While Moses was up on Mount Sinai with Yahweh arranging to have the ark of the covenant built with the Ten Commandments inside the ark, and the cherubim throne for Yahweh to sit on top as His throne and a propitiatory to show mercy, at the moment of the height of a good father sky deity showing generosity and covenant-building with his chosen people, they turn on him and desert him.
They sinned grievously, that is obvious. Now, my question is: Yahweh is furious with them for betraying his love, gifts and attention, as well as their worshipping a rival deity, likely an evil deity?
Both Hebrews and Christians would agree that their sinning against and major disobedience and defiance towards God would be reason enough for Yahweh to punish them, but when they worshiped a wicked, rival deity, that was the last straw.
As a spiritual, ethical and ontological moderate, I suggest that Yahweh or Jesus would not punished those that worship rival deities, as long as the people worship those rivals in a way that offends and snubs no deity, and that they worship a good deity, not an evil or demonic deity, but that is my opinion, and there are plenty of Biblical passages from the Old Testament and from the New Testament that insist that the way to heaven is narrow, and one can only get there by following solely God the Father or Yahweh, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but I think now in this new century the Father, the Son and the Holy Spiritual will allow co-worshiping of them and competing good deities, though I have no evidence to support my conclusion—no evidence other than asserting that the Law of Moderation applies theologically too.
Here is this text from The New American Bible: “The Golden Calf. When the people became aware of Moses’ delay in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make us a god who will be our leader; as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him. Aaron replied, ‘Have your wives and sons and daughter take of the gold earrings they are wearing and bring them to me. So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron, who accepted their offering, and fashioning this gold with a graving tool, made a molten calf. Then they cried out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ On seeing this, Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed, ‘Tomorrow is a feast of the Lord. * Early the next day the people offer holocausts and brought peace offerings. Then they sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.”
Here is the accompanying footnote: “*32,5: The calf . . . a feast of the Lord: from this it is clear that the golden calf was intended as an image, not of a false god, but of the Lord himself, his strength being symbolized by the strength of a young bull. The Israelites, however, had been forbidden to represent the Lord under any visible form.”
My response: Not only was the golden calf a forbidden, graven image of Yahweh, it seems to be a rival, false god, so the Israelites offended Yahweh deeply on several levels, with their blasphemous, treacherous, rebellious act of community idolatry.
They sinned against Yahweh, a moral, individualistic deity when they compared him to a gold calf and asserted that is was the golden calf that brought them out of Egypt.
Here is this same passage from the Holy Bible (KJV): “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses the man that has brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast of the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose to play.”
My response: It occurs to me that Yahweh and other male, Father Sky gods were not part of nature and were of the sky and supernature, so, from this I infer that Yahweh was an Individuator and Individualist.
Hebrews, like all humans, are born evil more than good, and group-oriented, and likely they were resentful to having to become good, to start being moral, to start being less group-oriented, and to forsake their pleasurable, easy past and inclination to worship pagan deities, with their immoral or amoral ethical codes.
They betrayed Yahweh, and quickly. It is likely too, that this tribe of ancients were in a state of shock and upheaval, suffering from angst and low self-esteem, so when Moses, whom they depended on as a father and leader, disappeared, they lost faith in Yahweh, because their worship of Him was a shallow as tea water, and because they did not want to have to be moral and well as holy spiritually, so they cast Yahweh off as soon as they had an excuse to do so.
These passages reveal that human nature is weak, fickle, ungrateful, and not basically good. Biblical truth is grim, dark and painful, but it must be accepted, admitted to, and factored into our solution-engendering if we are to improve and be saved by our good deity.
No comments:
Post a Comment