Important Biblical Figures!

My favorite story in the Bible comes from Saul. Saul was chosen by God through Samson to become the first king of Israel. He took on David as a musician, but after David went to war he became more popular among the people. The saying went: "Saul has his thousands, but David has his tens of thousands" (in reference to those killed at war). So Saul became angry, he became jealous; he took it upon himself to seek out and kill David. Saul spiritually degrades throughout the story as a result of his obsession. He tried to kill his own son, Johnathan, with a spear because Johnathan was friends with David. He sent his armies out to find David. David was given the chance to kill Saul multiple times and spared him, and Saul became increasingly bitter (even "forgiving" David, then taking it back and trying to kill him again). This led Saul to break God's laws by seeking out the witch of Endor, who used her magic to summon the spirit of Samson (who berated Saul for straying from God's word and told him he would face destruction). Ultimately, when in battle against the Philistines he was likely to lose, Saul chose to kill himself. Saul's is an incredibly tragic story of obsession and conceit wearing away at a person's mind until there is nothing left, and I think it has great mythological value.

I'm pretty sure it was the spirit of Samuel.
Saul's almost bipolar relationship with his successor was arguably the result of being a man forced upon a throne against the will of God. The relationship killed his son, caused his married daughter to be divorced and remarried, and nearly ended in the destruction of Israel. Do you think that Saul's wrongdoing (ignoring commands from God at one point) was vindicated by what he did right, given that he didn't choose his position?

Rex wrote: Yes and no. Priests were to be consecrated in the literal sense, so they did nothing besides holy work. There are takes of priests abusing their power for personal gain (Eli et Al.) but those are always seen as evil and generally received justice.

Why can you decide for us to not talk about Moses? He's very relevant and has quite a bit of literature about him

that's the party line. I know what the bible says. I'm trying to go beyond the political sales pitch to the actual truth. Not just in Israel, priests of different nations had a lot of power and authority because people treated them as speaking for a deity. We know people used to put food in front of idols and after awhile it would be gone. Why? Because the priests would take it. These people were advancing the notion that their gods were all real, which in turn made people believe in the priest's connection with these gods and goddesses that they didn't know as much about. Knowledge is power even if that knowledge is made up.

I'm not deciding. I'm suggestion based on my desire not to offend Christians with what I believe is the unvarnished truth. It is not my intent to offend anyone even though this cannot be avoided at times. And I've hit Moses pretty hard on this site before already but to me he is a mass murderer worse than Hitler. So, knowing myself, I do make that suggestion purely out of respect to Christians who value Moses as a part of their foundation for their faith. It is purely out of respect.

David falls in that category as well hu then?

More on priests...

we're talking about a set of books where someone... or some "ones" had the actual nerve to write down words and say that God said them. The people who spoke to God were replaced by people whose job it was to "intercede". Meanwhile God seems to stop talking to people who are praying. So again... this to me suggests the birth of an industry surrounding divine contact, where people paid for the right to have someone else talk to God for them. After the books of Moses, most of the "logos deus" comes through the prophets, the the Book of Joe the Plumber 3:16. So in a way, divine contact "Seems" to have been made an industry of the elite.

For the sake of discussions in the abrahamic SIG, we kinda bracket that whole discussion unless you're making a thread solely for the purpose of it.

Well, we all have beliefs and I don't share mine every time it's vaguely relevant. At the same time, I can't make you not talk about it

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: David falls in that category as well hu then?

was that to me?

I would never compare David to Moses. Moses killed his own people just to enforce his own control over them. David, at least, seemed to be reluctant in becoming king. It was a big deal that David had Uriah killed so that he could take his wife. Moses forced the men of one whole tribe to go around killing their relatives who did not accept thus saith Moses; a move worthy of Game of Thrones. Moses also tells the people that he alone prevented YHWH from wiping them out completely and starting over with him and Joshua. And even though Torah requires a matter to be established by multiple witnesses the Israelites were threatened not to ascend the mountain after Moses.

See? I was trying to avoid talking about Moses and I'm talking about Moses.

ZealotX wrote:

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: David falls in that category as well hu then?

was that to me?

I would never compare David to Moses. Moses killed his own people just to enforce his own control over them. David, at least, seemed to be reluctant in becoming king. It was a big deal that David had Uriah killed so that he could take his wife. Moses forced the men of one whole tribe to go around killing their relatives who did not accept thus saith Moses; a move worthy of Game of Thrones. Moses also tells the people that he alone prevented YHWH from wiping them out completely and starting over with him and Joshua. And even though Torah requires a matter to be established by multiple witnesses the Israelites were threatened not to ascend the mountain after Moses.

See? I was trying to avoid talking about Moses and I'm talking about Moses.

Hey ZealotX, I know that you were avoiding talking about your beliefs here, but I appreciate them. I'm a Christian myself and though I could see how someone might see this as offensive, I find it enlightening. I've never heard this perspective on the story of Moses, so it is very interesting food for thought and something I will have to think on more. I may not necessarily agree with it, but I can at least have a newfound appreciation for a perspective I didn't even know was there! Thank you for being a little vulnerable and speaking your thoughts!

As the OP I am in the honest opinion that I would like all and any views of biblical figures here. As long as we are respectful to each other. For an Irish Catholic raised guy I have a poor understanding of the bible. And though I may not be Christian now in my beliefs there is still some good stuff in there that I am sure I glossed over by way of enforced study. So, everyone please keep sharing!

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

The Coyote wrote: Hey ZealotX, I know that you were avoiding talking about your beliefs here, but I appreciate them. I'm a Christian myself and though I could see how someone might see this as offensive, I find it enlightening. I've never heard this perspective on the story of Moses, so it is very interesting food for thought and something I will have to think on more. I may not necessarily agree with it, but I can at least have a newfound appreciation for a perspective I didn't even know was there! Thank you for being a little vulnerable and speaking your thoughts!

I definitely appreciate you saying that more than you know. Moses is worse than Hitler to me so its very easy for me to go all in on him; especially because I know how the story of Moses is normally told an accepted in a very one-sided manner. Imagine if Hitler was more successful. Imagine if there were no Jews anymore, because of him. Imagine if he had completely wiped them out. Would the story still be how horrible he was? Or would the story treat him as the hero who defeated an enemy because he was ordained by God to do so? What if anyone who might tell a negative story about Hitler was executed by Hitler's orders; even to this day? How long would it be before the only stories about Hitler were all positive?

How many people care about the Egyptians? How many Egyptians lost their lives in that Exodus story? How many Egyptians, in that story, were personally holding Israelites captive? And of course, many archaeologists say that Egypt only used paid workers to build the pyramids. But let's just keep going under the assumption (which is unfair to any descendants of Egypt if the biblcal narrative and its portrayal of them is untrue) that Egypt had enslaved the Israelites after Joseph had warned of the famine and the Israelites were given the land of Goshen, not as some kind of huge borderless concentration camp, but where they could freely grow crops and raise livestock. How many other governments just give large swaths of land to outsiders? Would America? But how many Egyptians suffered the plagues of Egypt? How many Egyptians voted on the policy, according to the bible, to kill the male children of the Hebrews? Moses, could have been like, hey bro... let's do a new policy. Since we don't want to overrun our host country how about if you have too many people some of you simply have to migrate elsewhere?

NO! All the Israelites must be kept together. No one else can do this work we're now forcing them to do. We obviously never built anything without using slave labor and didn't build anything before the Israelites arrived and swelled from a family of 12 brothers to this huge population. What are you? Part rabbit? A virus? But no, you can't leave because this pyramid you're working on is too important. With God on his side Moses, who had a personal relationship with the royal family, should have been able to be diplomatic and negotiate a peaceful exit for anyone wanting to leave. But no, its all Pharaoh's fault even though it was Moses's God who hardened pharaoh's heart multiple times just so that they couldn't leave in peace. According to the bible Pharaoh's like "Take your people and GT*bleep*O" and although this was the best way to ensure these people didn't have an entire nation for an enemy and that innocent people didn't get killed on both sides, no... no.... not good enough. Success... not good enough. We need to harden pharaoh's heart so that he'll change his mind. That way I can show off more of my magic and hurt more Egyptians! It's almost like God was having too much fun playing with them or that he got pissed off when the Egyptian priests could do the same magic tricks Moses did (or was Moses simply doing the same magic tricks they taught him how to do and lying about a new god sending him?). In any case the deaths of a lot of people could have been avoided if it wasn't for God seeming to want revenge for a situation they wouldn't have been in in the first place if it wasn't for the famine which he could have stopped. Or instead of going to Egypt why not stay in Canaan and have God send manna and have their land irrigated from rocks spraying water? You can part a sea and feed people in a desert and produce water from a rock. Wouldn't it have been easier to simply avoid the famine in the first place? Or was the plan to steal the gold from the Egyptians? Wait... Can't God just make gold?

There is so much of the Exodus story that is just so tragic and annoyingly avoidable for even a junior deity. We're talking about the Creator... of the whole entire universe and he waits for people to get hungry and thirsty because now they're left fertile ground where they used to be so happy that they forgot almost all about their old god YHWH. YHWH could have did the whole "angel of death" thing on the first leader who wanted to kill the first Hebrew child and sent ANY Hebrew with a dream, just like Joseph or Daniel, to tell Pharaoh if he kills a Hebrew kid any woman he slept with would be barren or basically, he would be magically made to have a zero sperm count. YHWH had many years to do magic tricks to convince the Egyptians that he was the true God long before anyone was enslaved.

But none of that happened. The whole story is about how great Moses is and how God suddenly couldn't tolerate anyone worshiping a god that wasn't even real; like a real friend angry with a kid because that kid has an imaginary friend that's been there while the real friend has been gone for years without any contact whatsoever. Who should be mad at who? But we can't kill you or even want to, even though you basically abandoned us to be enslaved. We should only blame the Egyptians and blame ourselves for worshiping their gods so much that we need to suddenly execute each other because suddenly we can't tolerate any other beliefs to be held by any humans from the same genetic bloodline. Pharaoh wouldn't let them go? No, it was Moses who wouldn't let them go. He was supposed to free them but he had to be their leader even after he freed them. No, they were only freed in order to become his subjects. And if they didn't believe him then basically, his word was the law and they could be executed. If they were forced to work maybe a task master, assuming the story was true, might whip them. But if they disobeyed the commandment not to work on the sabbath God might KILL them. What sane person wouldn't want to go back to Egypt? Would Jacob have ever done the same thing to Rachel? She took idols out of her father's house. She obviously believed in them. But not only did Jacob tolerate this; God tolerated this. So again, why now, why all of a sudden, could this no longer be tolerated under Moses?

It was because Moses was a monster and he was the voice representing the god YHWH. No one following other gods had any real need or responsibility to listen to him. He wasn't elected to be the leader. And he wasn't a king. His sole authority was as the representative of YHWH. And all of a sudden YHWH couldn't stand for anyone to have any freedom of thought when it came to religion. They were slaves in Egypt but they weren't forced to adopt new gods. Now they were forced to readopt the god who had abandoned them for 400 years and he couldn't even give them a tenth of that time to decide whether or not to worship him. No, they were forced to bow down because that's what MOSES needed them to do so that he would have the power and maintain the power. He could have exiled people who wanted to follow a different god. He could allowed people to go back on a voluntary basis. No... he'd rather kill them. That says a lot. These were his own flesh and blood relatives. This is the same man who the story says killed an Egyptian because he was so empathetic towards his people's suffering. How much suffering did he cause himself? He forced an entire generation to die simply wandering in the desert because he didn't like their attitude. And where did they get weapons from? Did they borrow that too on the way out? Or was it just gold and jewels that they looted? sorry.... "borrowed".

Moses was a sith, through and through, and much of the story is just propaganda designed to make him look like a hero and make the people look like everything that happened was their fault.

I asked someone, "if God told you to kill someone would you do it?" They said yes. I told them that's scary. Why would God tell you to kill someone? Why would you assume that was the voice of an all powerful Creator and not your own voice? Why do we seem to believe that an omnipotent deity NEEDS us to commit acts that our morality would prevent us from doing otherwise? And if he doesn't need us then why ask? Because maybe this isn't a god worth loving, trusting, or serving. Maybe this isn't a god at all. And how many people still believe in cutting hands and heads off because of what people believe? And because of what they do? Who was it that set that biblical and therefore "holy" precedent?

None other than Moses.


edit: My apologies if anyone was offended. I do respect your religious beliefs.