos I've made in this blog, even in day of word processing and spell checking, I'm sure that writing on scrolls while retaining the stories in memory produced lots of such errors.
More to the heart of it though, I think your sentiment may be correct (if I am understanding you correctly); that this religion evolved out of a need to explain why things were the way they were under the direction of a benevolent God.
Yes, I think that is what I am saying that the religion evolved that way. What your post shows I think is the jumbled up mess that people are confronted with when from one age to another they decide they should try to take the texts literally and/or authoritatively.
ReplyDeleteWell put, and I think you touch on another interesting aspect of ages, or cultural norms for a given epoch of time. Life being more unpredictable and subject to the elements back then would have made a deity seem to be ruled by all the same emotions of men, which is what you seem to find in the OT. Our more-controlled lives lend themselves to the idea that a god is purely benevolent, which is what you find preached in many modern churches today. This is just speaking in generalizations, of course.
ReplyDeleteI would venture to say that even reading the text in an allegorical manner paints some problems too, unless you pull back from the details so far as to only get an overall picture.
If you'd like to exchange some dialog off the record, so to speak, feel free to email me at onemanstruth@yahoo.com. However, you are more than welcome to continue posting comments if you'd like.
Thanks for the correspondence offer, I'll prob. take you up on that.
ReplyDelete"I would venture to say that even reading the text in an allegorical manner paints some problems too, unless you pull back from the details so far as to only get an overall picture."
I agree with you there. I know a more allegorical approach would be more consistent with liberal Christianity. I guess my initial impression was that your original post is shooting down a fundamentalist/literalist Christianity. Which it does effectively, but in a way it is shooting down a parody of what Christianity can be. Fundamentalism can be too easy of a target! I know, I regularly shoot it down myself.
At the same time, I don't prescribe to the more liberal Christianity either. I left a conservative version, have since gained an appreciation for the more allegorical version, without embracing it as a personal "faith" myself.
Yes, it probably is fair to say that this post, and many more I've written, scrutinize the fundamentalist/literalist point of view. I'm trying to write "accurate" critiques of the Torah and the Gospels, which is easiest and perhaps most appropriately done in view of fundamentalism/literalism.
ReplyDeleteI've checked out some of your posts too, like Deconstructing Daniel. Good stuff there.
I've been wondering if there is any underlying truth in Scripture. Man's tampering is obvious, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's all bunk. Maybe reading allegories from particular sections of Scripture is the way to find God, but such a faith wouldn't exactly be Jewish or Christian.
Have been meaning to get back to your last comment. I think also that critiquing the bible from a fundamentalist/literalist perspective is likely the most accurate, reading as it was intended. And it certainly is relevant because so many people take that stance today, regardless of what the "best" way of reading it is.
ReplyDeleteAs far as reading it allegorically, I think that is the best way to read it if people are going to find "faith" in it as divinely inspired literature. I agree that faith is not necessarily historically Jewish or Christian, though I think some elements of reading it that way probably are historically correct (I am no expert there). But personally I think the wisdom to be found (it isn't all bunk), is the wisdom common to man, I don't find an underlying Truth there anymore.
I couldn't agree with you more about the fact that there is still wisdom to be found in the Bible. It's not all good, but it is far from being all bad either. There are definitely some good guidelines and a lot of information on human psychology and sociology.
ReplyDeletePlus, truth be told, I love listening to sermons and studying the Bible. It makes you actually take a moment to think about life in the grand scheme of things, and can help you become a better person if used properly.