Talking With God

This question came to me from Debby, and it’s an interesting one. See what you think.

Roger:

I’m still reading your book but very often while looking up specific passages in my Bible, I get sidetracked.  Case in point:  After consulting Lev. 13 to see the NIV translation compared to your account of radiation burn, I ended up continuing through Lev. 14 to find the treatment for it.  And though I agree that radiation burn symptoms as you describe them are similar to what’s described in the 13th chapter, the cleansing process in the 14th chapter fall back into the “hocus pocus” category for me.  That’s where guilt offerings, wave offerings or sin offerings, come into play – with priests required to dip one finger into oil and then touch an earlobe, or kill one bird and let the other one fly away.  These things seem irrational in my rational world and I don’t see how this procedure would cleanse anyone of anything…

Here’s my answer.

Debby:

Once again you wonder about a significant question. Are the various sacrifices mentioned in my Chapter 10 pp 228-274, which are part of the cleansing (protection) process simply irrational “hocus pocus?”

My answer would be to suggest more “hocus pocus.”

Believe it or not a tiny white sphere, taken into your stomach:

• Will stop nausea caused by a mysterious radioactive machine (x-ray for radiation therapy). (Ondansetron).
• Will protect your body from heart attack (Lipitor).
• Will bring down your high blood pressure (Furosemide).
• Will make your blood more normal (Potassium, prevents low levels).
• Will return your arrhythmic heart to an even rhythm (Amidarone).
• Will make your head stop hurting (Aspirin).
• And:

  Will protect you from radioactivity!!  See  this recent article.

A tiny white sphere (pill)? Impossible!

And think of all those clear liquids that get squirted into your arm to protect you from so many terrible diseases. Miracles?

So just because we don’t know the mechanics of how the biblical systems worked doesn’t mean they didn’t (or did). Maybe someday it will all come clear!

Now also, in case you feel that answer is unsatisfactory, take a look at the incense study I did (Chapter 9, pp. 184-201). It shows how what many have understood to be only hocus pocus and “smell goods” was actually chemically designed for protection against radiation burn. I believe other such studies, say into your Leviticus 14 question, may clear up longstanding misunderstandings. And the powerful tool of etymology might again come to our aid in getting to the facts.

Thanks, Debby, for another excellent question!

Debby wonders about the second trip Moses took up Mount Sinai.

Moses went up Mount Sinai to get all the laws In the process of the Lord’s giving them to the people, the mountain so quaked and thundered that it frightened the people terribly.  They begged Moses to get the laws himself and be the intermediary to relay them. The Lord said, “All right, but now keep the people and animals away from the mountain, because if they get too close they will die.”

Moses then went back up the mountain, not to get more laws, but to get (1) two stones (edut) that were to be put in the Ark and (2) the detail for building the tabernacle.  The reason for this was that both the Lord and Moses must have seen that direct communication wouldn’t work. Too dangerous. Rather it was necessary to build a specific safe place for the process (the inner area of the tabernacle) and a specific instrument for communication (the Ark, which held the edut).

That, then, is the reason for the two trips up Mount Sinai. However, equally important to this event was the fact that those who were allowed at the mountain had to be conditioned, that is, properly protected from the effects of the cloud, which was covering the mountain.  So they made sacrifices and sprinkled protective animal blood on them. In other words, they had to have proper protection from the extreme danger. (I have drastically foreshortened this explanation.  The detail is in the book on pages 2–5.)

This is the second of four responses to Donald question:

In your … opinion what and who is God, his nature, his will, his role in the universe, does he “love” us, is there life with him after death, etc.

His nature and will and role in the universe

Now searching Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers for “His nature and will and role in the universe,” it seems to me that the purpose of God from Abraham to Moses was to set out rules or laws for people to follow if they wished to live lives of wellbeing. Those rules were not only given to the Israelites; the Bible clearly states that other peoples who did not follow them were doomed to destruction.

At the same time, there is nothing that suggests that it was God’s intention to continue a dialogue with humans much after David, considering David’s conversation with God through the ephod. So His role in the universe, as it relates to people, if we pay close attention to the words, was pretty much finished after that time. Then we might conclude that, from the point of view of the legislative part of the Bible, God’s role in the universe was to lay out rules and thereafter resign His responsibility toward the people. It might then follow that from that time on the people were on their own.

To take this a step further, one might ask if God was much interested in the Israelites as a group. True, the purpose of the exodus was to liberate a whole people, move them relatively safely across the wilderness, and give them a home nation. But the Bible really puts this happening in context with a covenant God made with Abraham hundreds of years before.

It is interesting that with almost no exceptions God never speaks to a group. When this was attempted at Sinai, there was so much danger that it was a dismal failure and never tried again. One could say God’s speaking to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, when the latter two conspired against Moses, was speaking to “a group.” However, that was also a dangerous situation. The cloud seriously affected Miriam and not Moses and Aaron only because they were properly protected.

No, God’s conversations were primarily one on one. This seems also to have been the case with the prophets, though I don’t believe their telling of their experiences with God was anything other than in their imaginations. (This extends right up to today when sermons go off on made-up tangents regarding what was meant by this or that biblical verse. I have no patience with anyone who says he speaks for the Lord.)

Certainly when the Israelites reached Canaan, there was no longer any communication. God seems to have withdrawn from “His people.”

Applying some logic, another possibility is that god might be a personal God, not necessarily a God to a specific people, other than at the time of laying out the law at Sinai.

A recent reader, Steven wrote:

… I am intrigued what your conclusions were for the sacrifices, especially the Day of Atonement and its ritual. If the sacrifices were to protect themselves from the “radiation” then why wouldn’t they use the Urim and Thummin instead of approaching the Ark?

Regarding the Day of Atonement, I discuss it briefly in the body of the book, but be sure to read about it in the appendix under Yom Kippur, pp. 353 ff., for my complete explanation.

Your question regarding the use of the Urim and Thummim is a good one. Again, I discuss them in various places in the book. Briefly, these objects were held in the “breastpiece of judgement,” worn with the ephod by the High Priest. They are very sparsely mentioned, but I do give my opinion as to their use.

The ephod was a portable communications device, and references to it, even later on, always connect it to a priest. Even when David asks that it be brought to him, it is Abiathar, a priest, who brings it. (1 Samuel, 23: 5-12) So, since it is always in the hands of a priest, I assume he was properly protected, (oil, clothing, head piece, etc.) from possible danger of radioactivity, just as he was when dealing with the Ark of the Testimony. In essence, there was just as much danger using the ephod (with its Urim and Thummim) as there was the ark. According to my research a number of protections were used by the priests. Sacrifices were only one of them.