Talking With God

Debby asks …

Why would God have demanded that his people obey certain strict rules that seemed rather “hocus pocus” and construct the strangest accoutrements when He is ordinarily so practical? Reading the Old Testament left me with more questions than answers, most relating to the reasons God would have the Israelites perform (what I saw as bizarre) rites so meticulously, usually with the punishment of death if they didn’t.

Wonderful questions.

My book may clarify some of this for you. First of all, the purpose of the book is to delineate what the words in the Five Books actually say. As I explain in the introduction, I was originally faced with an unfinished puzzle. I researched word after word, using many related ancient languages to get at their true meanings. It turns out that they each pertained to the Ark of the Testimony and critical details surrounding it. Eventually, all the pieces of the puzzle came together and resulted in a fascinating finished picture.

As I say in the book, “I found there is a logical, unvarying flow throughout the Bible when it comes to the description of the phenomena surrounding the ark.” The description was originally transmitted orally by observers at the time, and later written down. I cannot know if the observations were accurate, but “something happened and was duly reported … Communication between God and man adhered to strictly natural laws.” These laws pertaining to the Ark were so technical that they couldn’t really have been understood by the observers, so they only described them as best they could, using words that have largely been mistranslated.

The original Hebrew words describe a system of communication between God and people affected through a substance in a cloud. The Bible explains that when communication was necessary, the cloud would settle on the Ark in the inner sanctuary of the Israelites’ tent of meeting. Unfortunately the cloud was highly radioactive, and those who dealt with the Ark needed careful protections, which are clearly described in Exodus and Leviticus. At times, the cloud would drift beyond the sanctuary, and its effect on people and things was exactly the same as the radiation effects we see today. The symptoms are described in detail in the Bible. The radioactivity was purely a byproduct of the transmission system.

A professor of linguistics has written me asking,

Would the radioactivity have been part of God’s plan, or would it have been something not under His control and his only role would be to warn the people?

I answered that while I couldn’t give a definite answer, one might conjecture that it was analogous to any other radiation phenomena with which we are familiar today. For example, consider x-rays, CT scans, MRIs, air travel, and in the area of transmission, the television tube. They all have dangers that we maneuver for the positive tradeoffs.

(Incidentally, in answer to your question, since danger from the cloud was a natural phenomenon, it would follow that no punishment was intended.)

So, Debby, this is what my research tells me about what the words in the Bible actually say. As I write at the end of Talking With God,

Either I have offered a description of a system that is accurate and actually operated or inaccurate and just another myth. If accurate, then at the least the interrelated, institutionalized religions as practiced today (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) become quite untenable. If inaccurate, then each is left to continue to float about aimlessly, bumping up against evermore enlightening new knowledge of our universe and against the other competitive religions, each with its firm belief in its own veracity and rejection of any others.

After reading “Talking With God”, a relative of mine, Kim recently asked,

“If contact with the Divine requires the laws of purity—”clean,” “unclean”—and Kashrus (observance of Jewish dietary laws), then is it an exercise in futility to pray now that the purity laws are non observed and Kashrus only by the Orthodox (in reality). Why should we even attempt it according to your theory?”

Extending that question a bit, one might ask, since Jews can no longer follow the body of laws surrounding the use of the Ark of the Testimony as a communications device, i.e., sacrifice, use of items such as blood, incense, oil, special clothing, etc., for protection of the priests, what good is to be derived from prayer today? To that I have two separate answers, one directly from the book. There I say,

“Even if my description is historically correct and the mechanism did work, how does that affect us today? There is no easy answer to that question. Perhaps there is the feeling that one should always be in a position to receive through the prescribed wave-lengths, and by observing the instructions for becoming clean one would be in the most ideal condition to hear Him. Perhaps someday through medical advances we will be able to completely understand the physiological changes brought about by shifting from an unclean to a clean condition, and be able to bring them about in a simpler, more controlled fashion than was necessary at the time of the tent.”

But, probably more to the point of Kim’s question is a discussion of prayer that I supplied during a recent interview:

“…If these ancient technological devices were truly used, does that mean we’ve been deluding ourselves with the spiritual belief that we can talk to God via traditional prayer and meditation?”

My answer appears in this post: Traditional Prayer. (From a response supplied to Donna Williams, The Celebrity Editor.)

Question: As a scholar, were you ever concerned about how the public would receive your ideas? The impact on faith?

RDI: First and foremost I am interested in truth. I know my ideas will be controversial, and that’s just fine. But for that controversy to be substantive it has to rest on debate surrounding facts. This work doesn’t in any way argue one’s faith. One’s faith, or lack of it, is very subjective. What I have done is to attempt to clarify a subject that may or may not impact on one’s faith depending on how receptive, open-minded, the reader is.

Personally, I think a person’s beliefs should be based on facts, not fancies. An example would be attitudes toward evolution. It is hard, scientific fact, easily proved, that evolution exists. To deny this is pure fancy and does not in any way strengthen faith, it only obfuscates it.

To summarize: When faith and fact merge, the result is a strong partnership.  When they diverge, the result is confusion.

From an interview by Donna Williams of The Celebrity Editor

Question: Your book revolutionizes our thinking about how the Old Testament patriarchs actually talked to God. If these ancient technological devices were truly used, does that mean we’ve been deluding ourselves with the spiritual belief that we can talk to God via traditional prayer and meditation?

RDI: It’s interesting that the word translated prayed or pray (pawlal) is found twice in Genesis and twice in Numbers in all of the Four Books. It is found twice in the fifth book, Deuteronomy, and that book was produced much later. It is not found at all in Exodus and Leviticus, books much more important to my thesis. Pawlal involved Abraham and Abimelech, king of Gerer in one story and Moses and the rebelling Israelites in another. But it is generally acknowledged that the actual meaning of pawlal is to intercede, not to pray in the traditionally accepted form. (To be exact, pray is used in one of the two times in the accepted way in the Abraham/Abimelech story, but that was in a dream by the king.

On the other hand, pawlal as prayer is used as such many times in the following books.

This indicates to me that prayer as we know it was not used in the part of the Bible involved primarily with the Ark and the Ephod but that, when the use of the devices faded away, the people did much as we do today to try to reach God.

As to your specific question, while I have no way of knowing whether prayer is efficacious in reaching God, there certainly would be no problem with doing so. The problem would lie in God’s communicating with us. That is, if it is true that the ark was reached through the dangerous radioactive cloud, if suddenly He were to do so today, it would be lethal to us unless we were properly protected. I have given many examples of the Bible’s clearly stating the necessity for the Israelites to be so protected under these circumstances.

But as to the results of our praying today, until there can be a controlled experiment that proves there is a definite cause/effect, I’m afraid the true answer will have to be left in limbo.

From an interview by Donna Williams of The Celebrity Editor

Question: In the book you mention that your father, a hematologist and researcher, launched your study. From the discussions with your father to the publishing of your book, how many years did the journey take? How did your father’s ideas evolve, and how did you fine tune them?

RDI: In the early 1950’s my father was deeply involved with his hematological research at a leading Chicago medical center, as well as his practice. At the same time my late partner and I were rapidly expanding our young public relations company, and my wife and I were building a family. It was during this period that my father, a true scientist and biblical scholar, and I began to have conversations about a thought he had concerning the possibility that the Ark of the Testimony (also called the Ark of the Covenant) could have been an electrical apparatus that was used to communicate with God. Then, in spite of our heavy schedules, we began to plumb the Bible for any evidence to substantiate this thought.

The first result was an unpublished article on the topic in the mid 1950’s. Then we wrote a 24 page monograph published by Bloch Publishing Company in 1965. It was titled Puzzling Biblical Laws Interpreted in Terms of ModernPhysics. In that same year my father died.

After a time I began thinking of the theory behind the monograph, and realized that there were more possibilities to be considered. My thought was to work in my spare time for a year or so and get them on paper. It turned out it would take more than 40 years until the book was published.

The reason for all those years (other than having the daily work of running a company) was that it had become apparent that, while the general approach we were taking was a start, it left great gaps in what the Bible was trying to convey about the Ark and its “care and feeding.” That’s when I started my research in earnest. The result took me into other paths that we hadn’t followed before, and the final result was different in many ways from our original thinking. So while the seed was planted, the tree (of knowledge?) that grew from it was something I never expected. I’m only sorry that my father didn’t live to see the tree as it looks today.

Excerpted from an interview by Donna Williams of The Celebrity Editor