As we crack our bibles to Exodus chapter one, keep in mind that (as with Genesis) we don't have the foggiest idea who wrote the book—no hint of the author's identity or how he knew the things he relates as God's truth. Perhaps this is just as well since archaeology proves beyond doubt that the extraordinary tales of Exodus NEVER HAPPENED! However, not letting a little thing like "truth" stand in our way, what do you say we follow the herd and treat Exodus as a serious work?
We begin Exodus by noting the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, and Benjamin, which is the same list found in Genesis 49. No problem in this portion of God's word, except that whoever wrote the book of Revelation doesn't seem to have ever read the Old Testament. Revelation's composer doesn't know anything about Dan; instead he gives us Manasseh as one of the twelve tribes/sons of Israel—Manasseh being one of Joseph's twin boys. Okay. A slight discrepancy you might say, which it would be if not for the fact that a hell of a lot of MAJOR PROPHECY is tied up with the twelve tribes of Israel! In the framework of biblical prophecy a missing tribe of Israel is like a missing vital organ in the human body, meaning that it could prove deadly!
Right! Well in time all the "good" that Joseph had done in Egypt was forgotten and a new pharaoh arose who feared the Israelites—with good reason since they had "waxed exceedingly mighty" inside his nation. One must also rightly assume that the Israelites weren't the most popular people in Egypt since Joseph and his brethren had used the great famine to plunder Egypt of virtually all its wealth. This means that by the time a new pharaoh arose "who knew not Joseph" the majority of native Egyptians were likely toiling as tenants for Israelite landlords. As history amply demonstrates native populations will hate and finally turn on foreign plunderers, which American President George W. Bush and his murderous cabinet are now learning in Iraq. Anyway, in short order this new pharaoh stripped the Israelites of their wealth and power and enslaved the lot of them. It was pay back time!
None of this should have been a surprise to the Israelites since none other than Yahweh himself had told their ancestor Abraham that he would toss the lot of them into slavery. You'll find that dismal prediction in Genesis 15:13-14, wherein Yahweh gave the additional detail that this enslavement would last for a hellish 400 years! Now, let's get real here; if anyone had planned such a fate for someone he professed to dearly love, you'd have to assume that he must have had some just reason. But search every single page in the Genesis tale and you'll not find any rhyme or reason for the Good Lord's deciding to enslave his chosen, beloved children! Of course, from his own perspective, Yahweh offered a godly olive branch to Abe when he promised that his beloved children would be well paid for their living hell—as if all the gold on earth could make up for four centuries of slavery. God, talk about adding insult to injury—this has to be the first recorded example of that rule!
The lot of the Israelite slaves was a hard one—never-ending toil and doubtless every humiliation and abuse known by a slave at the hands of his or her master. In fact, it must have been doubly so since the Egyptians undoubtedly felt it was pay back time for the way the foreign Israelites had taken over Egypt. But up there in heaven, a trillion light years from the scene, for once Yahweh was true to his prophecy and left the miserable, wretched Israelites alone in their despair, as years stretched into decades and decades into centuries. Well, the Lord wasn't exactly true to his prophecy, since bible scholars and bible thumpers of every stripe have vainly tried to work out a 400-year enslavement within the time frame various verses of Genesis and Exodus muddily spell out. No matter how they toss the numbers, or cook the books, bible apologists still can't quite squeeze 400 years into the tale, which is made worse when whoever wrote Exodus declares in 12:40-41 that the time was 430 years. Worse still is information in 1 Chronicles 6:1, 1 Chronicles 23:6-13 and Exodus 6:16-20 allowing for a maximum time period of 352 years; or Acts 7:6 which backs the 400 year claim in Genesis 15. Being in a lenient mood here, I'll let this one slide with the afterthought that the Lord, dealing with all the problems of the Universe, might have been tossing out a rough estimate when he uttered his prophecy to old Abe back in Genesis 15; or perhaps he lost track of time up there in his isolated kingdom. After all, what's 30 years more or less when one is eternal? (For those of you who'd like a bit more insight on the question, here's just one link on the Internet)
Whatever the actual number of years in Egypt, the biblical narrative presents any logically-thinking believing Christian or Jew with a real headache. That's because the 400-some-odd-years sojourn in Egypt supposedly would encompass only four generations—the reason for which harkens back to God's prophecy in Genesis 15, where, in verse 16, he promises that Abe's descendants will return to Canaan in only four generations. Well now, perhaps isolated up there in heaven Yahweh had forgotten that humans no longer lived for eight or nine centuries, as they had before he drowned the whole planet in Noah's time; so maybe when the Omnipotent One uttered his prophecy he honestly thought four generations would do the trick. This supposition notwithstanding, humans, who have habitually squeeze five generations into just a hundred years, simply lacked the self control to wait one hundred years before procreating to help Yahweh with his prophecy.
Without doubt the Genesis 15 prophecy is why we find the bible offering only four generations from Jacob's son Levi to the birth of Moses, which we are to believe happened within a 400 year time span. Certainly the "how-it-could-have-happened" crowd have their excuses for this prophecy, such as the excuse that there are generations missing from Moses' genealogy. But their usual rhetoric doesn't even come close to explaining the obvious contradictions here. Exodus 12:40 plainly states that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. Genesis 46:11 tells us that Levi accompanied his father Jacob into Egypt, and that Levi's sons Gershon, Kohath and Merari had already been born at this time and were in the group that went with Jacob into Egypt. Kohath was the father of Amram, who was the father of Moses—who was born in the fourth generation! Let's read this blunt summery in God's infallible word: "Exodus 6:18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, and the length of Kohath's life was one hundred thirty-three years. 19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their genealogies. 20 Amram married Jochebed his father's sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram's life was one hundred thirty-seven years." (More insight on this aspect of the Exodus can be found at www.theskepticalreview.com)
The above outline is perfectly clear: Four generations had passed by the time of Moses's birth, which fulfills Yahweh's prophecy to Abraham, but creates a hell of a mess for the rest of Exodus, which we shall see when the Israelites leave Egypt. Also, I don't know if the reader caught the little tidbit about Moses' mother in the above verse. If not, read it again and focus on the fact that Amram's wife, Jochebed, was the sister of Amram's father, which means that Amram married his own aunt, making Moses both Jochebed's son and great-nephew. It also makes Amram and Moses both father and son and first cousins!
Marrying one's aunt is incest. Yahweh says so in Leviticus 20:19. Of course, Moses' family tree is one long record of incest, starting with Abe and his sister Sarah, but one must wonder why Yahweh would choose a product of incest to become one of the biggies of the bible? Why the double standard? But, let's leave family skeletons in the closet for now and note that by using a little simple math we discover that Moses' mother had to be 130 years old when he was born—she being born while Jacob and his family were entering Egypt. Certainly we encounter the "miracle of God" excuse when questioning Jochebed's extreme child-bearing age (such as in the case of Abe and Sarah), but more rational apologists get around the problem by simply ignoring it—a convenient and oft used device in religion. However, a few believers have taken the matter a bit more seriously, which has prompted some elaborate tale-spinning. Here's a Jewish take on the problem:
At this point, according to a tradition of Tannaitic provenance, Amram, one of the leaders of his generation, divorces his wife, Yokheved, reasoning that it is useless to chance having children if all male-children are to be killed. Other Israelite men follow Amram's course of action, but his daughter, Miriam, rises to reproach her father. 'Father,' she says, 'your decree is worse than that of Pharaoh—Pharaoh has decreed only against the male-children, but you decree against both males and females ...' In response to this reproach, Amram retakes his wife.The concept of a remarriage of Amram and Yokheved helps explain the presence of an older sister in the birth story. At the same time it explains why the birth of Moses is presented as if it were the birth of a first child. The reason is that Moses is the first child born after the remarriage of his parents. The ceremony of remarriage in which Amram retook Yokheved was no ordinary one. According to Rabbi Judah ben Zevina in the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 12a), Amram placed Yokheved in a palanquin. Aaron and Miriam danced before her, while ministering angels sang a verse from Psalm 113, "The mother of the children is happy." ... Extraordinary things happened to Yokheved at that time. The rabbis took bat Levi, daughter of Levi, literally. If Yokheved was the daughter of Levi, she would have been 130 years old at the time of her remarriage, having been born upon the entry of the Israelites into Egypt. So why is she called daughter, signifying a young woman? Because, according to Rabbi Judah ben Zabida (or Zevina), signs of youth were reborn in her: her flesh became smooth, her wrinkles straightened out, and her beauty was restored (B. Baba Batra 120a). Both the conception and childbirth of Moses were painless, for Yokheved was excluded from the decree placed on Eve (Sotah 12a, cf. Josephus Antiquities II, 1.220)—according to a gloss, by virtue of her righteousness. (Source: Moses and Jesus: the birth of the Savior from the quarterly publication Judaism, Winter, 1993 by Allan Kensky. Published by the American Jewish Congress, this magazine examines issues related to Judaism and Israel.
Whether or not you choose to believe that Moses and his mom were some kind of miracle folks, it will take more than faith to work out the four generation thing—even if it does come from the mouth of Yahweh—as we will see a bit later!
Surely most people have heard or read in Exodus chapter 2 the tale of Moses being put afloat in a bitumen-covered reed basket on the Nile to save him from Pharaoh's command that all Israelite infant males be killed. Exodus 2:1: "Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile."
Are we to understand that if Moses' mother had borne an ugly baby she'd have let Pharaoh's soldiers have him? That's the implication of 2:2! But realistically let me ask what parent would seek to "save" their infant son's life by placing him in a basket and floating him off down the crocodile-infested Nile River? If the crocs didn't lunch on him, then he'd likely float into a deserted bank and starve to death, or perhaps be eaten alive by wild foraging animals! Getting past this hole-in-logic start, let's get to the real reason the infant Moses-in-a-basket tale is to be found in Exodus.
What most don't know is that mythology is full of ancient god/kings who were saved in like or similar circumstances. The most striking of these is the tale of King Sargon of Akkad, who was put on a river in a reed basket, covered with bitumen, to save his life, has seen the "how-it-could-have-happened" bible apologists scurrying to find answers.
Supposedly relating an account from 2360 BC, a seventh-century BC neo-Assyrian text tells us: "My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and [...] years I exercised kingship."
Now Moses and Sargon weren't the only two ancient heros who sported this miraculous basket-on-the-water tale. Some dozen or so gods and heros could line up for that one. However, it is not be the purpose of this study to debate with the bible-thumpers about who borrowed from whom, that old "which came first the chicken or the egg" debate. The fact is that one might be disposed to believer that the Sargon tale was borrowed from the Hebrews if it weren't for the fact that history proves beyond doubt that the Babylonian Jews heavily borrowed from ancient legend to compose their bible, which was done a long time after the Sargon account was recorded. (See this author's Where Christianity Really Got Its Old Testament for the details of this.) To these facts we must add the overwhelming evidence (such as is found in Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman's book, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts) that the Israelites were never outside of Canaan! In other words, there was no baby Moses to cast on the waters of the Nile!
Exodus gives us very little detail of Moses' life in Egypt, except that he was reared by the daughter of Pharaoh. However, Jewish legend isn't slack on the details, even if it is all total fabrication. The Babylonian Talmud and the later Midrashic collections, including Exodus Rabbah, Midrash ha-Gadol, Yalkut Shimoni, and Sefer ha-Yashar, spin some very tall tales of Moses, all of which actually backs the evidence that the Jews were particularly prone to borrowing and exaggerating to enhance their "history" and legend. Indeed, when it comes to Moses, the ancient rabbis toss out some of the most absurd nonsense ever penned—not unlike what the early Christian Church did when creating legends of their infant Jesus. (To read some of these tales, go to the Jewish Encyclopedia online.
Whatever. Skipping right along the Yellow Brick Road, we next spy Moses murdering an Egyptian taskmaster for smiting an Israelite worker—a sin about which Yahweh was apparently unconcerned. The circumstances surrounding the murder and Pharaoh's determination to execute Moses for his crime, strongly indicates that Moses was not as powerful and respected in the house of Pharaoh as we are led to believe in Josephus and other ancient Jewish writings. Anyway, Exodus 2:14-15 says that Moses "feared" Pharaoh and fled to Midian, whereas Hebrews 11:27 tells us that by faith Moses "... forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king." Well, did Moses or did he not fear Pharaoh? Both accounts in God's infallible word can't be right. But let's not get hung up on trivia.
One thing we can be sure of is that Yahweh had respect for Israel, which is clearly stated in Exodus 2:25: "And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." The Israelites were in good company, since Genesis 4:4, Leviticus 26:9, 2 Kings 13:23 and Psalm 138:6 also report that Yahweh was a respecter of persons. Even though such a trait is not exactly good when one is in the god business, we could overlook it in a deity if it weren't for the fact that God's infallible word assures us that Yahweh, who never changes, has no respect for anyone's person: Deuteronomy 10:17 (For the Lord your God ... regardeth not persons."), 2 Chronicles 19:7: "For there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons." Acts 10:34: "God is no respecter of persons." Romans 2:11: "For there is no respect of persons with God." Galatians 2:6: "God accepteth no man's person." Ephesians 6:9: "Neither is there respect of persons with him." Colossians 3:25: "There is no respect of persons." 1 Peter 1:17: "And if ye call upon the Father, who without respect of persons, jugeth according to every man's work." Okay. Both assurances can't be right. One or the other is wrong! But ... let's not get hung up here either, since there are rougher waters ahead (so-to-speak).
Winding up in Midian, Moses settled down to shepherding, marriage and children, where he remained content for the next forty years, or until he was around 80 years old. The problem is that we don't know in whose tent he found this contentment, since Exodus 3:1 tells us that Moses' father-in-law was Jethro, but Numbers 10:29 contradicts this by offering Hobab as Moses' father-in-law. Even worse, Exodus 2:18-21 tells us his name was Reuel. It seems that bible-thumpers could care less who Moses' father-in-law was or was not, and it wouldn't bother me either if the contradictions were found in anything but God's infallible word. Whoever, or whatever the circumstances of Moses' domestic tranquility, things radically changed when he chanced to look up on Mt Horeb and spy a bush that burned but wasn't consumed by the flames—kind of like Christian sinners roasting forever in hell! It was at the burning bush that Moses first makes the acquaintance of the god of his fathers.
Apparently the Israelites had been toiling under the taskmaster's whip for some 400 years without knowing which god had abandoned them to their torture. Although he'd been working his way through Moses' family under different names (usually Yahweh, or LORD, and/or Elohim, or God), in this instance Yahweh tells Moses that his name was "Ehyeh", or in King James English "I AM THAT I AM". Of course we can't really blame Yahweh for hiding behind yet another nom de plume since he was the one who had cast the Israelites into their misery for no discernable reason. I mean, who in their right mind would want to own up to that? Anyway, a new persona is likely why Yahweh had the bold-faced temerity to tell Moses in 3:7 that "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows."
Come on here "I AM" (or whatever your name is)! Cut the crap! Whoever or whatever, it was YOU that dumped the yet-to-be-born children of Israel into bondage! And I ask this again: why? What on earth had these unborns done to deserve such a cruel predestination? I don't know about you, but that line in Cecil B. DeMille's film "The Ten Commandments" comes to mind here—the one wherein Charlton Heston/Moses asks John Derek/Joshua if his god requires a scarred back as the price of his favor?
After going through all the "I AM" nonsense, in verse 15 the Lord turns it all into mush when he tells Moses "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the LORD God [in Hebrew Yahweh Elohim] of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." Let's look at this again: Instead of "I AM," Yahweh is telling Moses to tell the Israelites that his name is really Yahweh Elohim, the same Yahweh Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and would be forever! Now in case you don't know it folks, here's one of the big lies of the bible.
Over in the New Testament, John 1:1 tells us this: "1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." In other words, Jesus Christ was the same Yahweh Elohim who created the universe, drowned the world in the time of Noah, and was talking to Moses in the burning bush tale. So, his forever keeping Yahweh Elohim as a name was a bunch of malarkey since he readily dumped it when he was born human, converted from Judaism to Christianity and went into the Messiah business! But this name game gets worse, as Exodus 6:2-3 spells out: "And God [Hebrew Elohim] spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD [Hebrew Yahweh]: 3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty [Hebrew El Shadday], but by my name JEHOVAH [Hebrew Yahweh] was I not known to them." Did you get this? The Lord is saying that Abe & family didn't know his name was Yahweh.
But in Genesis 14:22 Abraham uses the name Jehovah (Yahweh), as did Sarah in Genesis 16:2. In fact in Genesis 22:14 we read that "Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen." How could Abraham have named a mountain after Yahweh (Jehovah or the "LORD" as the KJV translators render Yahweh) if he didn't know his name? In other words, the "LORD" was lying to Moses in Exodus 6:3 when he declared that Abe and his boys didn't know his real name—which is, all-in-all, quite apparent since the name Yahweh/Jehovah appears 141 times in the book of Genesis!
You know, Yahweh would have been a good contestant on the old t.v. game show "To Tell the Truth" since someone could have asked him "will the real god please stand up!"
Well, whoever it was in that burning bush ordered Moses back into Egypt to free the Israelites from their slavery and with a set of instructions. Perhaps some of those instructions explains why Moses wasn't exactly raring to go. One thing he meekly protested was that the Israelites wouldn't believe his tale that he talked to God in a burning bush—at least showing that old Moses had a lot more common sense than do most fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews! After Yahweh shows Moses some conjuring tricks with which to convince the simple-minded Israelites of his bona-fides, Moses still tries to worm his way out of the task by protesting in Exodus 4:10 that he was "slow of speech" and "slow of tongue", by which he presumably meant that he stuttered. This is when Yahweh slips and makes one of the most disgusting admissions in the bible.
Unimpressed with Moses' argument, in verse 11 Yahweh retorts "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?" There we have it! All those millennia of deaf, dumb, and/or blind wretches groveling at the feet of Yahweh begging for healing, which the bible promises for the believer but never delivers, and they were barking up a blind alley, so-to-speak, since they were praying to the deity who caused them to be born blind, deaf and/or dumb in the first place! And notice that "merciful" Yahweh didn't offer to heal Moses, who was being asked by him to undertake the second most stupendous feat in the whole of the bible—Noah and his ordeal being (in my opinion) in first place. No. Not good old Yahweh. I mean, he can make snakes out of sticks, turn water into blood, etc., but all he could do for poor old stuttering Moses was to provide him with a spokesperson (how's that for political correctness?) in the person of his brother Aaron—thank you very much Lord!
With no way out of the predicament but to go to Egypt, Moses resigned himself and assimilated his godly laundry list of things to do. For one thing he was to tell Pharaoh just who Israel actually was: 4:22: "And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn." This declaration raises some questions. First of all, how could the Lord begat a son without a goddess? Second, the New Testament reveals that Jesus Christ was Yahweh's only begotten son (John 3:16, 1 John 4:9), and that he was the first born of many brethren (Romans 8:29). But this statement is rather kinky considering that Yahweh and Jesus were one and the same person. Even worse, since the prophets tell that Yahweh will marry Israel as his bride (Jer. 31:32; Hos. 2:1-23), we must conclude that Yahweh is going to marry his own son—showing where it was that Abe, Isaac, Jacob and Amram inherited their incest proclivities. Anyway, who was Yahweh's first born? Was it Israel or Jesus? Don't expect God's infallible word to enlighten you on this tangle folks!
Okay. Do you remember how Yahweh had promised Abraham that he would pay the children of Israel for their 400 years of slavery? Well, when talking to Moses via the burning bush, Yahweh remembered this promise and in Exodus 3:22 told Moses that "every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians." Now I don't mean to be harsh here folks, but have you ever noticed that throughout the bible when Yahweh rewards his faithful servants, it's always with someone else's wealth or property? I mean, it was Yahweh who cast the Israelites into slavery, using the hapless Egyptians for his purpose, yet he made the Egyptians pay the bill! Come on! We are assured that Yahweh owns everything in the Universe (Psalm 24:1, Psalm 89:11, 1 Corinthians 10:26, Job 41:11, Haggai 2:8), so if he has that kind of wealth, then why in the hell can't he spring for the bill once in a while—especially when he's cleaning up one of his own messes?
Anyway, when they prepared to leave Egypt, Exodus 12:35-36 tells us that the Israelites complied with Yahweh's instructions and robbed their former masters blind: "And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians ... and they spoiled the Egyptians." Certainly this godly admonition was not an isolated incident, as Ezekiel 39:10 makes clear: "They shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that rob them, saith the Lord God. " Nahum 2:9: "Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold: for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture."
It will hardly be a surprise to even the most casual bible reader that robbing is listed in God's infallible word as one of the big ten sins! (Exodus 20:15, Matthew 19:18, Leviticus 19:11, Deuteronomy 5:19, Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20.) Indeed, Psalm 37:21 declares that "The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again." There is no doubt that Yahweh was commanding the Israelites to rob the Egyptians and thus violate his own laws, although he lightens the implications by using the word "borrowing" when giving plans for the heist. Indeed, it's somewhat amusing when we read the bible composers' disguising the theft in Exoduss 12:36 wherein they claim that the Egyptians "lent" the Israelites their gold and silver! "Borrow"? "Lent"? Since there was no question of returning the loot, the Israelites robbed the Egyptians, and that was a sin, sin, sin—not that "sin" ever seemed to enter the equation when it came to Yahweh and his servants!
Okay, I know what's coming. Bible apologists are going to remind me of the verses I cited above, wherein we are assured that Yahweh owns the universe and everything therein, and say that plundering the Egyptians was not robbery because Yahweh was giving away wealth that was his already. If that's the case, then we must conclude that whatever the Lord gives us, he's not really giving it at all—that he can confiscate it on a whim! Let's say that is the case; this means that when Yahweh gives you the "gift" of eternal life it's really a loan, which means it's not eternal at all since he can reclaim it at his whim! Actually this argument makes me reflect on Matthew 6:19-21, where we read this: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (NIV) Since Yahweh robs people/nations of their earthly possessions at his whim, why would one suppose that their treasures are secure up there in heaven? Hey, with Yahweh's reputation, storing your treasures in heaven would be like putting your wealth in Al Capone's vault! Of course the real reason we read and hear this bilious crap of Yahweh owning all the Universe's wealth is because the bible was composed by men who claim to be the stewards of "God's wealth," which has proven a very lucrative partnership between an invisible god and his earthly, greedy representatives!
And so (as Exodus 4:20 tells us) off went Moses with his family in tow, and all was well until he was bushwhacked on the road. No. It wasn't marauders. It was his new-found friend, Yahweh! It seems that in all their conversation during the burning bush thing Yahweh had neglected to mention to Moses that he was royally peeved because one of Moses' sons was uncircumcised: " Exodus 4:24: "And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. 25: Then Zipporah [Moses' wife] took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. 26: So he [Yahweh] let him [Moses] go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision."
Now come on here folks! Are we or are we not dealing with a pathological homicidal deity here? I mean, talk about an unpredictable, murderous, illogical creature; here he was sending his chosen servant to Egypt to perform a monumental task, but then waylaid the poor trusting fool on the road with homicidal intent over an unperformed circumcision! When the Lord got his tiny bit of bloody flesh, he magnanimously spared Moses' life and "allowed" him to proceed along with the Lord's business—the "business" of Egyptian genocide! And speaking of circumcision, consider that it's one of the world's oldest pagan customs; it's bloody, cruel and it predates the Old Testament/Tanakh by thousands of years! (See this author's Genesis study for a discussion on circumcision.
Well now, no thanks to Yahweh, Moses made it alive to Egypt and promptly presented himself to Pharaoh. Now old Pharaoh, being smart enough to perceive that he was dealing with a fire-breathing homicidal god who was prone to lie, cheat, kill and steal when the occasion presented itself, wisely decided to be rid of the Israelites rather quickly. But God would have none of that! He had cast the Israelites into bondage for no good reason, set the Egyptians up as the fall guys, and now he was hell-bent on killing off a large number of helpless people—and no rational human was going to spoil his fun, Pharaoh or not. So what did the "LORD" do? He "hardened" Pharaoh's heart, which means that he prolonged the Israelite's bondage so that he could torture and kill Egyptians.
Well, the bible being the bible, here we have another of those contradictions in God's infallible word. You see, we are told in Exodus that Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart, but whoever wrote I Samuel 6:6 never heard this version of the tale because he complained to errant Israelites: "Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?" So, which is it. Was Yahweh responsible for hardening Pharaoh's heart, as he glibly admits, or did old Pharaoh do it to himself? (God's "infallible word" indeed!) This problem aside, let's note that old Pharaoh must really have been a sensible guy, since Yahweh, as the story unfolds, had to harden his heart eight times to keep him from releasing the Israelites. In other words, Pharaoh must not have been quite the old bastard portrayed in yeshivas, Sunday schools and films!
I think we all know the Egyptian plague tales sufficiently so that we don't have to wade through them here in detail, even though they are fraught with problems. One such problem is found in Exodus 9:6 "And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one." Whoever wrote that verse was mistaken because the Lord missed some Egyptian cattle, as Exodus 12:29 informs us: "And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle." Come on: Either Yahweh had previously killed all the cattle, or he didn't! Well, in the above one can get a taste of the problems with the plague tales, but for those who'd like more discussion on the problems, I'll send you to Farrell Till's article Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives".
Okay, back to the tale. Trapped like rats at the "mercy" of a homicidal deity, Yahweh murdered the helpless Egyptian men, women and children (and animals) with a variety of ingenious tricks. He tortured them with utter darkness, he sent locusts to bring on mass starvation, he sent frogs to blanket the land, he poisoned the Nile River with blood, he rained deadly hail stones down on their heads, he covered them with boils, etc., etc., until the land was a ruin of death and stink. Perhaps the cruelest of plagues was when Yahweh murdered Egypt's firstborn during the world's first Passover: Exodus 11:5: "And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts." As you read the details of this mass murder, keep in mind that Israel would have been long gone if Yahweh had let Pharaoh release them as he tried to do six times before the Passover slaughter. But, in verse 9, Yahweh explains that he was planning to kill Egypt's children so that his "wonders" could be magnified in the land: Pharaoh-heart-hardening number 7 coming up!
In Exodus 11:7 we find a candid admission from the Lord: "But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." I know; we've already gone over the respecter of persons thing, but I'm going to harp on it again because here we have a god who is supposedly the supreme, loving father of us all saying that he had chosen only one people on the whole planet to receive his divine attention, blessings and mercy. Have you ever wondered about this? I mean, we have a number of instances when Yahweh could have spared nations of men, women and children suffering and utter destruction by simply opening their hearts to his word—something that Jesus Christ claims he's going to do one day. Instead of doing this, he brags in the bible about purposely closing people's "hearts" so that he can smite them, such as we find in Isaiah 28:13: "Therefore shall the word of Jehovah be unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." (ASV) God's Word, Today's Bible Translation renders the verse this way: "The LORD speaks utter nonsense to them. That is why they will fall backwards. That is why they will be hurt, trapped, and captured." This same sentiment is found in Isaiah 6:10 "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed." (NASB) This parallels Acts 28:27: "For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." If you believe that the bible is God's word, then you must see that surely God isn't interested in the common masses; as an admitted respecter of persons, his only interest is in those whom he specially chooses for his divine "love"—something to consider as you read on in his "infallible" word!
It's at this point that Yahweh introduces the world to the "celebration" of his infamous Passover and its death angel. How apropos that part of that original ritual was slitting the throat of a lamb or goat and smearing the fresh blood on the door posts of one's house, which is yet another example of Yahweh's obsession with blood, and which culminates with the faithful being commanded to eat the flesh and drink the blood of his "only begotten" son! If you believe the tale, then the angel of the Lord saw this smear of innocent blood (Exodus 12:13), and would know who was and who was not to be murdered. So successful was this venture that the Lord, in his enthusiasm, commanded that his "holy" Passover was to be kept forever! (12:14) Well, the Lord may have commanded it, but his loyal Christian converts never seem to find this little gem in their bibles since they've long since replaced Yahweh's eternal Passover command with a pagan European celebration called Easter, with its bunny rabbits and colored eggs.
But while we're on the subject of Passover, notice that Exodus 12:44 uses the occasion to reinforce slavery: "But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat [the Passover] thereof. Am I the only sane person on the planet when it comes to reading this tale and comprehending the implications? I mean, how the hell can one find sympathy for the enslaved Israelites when their god, who is murdering half of Egypt here, allows them to own, mistreat and even kill slaves? Let me give some examples:
"... you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
In the next verse we find that Israelites could be bought and sold by fellow Israelites: "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever." (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT) In other words, you can use this loophole in the bible to keep your male Israelite slave a permanent captive by holding his wife and children hostage!Since women were always viewed as something akin to subhuman by Yahweh's word, it is no surprise to find that Israelites were also allowed to sell their daughters into sex slavery: "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment." (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
Here's a revealing one: "When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)Even the New Testament church wasn't opposed to slavery, as we find in Ephesians 6:5: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ." (NLT) This is magnified by Paul in 1 Timothy 6:1-2: "Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them." (NLT) (Can anyone doubt that a Christian slave owner was responsible for this little gem being included in "God's infallible word?")
Again, when reading the story of the Exodus it's hard for any rational person to feel sympathy for Israel and contempt for Egypt when we really uncover the sordid details of Israel's conniving, murderous god and his attitude for the rest of humanity. But, for God's sake, we'll persevere.
It was only after an estimated 500,000 Egyptians had been murdered by the Lord's Passover death angel that Yahweh sprung the final phase of his death trap, which he did by "unhardening" Pharaoh's heart. Once free of Yahweh's spell, Pharaoh, as any sane person would do, promptly gave the Israelites the old heave-ho.
One can almost hear old Pharaoh's sigh of relief as he watched the Israelite masses waddle off into the desert. It was a premature sigh, as Yahweh soon zapped him with yet another dose of heart-hardening. And so Yahweh's unwilling puppet Pharaoh took off in pursuit after the departing Israelites. Finally catching up to the lot at the Red Sea, Yahweh sprung his trap on what was left of the Egyptians in a cunningly-devised water death, which we've all seen in technicolor thanks to Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston.
One thing you can say about the All Loving One—he does have a flare for inventive murder! I mean, blood on the doorpost, death angels, etc., and now a death-trap path through the Red Sea. However, there is one little problem with the tale, which is found in Exodus 9:3, where we read that the Lord killed off all the cattle, oxen, asses, camels, sheep—and horses—in "a very grievous murrain." Good grief! Here we go again! I mean, if old Cecil B. DeMille had had this much trouble coordinating his movie script in The Ten Commandments, the film would have been a disaster! I say this because after killing off all Egypt's horses in his "murrain," we read in Exodus 14:23 in God's infallible word that "... the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen." Come on: either all the horses were killed off by Yahweh's murrain, or they weren't!
Exodus 15:1 tells that after the great slaughter at the Red Sea, Moses and the children of Israel sang praises to the Lord, part of which said "The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name." (15:3) So much for all those bible-thumpers who declare that God is a god of peace—a loving, kind, merciful god! No one, god or otherwise, who is described as a "man of war" is anything but a damned menace to this planet—especially a "man of war" who sets up whole nations so he will have the excuse to annihilate them! But sing on, poor Israelites, sing praises to your god because the last laugh will belong to the dead Egyptians!
After God had put Pharaoh and his people out of their prolonged misery, he turned his "love" on the poor Israelites, who didn't fully realize what kind of deity had them in his grip, they being cut off from his "mercy" for the past four hundred years. Anyway, moving right along toward the Promised Land, Exodus 13:17 says "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines... " This little slip of the pen tells us that whoever wrote Exodus wasn't writing in the lifetimes of Moses, Aaron, Joshua and company. The reason I say this is that the author mentions the "land of the Philistines" centuries before the Philistines were established in Canaan—proving that whoever he was, the author of Exodus certainly was not Moses, or (as some claim) Joshua!
I suppose this is as good of a place as any to tackle another issue, which is the number of Israelites that exited Egypt into the "wilderness." According to Exodus 1:7 the children of Israel "were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong; so that the land was filled with them." (RSV). We get an idea of how strong they grew by skipping ahead to Exodus 38:26 wherein we find the results of a military census listing the number of men 20 years of age and older. That number is given at 603,550. From that number the total Israelite population of that time has been conservatively estimated at approximately 2 to 3 million, while some offer, perhaps more realistically, twice that many. Let's explore this number issue a bit further.
Genesis 46:26-27 says that 70 souls from the house of Jacob went into Egypt. Now, as a former professional genealogist I have no problem with 70 Israelites reproducing millions in 400 years' time—even with Acts 7:14 in God's infallible word contradicting Genesis 46:26-27 when it assures us that the number of souls who accompanied Jacob was 75! Seventy or seventy-five souls is of no consequence when we are discussing people numbering into the millions. On the other hand, if we believe God's prophecy and are talking about only four generations of reproducing, then the numbers are ridiculous. They are ridiculous for another reason and that is because the Torah (i.e., the first five books of the Old Testament, or Tanakh), gives details that squash the notion of such large numbers. For instance, when Pharaoh decided to kill all the Israelite new-born boys, he "spake to the Hebrew midwives, (of which the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah)" and told them to kill all the new-born sons of Israel. Did you catch this? Only two midwives for all Israel! How could there be millions of Israelites, popping babies out by the bushel load, and only two midwives? (Actually, while on the subject of those midwives, note that they lied to Pharaoh to cover their disobedience to his orders, and Yahweh rewarded them for their sin! Exodus 1:18-20.)
There are numerous other clues that the numbers were not as reported, such as when the whole congregation of Israel gathers to listen to Moses or Aaron (Ex. 16:10, 35:1, Lev. 19:2, Num. 20:8, cf. Josh. 8:35), or when they gathered to gaze upon Moses (Ex. 33:8), or assembling at the doorway of the tabernacle (Num. 16:19). There is NO WAY that millions of people could gather at a door, or hear Moses speak. We also find that Aaron and his sons had to officiate at all the offerings, which raises the question of how could they do this for millions of people? (Lev. 12:6-7)
Christian apologist Edward A. Morris concludes that "The idea that there were were literally 600,000 Israelite men in the Exodus as suggested by the current Old Testament manuscripts is fraught with difficulty and probably ought to be abandoned. The alternative explanation explored in this essay and elsewhere is that the thousands digits of the 24 tribal population figures were originally intended to be taken as 'clans' or 'troops,' with the result that the total population of Israel was probably around 20,000 instead of two million. This view is clearly suggested by the distribution of the hundreds digits of the same population figures, and it appears to be the most plausible explanation when all the facts are considered. It does not argue against the inerrancy of Scripture as it was originally written, but it does illustrate the fact that there are copyist errors in our current manuscripts. (Source: www.noble-minded.org.)
Perhaps the real clincher here is found in 1 Kings 20:15 when King Ahab of Israel numbered all the people of Israel—keeping in mind this census was taken hundreds of years after the exodus, when the numbers should be at least doubled: "Then he [Ahab] numbered the young men of the princes of the provinces, and they were two hundred and thirty two: and after them he numbered all the people, [even] all the children of Israel, [being] seven thousand." Did you get this? Only seven thousand Israelites! Yes, I know; "Israel" in the time of King Ahab was composed of only 10 of the 12 tribes. But, the two-tribes of the Kingdom of Judah must have been considerably smaller than the ten-tribes of the Kingdom of Israel, and even if it were the same size, then we are talking about 14,000 people—not 2 or 3 million! To make sure these lesser numbers sink in, let's note that when the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell in 720 BC, the total population at the time has been estimated at between 400,000 and 500,000—numbers that would be utter nonsense had their ancestors numbered into the millions at the time of the Exodus.
If I were still a fundamentalist Christian, at this point I might be tempted to cave into the old fundamentalist attitude that God said it, I believe it, and that settles it! Well, for the sake of the story, let's adopt that attitude and believe that millions of Israelites traipsed out of Egypt with Moses at their lead. However, there remains the problem of how millions of Israelites could have been born in only four generations, which Yahweh prophesied to Abraham? To emphasize the point, we are told that Moses and his kin were born in the fourth generation, which strongly indicates that we are to believe that the millions who left Egypt with Moses were also born to the twelves sons of Israel and their offspring in only four generations. To believe such a thing would require the faith of an imbecile, meaning that we have a major prophetic failure here folks! But, to keep the story flowing, we're going to forget Yahweh's prophecy failure, and focus on those millions of liberated Israelites launching themselves into the desert.
Do you remember hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans? Countless thousands of people were stranded in various shelters and, despite the aid of speed boats, helicopters, jets, air conditioned busses, walkie-talkies, cell phones, etc., the logistics of moving them turned into a waking nightmare. With that in mind, imagine the logistics of moving millions of men, women, children, pregnant, infirm, invalids and their herds of sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, camels, horses, geese, ducks, etc. out of Egypt—on foot. Calculations, made by those who know how to do that sort of thing, tells us that a group of 3 million people walking 10 abreast with 6 ft between rows would extend for around 340 miles (3,000,000 / 10 * 6 = 1,800,000 ft. = 340 mi). Moreover, since we are assured that the Israelites took "very many cattle, both flocks and herds" with them, which would have greatly increased the distance—perhaps to 500 or 600 miles.
As if this teaming multitude wasn't a horrible enough logistic nightmare, all those people would have been walking behind herds of animals dropping excrement and urinating, turning the road into a filthy mud-muck. Imagine those walking, say 100 miles back, and what they were traipsing through. Can you imagine the mess 200 or 300 hundred miles back? What about 600 miles back? And speaking of urinating, what about the toilet facilities? How did the multitude of Israelites find the privacy when the time came to relieve themselves? Did they go out into the desert, or did they just squat beside the marching column? After doing their "business" did they run like hell to catch up with their family, herds and flocks, or did the whole column stop when someone had to "go?" Again, recall the filth inside the New Orleans Superdome when the toilets backed up from overuse after a few days, and then imagine 3 million people and their millions of farm animals dumping and peeing along the road out of Egypt.
Now, imagine it's getting near sunset (I know: the sun doesn't set, but the bible composers didn't know that the earth revolves around the sun so I'll use the expression here), and the Israelites were weary. It's time to set up camp. How were orders conveyed from the front of the column to the rear, some 400-600 miles in distance? And how was the camp organized, by which I mean how much area was allotted to each family? Let's say the average family consisted of four persons, and let's assume they had tents. Giving them a camping area of 500 square feet would be about right. Leaving no space between the individual family camps, it would take 9 square miles, or 5,760 acres for their collective tents. If we concede the obvious, which is that they would leave some little space between family camps, we would have to double the area to some 18 square miles, or 11,520 acres. This doesn't account for the area needed for their herds and flocks. In fact, we must assume that each family's herd or flock was encamped near them, since it would have been complete chaos to camp a dozen miles or so from one's animals since they would need constant tending. This would now increase the encampment to many extra square miles.
Okay. We have a tent city of millions encompassing many, many square miles. In Deuteronomy 23:12-14 we are informed that the Israelites were commanded to be careful with their hygiene. This is prudent, and we give these early Hebrews credit for including such practical measures in their holy book, even if the principle was likely borrowed from their captors during the Babylonian Captivity. Anyway, here's the verses: 23:12: "Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad. 13 And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee. 14 For the LORD [Yahweh] thy God [Elohim] walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee."
Let's don't even wonder why Yahweh would be walking about the Israelite camp, nor why he'd worry about seeing and perhaps stepping in excrement. The fact is that Israelites had to go outside their camp to defecate and/or urinate. That was the law! Now what about those camped in the middle of this multitude? It's one in the morning and you awaken with the need to go and you're 9 miles from the edge of the camp! What sheer hell as you run at full speed towards the desert! Let's say that your daily dose of manna has given you the runs (honey can have that effect on some digestive tracks); what pure misery to be camped four or five miles from the nearest hole in the ground! Come on here—try and picture the constant coming and going of people trudging to and from the toilet!
Ignoring the fact that repeated attempts to find traces of the Exodus in the Sinai desert have turned up nada, and forgetting that archaeologists like Finklestein and Silberman have conclusively proved that there was no Exodus, we are taking the fundamentalist to the limits of his/her faith by continuing! But continue we shall.
With Pharaoh and his people neatly disposed of, the Israelites soon started to feel the effects of moving a mile or two per day in searing desert heat, slopping through urine-soaked cow dung and goose squirtings. Under those conditions it didn't take long before being Yahweh's "special people" started losing its luster. For one thing the Israelites were tired of manna, which is understandable. I mean, in jail a prisoner who is forced to subsist on a diet of bread and water is being punished—that's what eating manna for 40 years, breakfast, lunch and dinner was like. Israel wanted meat! Exodus 16:8: "And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that the LORD heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD."
First of all when the people complain, Yahweh tells Moses that it's not against him, but against Yahweh himself. That made the Israelites apostates and heretics. It made them deserving of punishment, which has been a point successfully used by religionists from the time of the ancient Jewish priests, to the present. At any rate, in 16:9 we read this: "And Moses spake unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the LORD: for he hath heard your murmurings. 10 And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud." Here is one of those infamous examples of "all the congregation" of Israel gathering to hear Aaron and/or Moses speak. How could millions do that? They couldn't! (We're not through with the quail thing, and will cover the impossibility of this "miracle" in the next segment.)
In Exodus chapter 17 Yahweh's takes another vengeful exception to a people who were not "lucky" enough to have been favored by him with his "truth." This time it was the Amalekites. Exodus 17:10: "So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." Once again we read about the setting sun, even though Yahweh, as the sun's alleged creator, should have known what every elementary school child now knows. The setting sun notwithstanding, notice the absurd tale of the Lord causing the Israelites to "prevail" when Moses' hands were uplifted, presumably in prayer and reverence to Yahweh. When he dropped them, the Amalekites "prevailed", which translates into Israelite soldiers being slaughtered when Moses, suffering from sheer exhaustion, wasn't paying proper homage to his egotistical god! Continuing with the tale, verse 14 informs us of Israel's ultimate victory and that "... the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." So important was this spirit of vengeance that Yahweh repeats it in Deuteronomy 25:19: "... you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget." Unfortunately the Lord didn't seem to understand that by having the thing recorded in the Torah he was making sure that it was permanently remembered—thus undoing his own command!
Here's a curious one found in Exodus 18:11: "Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them." In this verse we are reading evidence that there are other gods out there in the celestial realm, and that Yahweh acknowledges them—even though he brags that he is above them all! This realization if repeated in other instances, most notably in the ten commandments, where Yahweh commands that you are to have no gods above him. A careful reading of that command actually means that you can acknowledge other gods as long as you don't place them above Yahweh! All this harkens back to the ancient Semitic cultures from whence so much of the Jewish scriptures were borrowed. Those cultures promoted a number of different deities, although they usually allowed for one supreme god who ruled the rest: One more proof of the Old Testament/Tanakh's origins.
Speaking of the famous ten commands, let's move on to these and give them the once over:
Exodus 20:1 "And God spake all these words, saying, 2 I am the LORD thy God [Yahweh Elohim], which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Here we have a command that is so inconvenient that the Catholic Church has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide it from their believers. This is why, in numerous Catholic catechisms the second commandment is expunged from the Decalogue and the tenth is split into two, to preserve the number of ten commandments! Catholicism aside, hundreds of millions of Protestant Christians continually break this command when they display graven images of Jesus, either as a baby in a Nativity scene or hanging on a cross, or in some illustrated bible story or article.
Exodus 20:5 "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [Yahweh thy Elohim] am a jealous God [Elohim], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."
Before going to the meat of this commandment, I'd like to pause here to ask the reader if he or she has ever consider the whole concept of worshiping a god? Let me put it this way: Recently I was watching something about how one of my favorite films had been made. One of the minor stars, who had (at that time) recently won an Academy Award, turned out to be a real pain in the ass during the filming. Despite the fact that he was a virtual unknown in comparison to the film's real star, he insisted on his "rights" in keeping with his status of an Academy Award winner. The film's director noted that such "stars" don't last long in the industry when word gets around of their repulsive ego. In short, no one likes being around an egotistical vampire! However, when it comes to the bible and God, we blindly consider it the Lord's due because, we are told, he created us and gave us life. Even if the Yahweh of Genesis did create the heavens and the earth, and everything therein, which he most assuredly did not, then why would such a much-touted loving, benevolent being insist on people groveling before him? Why is he so quick to murder whole nations of innocents when a king or other leader offends his vanity? Why would he want anyone to slit the throat of unoffending animals and splash their blood on his alters just to say I'm sorry for being born a sinner? Well, I have an answer to those questions.
The fact is that the bible and its commands don't reflect the will of a god, but harkens back to the vain bastards who created the world's first religion and priesthood and demanded the unyielding reverence of the minions who were expected to grovel at the THEIR feet! In the name of some invisible man-made god, they bullied and cajoled superstitious morons into blind obedience. No god needs animal sacrifices, nor (as we shall discover later) sacrifices of oil and flour, gold and silver; but a priesthood does! Let's get real: oil, flour and lamb are the ingredients of lamb stew—and how convenient that Yahweh designated "his priesthood" the recipients of those ingredients! As many readers of this site know, back in the late 1970s I worked for the late Pastor General of the Worldwide Church of God, Joseph Tkach, in Pasadena, California. In that capacity, and before Tkach received his elevation, I occasionally had the opportunity to be in the company of the WCG's founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, whom we were taught to revere as God's end-time apostle. Although the old man carefully cultivated a public image of kindness and concern, I'm here to tell you that out of the public eye he was a contrary, vicious old bastard and totally vindictive to those who crossed him. If anyone doubts this, they only have to read the autobiography of his own son, Garner Ted Armstrong, whom he disowned in the late 1970s, and the viciousness with which the old man sought his revenge. (Another excellent source is former WCG minister David Robinson's tell-all book, Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web. Go to this link for excerpts from both books.) Although I no longer give a damned about Herbert Armstrong, from what I've read of other church foundations, I can tell you that he seems typical of the egotistical tyrants who have lorded it over their ignorant faithful, trusting sheep, who form the hallmark of religion. I say that in religious organizations like the old WCG, one can find the foundation of an Old Testament/Tanakh god/religious system that demands groveling and worship!
Getting back to the no-image command, the obvious problem here is that billions of Christians have lived and died venerating the images of all sorts of beings. For those who want to argue that the bible is God's infallible word while they venerate the images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, saints, archangels and the like, are simply lost to illogic. Related to this, we note that Yahweh promises to punish the sinner unto the fourth generation for the sins of the fathers, which is the epitome of injustice. That Yahweh meant business is not to be doubted since he repeats the same warning in Deuteronomy 5:9. However murderous such a pronouncement is, the same Yahweh—the god who never changes—turns around in Deuteronomy 24:16 and says that "fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin." So determined is this face of Yahweh, that he makes a note of it in Ezekiel 18:20 when he writes that the "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him." Which is it, Yahweh? Which of these infallible pronouncements are we to believe?
Aside from this obvious contradiction, we should also wonder where the omnipotent god of Moses was during the thousands of years his faithful followers were yielding to the instructions of his ministers and priests—the millennia during which they bowed before and prayed to images? If he is indeed a god of goodness, why not simply inform his faithful via divine intervention that they were worshiping in folly? Would not this be the actions of a fair, just god, instead of threatening them with worldwide fiery destruction, which he makes the theme in the book of Revelation? And what of the Lord's promise that he would show "love" to a "thousand generations" of those who love him and keep his commandments. A "thousand generations" would certainly encompass the Jews of the 20th century, and we all know how much favoritism he showed to Europe's Jews! Once more we find a biblical promise from the Lord that wasn't kept.
20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD [Yahweh] thy God [Elohim] in vain; for the LORD [Yahweh] will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Okay. Every time someone professes to serve God and yet teaches or keeps a man-made custom in place of his commands, such as substituting the pagan Easter worship for the eternal Passover command, he or she is guilty of breaking this command. So, if you really believe you are following the "infallible word" of your bible's god, then carefully, carefully consider everything you do or say. If you're just a fraction off and seek to justify it with your church's theology, then you've broken this commandment and Yahweh Elohim will hold you guilty and your children, and your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren and your great-great-grandchildren—and we all know about the vengeance of the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
20:8 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work. 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD [Yahweh] thy God [Elohim]: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. 11 For in six days the LORD [Yahweh] made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD [Yahweh] blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
I think all will agree that the Lord, with all the detail, is making damned sure that everyone reading this makes no mistake that the seventh day of the week is his special day and EVERYONE is commanded to keep it holy! Now, for anyone who's ever been in the religion business, it's very obvious why a special day is set aside for "worshiping" a deity. If people weren't threatened, coerced, and/or forced to congregate and pay homage to a god via his priests, ministers, rabbis, or government mandate, they'd soon be off doing their own thing and the accumulated clergy would have to get out and find honest work like the rest of humanity! Such a prospect is why it was necessary to bully faithful, but superstitious morons, into believing that violating a holy day would spell disaster. This being said, the fact is that virtually all Christianity is keeping the wrong day as a "sabbath." Even worse, their clergy knows that the day they preach, the first day of the week, isn't the sabbath of the ten commandments. Sure they have all sorts of lame excuses for their blatant breaking of Yahweh's eternal command, but this no way undoes the dire pronouncement's in God's infallible word for breaking one of the big ten. Moreover, their actions immediately bring to mind the New Testament warning, supposedly uttered by Jesus Christ in Mark 7:7, "Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Listen, either Yahweh commanded his sabbath day be kept forever, or he didn't. Further, let's not forget that Jesus said that a Christian must live by every word of God! (Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4) If, by your Sunday-go-to-meeting actions, you slap God in the face and essentially claim that "forever" doesn't mean 'til the end of time, then you might as well toss out the rest of the Lord's "holy bible!"
For any concerned Christians, or anyone interested in the history of the sabbath change, why not take at look at this article in The Catholic Mirror, which was the official mouthpiece for the archdiocese of Baltimore back in the nineteenth century? The lengthy article is titled THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH THE GENUINE OFFSPRING OF THE UNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HIS SPOUSE. THE CLAIMS OF PROTESTANTISM TO ANY PART THEREIN PROVED TO BE GROUNDLESS, SELF-CONTRADICTORY, AND SUICIDAL, published on September 2, 1893, and is posted on the Net at: http://godkind.org/romes-challenge.html or at: http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/chalng.htm. Here you will find the candid admission of the Roman Catholic Church that it was on their authority that the seventh-day sabbath was changed to the first day Sunday. Of course, those who've read my history of the Christian Church already know the history of this change. But what most seventh-day Sabbatarian Christians ignore is the fact that NO ONE can calculate on what day occurred the seventh day of the ancient Hebrew patriarchs! The Jews themselves don't have an original calendar, nor does any other culture on earth. To know that we'd have to know on what day the alleged creation took place. In other words, all the argument over sabbath days, holy days, etc., is so much mish-mash because no one knows where the hell, time-wise, we are in history!
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NEW!
Rival Caesars
by
Desmond Dilg
