This subject is not much spoken in the WT community, or any other religion, how can they reconcilled a God that allowed all these things yet believe in the exact contrast that is Jesus teachings?
OT - firstborn sacrifice, bloodsheed and cannibalism
by Joey Jo-Jo 10 Replies latest watchtower bible
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designs
Joey-
Something to consider- The OT is not different than the NT, in some ways worse. So let's discuss the why and how's.
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Joey Jo-Jo
Lets start with firsborn sacrifice, God told his people to sacrifice their first born as form of attonement written in Exodus and Leviticus, yet this changes through the course of the bible, the only last attonement being Jesus.
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designs
What kind of a Father would stand by and let his son get mortally stabbed in the chest. What example does that set.
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Joey Jo-Jo
So you are agreeing with me??
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designs
What you see in the development of Judaism and the Hebrew people is the idea that God would and could be appeased with vicarious sacrifice. Abraham is said to show complete fidelity of faith. Known as AKEDAH it seperates this particular tribe of Semitic people from others who did practice human sacrifice. As they shifted from a Nomadic culture to Agriculture appeasment shifted to Offerings of Bounty by offering the products they produced. It would have vexed the Jewish mind of the 1st century that a human would come along and try to undo 2000 years of moral and ethical progress by suggesting Human Sacrifice is what god now wants when he clearly, in the biblical narrative, did not want real human sacrifice. Remember how disgusted were the public when they heard Jesus says 'east my flesh and drink my blood'.
Repulsion of human sacrifice was so strong that King Josiah in 621 BCE reemphasizes that no human should ever be sacrificed because humans were created in the divine image.
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Knowsnothing
Do you mean literal firstborn sacrifice, or symbolic?
Bloodshed of animals? (don't necessarily view that as bad)
And cannibalism? Where in the heck did you hear that?
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designs
Knows-
Cannibalism could be the accusation for the Catholic position of Transubstantiation or in the Middle Ages in Europe Jews were accused of eating their children. There might be accounts of cannibalism in Maccabees but I'd have to check.
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Joey Jo-Jo
Knowsnothing: can you prove to me that its symbolic?
One is Isaac and Abraham and while nothing bad occured it shown's what Isaac had to put up with even though he didnt do anything wrong.
exodus13:2;Lev27:28-29;jud11:29-40; there is some more I can't think of at the moment.
designs:2kings9:26-29 26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
27 The king replied, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
Jer 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives.
lamentations 4:10
With their own hands compassionate women
have cooked their own children,
who became their food
when my people were destroyed. -
cameo-d
Well, that would certainly make a good Awake bedtime story for unruly kids!
I'd love to see the cover illustration for that feature!