Ahhh, the Swoon Theory. So, Jesus didn’t really die on the cross…

Crucifixion Statue 4 (Photo credit: DrGBB)

The swoon theory is, simply put, an attempt to explain the evidence used to support Jesus’ resurrection (empty tomb, appearances, etc.) by saying that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, but only appeared to have died. He later revived and his disciples either believed him to be resurrected or lied about his resurrection. There was no actual resurrection because no one can resurrect if they were never dead.

Rautakyy (I keep fighting the urge to spell his name with two k’s) suggested this in our recent conversation. He used the following as support

1.  Jesus stayed on the cross for a relatively short amount of time and crucifixion was supposed to be a slow death

 Rebuttal: People say he was beaten before the crucifixion but

                                          i.    There’s no eyewitnesses evidence for this

ii.    It might suggest that he did die does not rule out the possibility that he did not die

2. We have historical records of people who were taken down and survived.

3. When Jesus stabbed in the side, he bled and dead men don’t bleed. Ergo, he wasn’t dead

The above summary of his argument is mine and I believe it to be charitable and accurate.

Here’s some reasons why this argument is unconvincing to me.

1.  Jesus didn’t accidentally survive the crucifixion: The Roman soldiers knew how to kill people; it was their job. If a roman soldier allowed a convicted prisoner to live, he got killed. This was a good motive to make sure your prisoners were actually dead when removed from the cross. If your prisoner was still alive when you wanted him dead, you broke his knees (as was done to the other two prisoners). If you weren’t sure he was dead, you could pierce his hearts through with a spear (as was done to Jesus). If he was still alive at this point, that would do it. When Jesus was stabbed in his side, blood and water came out, not just blood and Rautakyy seems to suggest. It was not mere bleeding. So, the idea that dead men don’t bleed does not work here. Alexander Metherell (look him up) suggested that the spear went into his lung, where some fluid had collected as a result of heart failure and this was the blood and water reported by John¹. Either way, Jesus was dead.

Given the fact that (1) the Roman official could have made sure that Jesus was dead, (2) should have made sure that Jesus was dead (for his own sake), (3) was competent enough to tell a dead man from a living one and (4) according to the record, actually made sure that Jesus was dead, I am quite certain that Jesus was dead. And if he wasn’t, it was not because of incompetence, but because the soldier did not intend for him to die. If you want to argue for such a conspiracy, be my guest. Whose word should I take, anyway, a roman soldier whose life depended on making sure his prisoners were dead and was trained at it, or Rautakyy?

2.  If Jesus survived the cross, what then?

Jesus was subsequently embalmed with 75 pounds of spices, laid in the tomb and the stone was put over it. Then, after lying there without food or water for three days, suffocating, after the torture he had gone through and all the blood loss, he doesn’t die. He revives, frees himself of the burial clothes, rolls away the two-ton stone from the tomb and walks into the city on his injured feet. He then tells his disciples that he had been victorious over death (while looking like death itself!). Rather than get medical attention for him, the disciples begin to worship him as the risen savior.

No. Even if Jesus had survived the cross, he would have died in the tomb from the injuries he had sustained. If he survived those, he could never have convinced his disciples that he was risen. In his half-dead state, they would not have mistaken Jesus for a victorious conqueror of death as opposed to a lucky guy who managed to escape death by crucifixion. Rather, they would have felt sorry for him and tried to nurse him back to health. That leads us to my final point.

3.  Josephus told of how he had three of his companions who had been crucified removed from their crosses and given the best medical care but two of the three died anyway. Yes, Rautakyy, it was possible that people removed from the cross could survive, when they had not already been stabbed through the heart, declared dead and embalmed, then left without food, water or air in a tomb – one in three under the best medical care. This does not give me much optimism about Jesus’ chances at survival.

A Conversation with a Skeptic

Me: So, do you see why I have difficulty buying the swoon theory now?

Skeptic: Not really. I still think it is a good theory and your objections don’t work. For one, it is still possible that Jesus did not die on the cross. It is possible that the Romans conspired to let him live like Rautakyy suggested. It might have served their purposes. That way, the guard would have no fear of being punished for letting Jesus live.

Me: Now, I noticed that you did not actually provide any evidence to show that the Romans had such a conspiracy. You simply assert that it is possible. I do not deny its possibility, but in the absence of evidence for it, I have to reject it. I’m sure Rautakyy would agree.

Skeptic: There is evidence for it. But even if there wasn’t, it’s still more plausible than the resurrection.

Me: More plausible to whom? You or me? I can believe that you find it more plausible. You probably have some background belief (my English professor called them ‘warrants’) that makes it more plausible to you than the resurrection. For example, some skeptics reject miracles a priori so that almost anything seems more plausible to them if the alternative involves miracles. I myself probably have background beliefs that make the resurrection more plausible than any conspiracy theory (e.g. I believe conspiracies are by nature wildly speculative and I accept the possibility of miracles). Unless we wish to stop here and explore our warrants (which I think is bound to be more productive), I believe that we should just follow the evidence for the time being. The Resurrection has the empty tomb and the appearances as its evidence. Your theory tries to explain all that away but has nary a scrap of evidence in its favor. Surely, you must see why I have to reject it unless I shared your warrant?

Skeptic: No, I don’t want to go into warrants right now. Like I said, it has evidence. The romans were not too keen on killing Jesus. They used a strategy of divide and conquer. They set political and religious rivals in their territories against each other. They could have been doing that here, fueling the myth of Jesus’ resurrection in order to bring up a new faction that would help destroy the Jews.

Me: That’s not evidence. You’re simply saying that the Romans could have conspired to do this. I have never contested that. I simply argue that you have provided no evidence to show that they actually did it. That they could have does not mean that they did. Where’s the evidence that they actually did it?

This is a very bad skeptic. It must be because I’m hungry. I’m going to have dinner and then come up with a better skeptic in my next post.

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For more on this topic:

On Guard: Defending your faith with reason and precision by William Lane Craig

I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

Just search the internet

Hey, What Happened to Our Discussion?

Rautakyy and I have been having a discussion in the comments section of my post: Test for an Unfaithful Wife. At one point, he seemed to suggest that Christians didn’t believe that evidence was part of Christian faith (i.e. Christians were supposed to “just have [blind] faith”) until the dark ages. I responded by saying that this could not be true because the disciples appealed to evidence in the Bible which was written long before the dark ages. In particular, I argued that when the disciples said that Jesus was risen, they didn’t say ‘you just gotta have faith’. They said they had evidence for it – that they had seen Jesus for themselves. Ergo, evidence was a component of Christian faith before the dark ages.

Rautakyy responded by completely dropping that point and picking up something else entirely! He said that there are other explanations for what the disciples saw besides the idea that Jesus resurrected. This completely threw me off. I thought we were talking about whether evidence was a component of the Christian faith before the dark ages? Why are we switching topics?

Does that mean he thinks I’m right or did he just not see it? Did he get tired of that line of discussion? Is he coming back to it? I don’t know.

I would like to say I understand this, but I don’t actually. I tend to have a one track mind. Unless the person I’m discussing with changes the topic, I like to keep discussing the same thing until we either tire of it or come to some sort of agreement. If it starts going off-track, I like to bring it back in line. Switching topics like this confuses me. For one, it introduces a new topic that I might have no interest in discussing or no knowledge of. It also makes me wonder why we are discussing the new topic. In short, I’m finding that I don’t really like it.

I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it. I’ll just keep scratching my head. Next, I shall write about the swoon, theory, Rautakyy’s alternative explanation for what the disciples saw. Oh, joy.

Numbers 23 – Reading Note

• When Balak wanted God to speak to him, he went off alone (23: 3, 15).
• God met him (23:4, 16).
  • Balaam told God that he had offered sacrifices. Why did he feel the need to tell God this? Did he not know that God knew (23: 4)?
  • Balaam said that the Israelites did not consider themselves one of the nations (23:9).
  • Was Balaam calling Israel righteous (23: 10)?
  • Instead of sending Balaam away after he blessed the Israelites the first time, Balak asked him to try to curse them again. He was hoping that God would let Balaam curse them from another location (23: 11 – 13, 27, 28)?
  • Both the first and second oracles follow the same pattern:

Balak takes Balaam to a place where he can see the Israelites

They make offerings.

Balaam goes away to speak with God

Balaam returns and finds Balak standing near his offering.

Balaam blesses Israel

• God does not change his mind. If he says he will do something, he will do it. If he makes a promise, he keeps it (23: 19).

Numbers 21 & 22 – Reading Note

• The King of Sihon refused to let the Israelites pass through his territory. Instead, he led an army against them. The King of Og too was agressive towards them. They won both battles. In neither case were they the first aggressors (21: 21 – 26, 33 – 35).
• Balak, the king of Moab, was scared because the Israelites were so powerful. So he sent for Balaam to curse them (22: 4 – 6).
• Balaam worshipped Israel’s God, Yahweh (22: 7 – 9, 18).
• When the king of Moab wouldn’t relent, God allowed Balaam to go to him. Yet, as he went, God was angry. The text does not say who he was angry with or why (22: 21, 22).
• I wonder why Balaam’s donkey saw the angel (22: 33).
• This is another one of the angel of the LORD passages.
• I wonder what sin Balaam was referring to. Was it that he kept going even though the angel was trying to stop him (22: 34)?
• God is referred to as Elohim and Yahweh in this passage. Both names are used interchangeably.
• Balaam was a good prophet. He refused to speak anything besides what God had told him (22:38).

Slaves in the Old Testamant and Ancient Near East

This is another response to rautakky. His original comment is on this page: http://ferlans.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/comparing-foreign-and-native-slaves-in-the-books-of-the-law/

I think I understand you better now. It is nice to think about compassion, but even you must understand that setting it as the standard for determining what is right and wrong becomes problematic. If my compassion tells me not to punish my child for something he did wrong because it might make him unhappy (which indeed it often does), then my compassion be damned. I would rather have him unhappy than turn him into an immoral creature. Compassion is good for a lot of things, but there are things that are right or wrong, prudent or imprudent regardless of how compassionate they feel.

With that in mind, let us think about the issue of corporal punishment. When I was in high school, someone who did something wrong (yelled at a teacher, skipped class, stole something, etc.) would be brought before the entire school and flogged. If it was a boy, he was flogged on his bottom while girls were flogged on one or both palms. The number of stokes would correspond to the intensity of his offense. This would sometimes be combined with some other form of punishment – manual labor or suspension, etc. I can tell you from experience that the flogging was more effective than both other options. Manual labor was fun to some extent and suspension meant that you got to miss school (Yay!) However, the flogging was something you remembered if you ever felt tempted to repeat the offense precisely because it hurt. As long as it did not go out of hand, (which it never did as far as I remember), then it was better than giving them a talk about how wrong what they had done was and suspending them. So, it was very effective and suggesting that it be stopped merely because it went against your compassion was imprudent. I understand your concern about it getting out of hand but like I have pointed out, the law did not support this and remember that the major way in which people became slaves was by selling themselves. No one was going to choose you for a master if you treated your slaves badly.

Now, let’s think about the liberty issue. I fear you are forgetting that slavery in the OT was very different from the other types of slavery (in the other ANE nations, the roman empire, the new world, etc.) A slave did not become less human because they sold themselves as slaves in the ANE. It wasn’t about race. (You speak as if you have forgotten that). Let’s go over several points.

These are not data for Israel specifically, but for the Ancient Near East. Some things would have been different in Israel, but this ought to give you an idea of what we are speaking of.

1.The issue of ‘slave’ vs ‘free’

“Freedom in the ancient Near East was a relative, not an absolute state, as the ambiguity of the term for “slave” in all the region’s languages illustrates. “Slave” could be used to refer to a subordinate in the social ladder. Thus the subjects of a king were called his “slaves,” even though they were free citizens. The king himself, if a vassal, was the “slave” of his emperor; kings, emperors, and commoners alike were “slaves” of the gods. Even a social inferior, when addressing a social superior, referred to himself out of politeness as “your slave.” There were, moreover, a plethora of servile conditions that were not regarded as slavery, such as son, daughter, wife, serf, or human pledge.”- A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law 1.40

2. Slavery in the ANE was implemented for the benefit of the poor, not the rich. It was their escape from poverty. It was initiated by the potential slave, not the potential buyer.

3. Entry was overwhelmingly voluntary.

“A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece…Many of the documents emphasize that the transaction is voluntary. This applies not only to self-sale but also to those who are the object of sale, although their consent must sometimes have been fictional, as in the case of a nursing infant.” [A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law 1.665]
“War is only mentioned as a source of slavery for public institutions. The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and  grandmother sell a boy…There are also examples of self sale.” A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law 1.199

4.Slaves were protected from excessive punishment and abuse and the records of the day generally indicate humane treatment

“[Slaves were generally afforded protection from] Excessive Physical punishment. Even chattel slaves appear to have benefited to some extent from this protection” – A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law 1.43
“First, let us set apart the slaves–the booty of war or in servitude for various reasons–who by definition were totally dependent on their masters, although the latter appear to have treated them fairly humanely, and more like domestic servants.” – Everyday in Ancient Mesopotamia, 114

5.

“Moreover, in general there were probably only a few in each household [in Israel]–there is no indication, for example, that large gangs of them were toiling in deplorable conditions to cultivate big estates, as in the later Roman world” [The Israelites:101]

“Both types (Hebrew, foreign slaves) were domestic slaves living in their owners’ homes, not members of slave gangs working on plantations.” [Notes, Jewish Study Bible, Ex 21]

6. Slaves were regarded as persons and had legal rights. For instance, they could partake in business, borrow money and buy their own freedom

“The definition of slaves as property runs into conceptual as well as empirical problems. ‘Property’ is a shorthand and abstract term for a bundle of very specific and relatively exclusive rights held by a person (or group) relative to a thing (or person). To say that in any given society, something (say, a person) is ‘property’ has meaning only to the extent that the rights involved are specified and understood in the context of other rights prevalent in the society. For example, in many precolonial African societies, the kin group had the right to sell equally its slave and nonslave members, it had equal control over the wealth acquired by either of them, it extracted (or failed to extract) as much labor from one as from the other, and the majority of slaves were quasi-relatives or actual relatives, and, if prosperous enough, could acquire slaves of their own. Here, obviously, one must look at other features to find the difference between the slave and the ‘free’.” Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology 4:1191, s.v. “Slavery”

“Guterbock refers to ‘slaves in the strict sense,’ apparently referring to chattel slaves such as those of classical antiquity. This characterization may have been valid for house slaves whose master could treat them as he wished when they were at fault, but it is less suitable when they were capable of owning property and could pay betrothal money or fines. The meaning ‘servant’ seems more appropriate, or perhaps the designation ‘semi-free’. It comprises every person who is subject to orders or dependent on another but nonetheless has a certain independence within his own sphere of active.” [A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law:1632]

“However, the idea of a slave as exclusively the object of rights and as a person outside regular society was apparently alien to the laws of the ANE.” [Anchor Bible Dictionary s.v. "Slavery, Ancient Near East"]

7. In the ANE, manumission was rare because it wasn’t sought after. Slaves liked the job security, among other things.

“More usually, individual autonomy has meant exposure to danger and predation; safety lay precisely in the protection afforded by the bondage of dependence on groups and patrons. What was desirable was not freedom but belongingness.”  Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology 4. 1191

In fact, the OT law suggests that the slave might want to remain with his master too because being with him is good

“And if it happens that he says to you, ‘I will not go away from you,’ because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you…” Deut 15: 16

I’m trying to make a point with this. You make certain statement like,

“The loss of liberty has a terrible toll on people. When people become enslaved they become apathetic. But they also might become vengefull, they might even engage in terrorist action. As a result the society of the enslaving people becomes militarist. The treshold for violence goes down. Slavery reduces human dignity and the general value of human individuals becomes less in the eyes of all involved. Segragation grows between the two groups. And if there is a legal escape clause from slavery, people who are not slaves start to think it is their own fault that these people are slaves. Such clauses are added to slavery laws to smoothen up the guilty conscious of the owners about the oppression slavery is.”

These statements betray a certain mindset about what you believe slavery to be, how you think slaves were treated and what you think slaves were regarded as. Slaves in the OT were not thought of as sub-human. They had the right to their own lives, they had ‘human dignity’, they had value.  These are things one can easily deduce from the fact that they could buy their own freedom, their murder was punishable by death, the were not allowed to be punished beyond the punishment for other free Hebrews. In addition to all of that, they had their own property (whatever they had owned before selling themselves, the money paid to them for the sale, they could ‘prosper’ and buy themselves back). In the case of Hebrew slaves, their master gave them a portion of all he had made during the time they served him when they went free after 6 years. They were regarded as part of the family and participated in feasts. They could even eat the sacred offerings if they belonged to a priest (something that no one but members of the priest’s family could do). In other words, anyone who has read the Pentateuch well enough should be able to see this.

There were no ‘two groups’, no segregation, no loss of dignity (any more than the people lost dignity by being referred to as slaves of the king), no inhuman treatment, no apathy. In short, you have mistaken slavery in the OT for something else. This is my fault of course. I ought to have laid this groundwork earlier in our conversation.

Now, if you wish to argue that the slavery in the OT, a perfectly humane system implemented to help the poor of the society, affected them adversely when the rules were followed, do so using facts. Also respond to the facts that I cited here, preferably as comprehensively as I have.

“I simply cannot fathom, why an omnipotent, omniscient and alledgedly benevolent god did not come up with any better system of “wellfare” than what has been universally condemned by all the nations in the UN resolution as unethical and immoral. There may be flaws in human invented systems of wellfare, but the slavery system is just about as flawed as you can get.”

Fortunately for all of us,the fact that the UN says something does not make it true. As you probably agree, the virtual unanimous acceptance of slavery did not make it right. I do not believe that the UN condemned the practice of slavery as I have described it here and even if they did, their condemnation of what I have argued was a perfectly humane system does not make it wrong. So, before you begin to pass me off as a supporter of immorality and injustice, feel free to point out what exactly makes the system immoral (and “the UN says so” doesn’t count). In fact, give three things. Label them

The OT system of slavery was immoral because

1._______________________

2._______________________

3._______________________

If you make a claim like: ‘it stripped people of their dignity’, give examples like ‘it stripped people of their dignity by saying that they were sub-human(not true)’ or ‘it stripped people of their dignity by saying they had no rights or property (also not true)’. Don’t just make claims – support them. Doing this will help me find your point, a task that has been quite difficult up till now.

I hope you find all of this useful. I believe it is quite disorganized which is what happens when I write before I’ve had breakfast.

Evil Must be Stopped. God should stop it

More responses to rautakyy. After this, I’ll actually have to go write my reading notes.

Evil must be stopped. Would you not expect an omnipotent god to be able to convince any wrongdoer to see the wrong they are doing and compel them to stop? Yet, such interference is not at least visible anywhere in the world, not even in history or in the most grievous acts of human terror, or violence

So, that’s what you meant – that God ought to make wrongdoers stop. Well, you fail to make an important distinction. Yes, I would expect an omnipotent God to be able to make a wrongdoer see the wrongness of their action and force them to stop. He can do this by getting inside their heads and effectively fixing it, taking away their free will. He couldn’t do this otherwise because so long as they were free, they could refuse to believe that that they were in the wrong and even if they saw it, they could still not wish to stop it. Taking away their free will would be the way to go. But like I pointed out, we’re all wrong-doers so God would have to take away all of our free wills – he couldn’t be partial, could he? Then God would have a bunch or robots running around. In fact, he could have done this right from the beginning then no one would have ever sinned.

While I agree that he can do this, I would not expect him to do it if he were the Christian God. The reason is simple: The Christian God wants more for our lives than just the absence of suffering. He wants us to know joy. The greatest joy we can ever have is to serve God and have communion with him*. If the way to this great end is through suffering, grievous acts of violence against us by others and even our own sin, it will all be worth it in the end. A life that is merely free of those things is a most pitiable one and God would not give it to us when he could give us so much more. The idea that the evil in this world is something that God would get rid of if he were just powerful enough isn’t quite right. Good things result from them. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – isn’t that what Kelly Clarkson said?

Paul understood this even though he went through a lot of persecution. He said:

But he[God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9, 10

 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;perseverance, character; and character, hope.And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. – Romans 5: 3 – 5

And Peter said it too.

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.- 1 Peter 1:6 ,7

I don’t expect this to make sense to anyone who’s going through hard times. It didn’t used to make sense to me, either (See: Thinking about pain…). But it becomes clearer the more you think about it and eventually it just clicks. But I think it is important to separate the emotional reasons from the intellectual ones. The violence people commit against each other everyday feels wrong because it is wrong. But that does not mean that God does not exist or isn’t good for not stopping it by all possible means. Don’t let that stop you from thinking about the issue clearly. And may God give you the clarity that he gave me.

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* This is easy to see if you have the right understanding of who God is. Some people (like Christopher Hitchens) think of God as some sort of North Korean type dictator, not the beautiful being of whom Jesus is a perfect image, a God who loved us so much that nothing – not even a most horrible form of death – was too much to undergo for us.

Arguments for God’s existence

I’m trying to get out of writing my reading notes so I thought I might as well post this. Someone going by the name rautakyy and I have been having a conversation on slavery in the OT and he recently said this:

We have no knowledge of a creator. I am familiar with the arguments presented in behalf of such an entity, these are often intriguing, but I have not been convinced by them.

Oh well…

Most of those arguments are simply about a demiurgi, not about a benevolent god, not to speak about a personal god.

Yes, a lot of arguments for the existence of God like the cosmological argument say nothing about God’s moral character but others like the ontological argument and the moral argument do. The argument from the resurrection of Jesus is an argument for a specific deity – the Christian God

Even if we recognize that there is a creator entity (wich I do not), we do not know the character of such a being.

Well, you won’t know it if you just sit there and wring your hands. You have to find out. The knowledge won’t just fall from above and hit you on the head. Like I said, the ontological and moral arguments argue for a benevolent God.

There is a lot of wishfull thinking involved in religions describing this entity as good or benevolent, but it is not covincing, though it may compell people who really want that there is a benevolent god.

Maybe some religions have no evidence for their claim that God is benevolent, but Christianity does or at least claims to. Even if you reject the evidence as unconvincing, you cannot call it mere wishful thinking.

When something good happens religious people attribute that to the good nature of their god, but when something bad happens, they resort to “god is mysterious” notion. Correct?

What do you mean by ‘God is mysterious’? I believe that God is good all of the time so whatever he gives us, whether pleasant or unpleasant is for our good. Whenever I say that God is mysterious, I mean that I am not knowledgeable enough to understand his actions. This is true whether he has given me something pleasant or unpleasant.

Numbers 19 & 20 – Reading Note

• Foreigners were included in Israelite practices as we have seen in the previous chapters (19: 10).
• The people complained again when they had no water just like they had been doing (20: 2- 5).
• God instructed Moses and Aaron to perform a miracle to produce water in front of the people (20: 7, 8).
• God said to take the staff. What staff (20: 7, 8)? The commentaries I have read say it was not the staff of Aaron that had blossomed, but the staff with which Moses had performed miracles in Egypt
• Moses and Aaron did something wrong and God said they would not enter the land of Canaan (20: 9 – 12). Once again, I consulted several commentaries and they say Moses did several things wrong.

1. He struck the rock rather than speak to it as God commanded seemingly because he did not think that speaking to it would be enough and he did it twice apparently because he was angry
2. He spoke angrily to the people “Hear now, you rebels”.
3. He suggested in his speech that he was the one bringing water from the rock rather than God, “Must we bring you water out of this rock?”, which of course does not honor God.

I think those are speculative, but they might be pretty good guesses.

• Moses said that God sent and angel and rescued them from Egypt (20:16).
• The Edomites would not let the Israelites pass through their territory, for unstated reasons (20:18, 20). Israel did not attack them, but went their own way.
• I wonder whether Moses asked God for directions about such things.
• When God said it was time for Aaron to die, because of what he and Moses had done at Meribah, there are no recorded protests from either of them, no pleas, nothing. They just did as they were instructed (20: 23 – 27).
• Aaron died on Mount Hor, but it is not said what killed him (20: 27 – 29).

Numbers 18 – Reading Note

• God gave Aaron, his sons and his father’s family the responsibility for offenses against the sanctuary and he gave Aaron and his sons alone the responsibility for offenses against the priesthood (18:1).
• God said if the Levites went near the furnishings of the sanctuary (not just the sanctuary itself but the things in it), they wouldn’t just die, Aaron would die too (18:2, 3).
• There’s that repetition again. Verse 2 says, “Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the Tent of the Testimony.” Aaron’s fellow Levites were from the tribe of Levi – why repeat it? (18:2)
• God gave Aaron and his sons the priesthood as a gift. Aaron was definitely a good enough man to receive it. He was not perfect, but neither was Moses. The priesthood was a position of great responsibility. There were lots of things that needed to be done in a certain way so no one would die. It was also a position of great power and wealth. Everything in Israel that was given to God belonged to the priest. A great part of the sacrifices that the Israelites brought belonged to the priest as did the firstfruits of the harvest and the firstborn of man and animals. The sons were to be redeemed as were the unclean animals. (18:7, 9, 11 – 19).
• This is funny: The price for redemption for firstborn sons and animals was the same: 5 shekels (18:15, 16).
• The Most holy offerings could be eaten by every male in the priest’s family but the other offerings (including the holy offerings) could be eaten by everyone, both male and female, as long as they were ceremonially clean. I wonder why (18: 11 – 19).
• The firstborn of oxen, sheep and goats were not to be redeemed because they were holy. They were to be sacrificed (18: 17). Their necks were to be broken, if I remember correctly.
• God said Aaron wouldn’t have any share inheritance among the Israelites because he (God) was Aaron’s share and inheritance (18: 20). Is that code for “I have blessed you so much you don’t need any more” or does it mean something else? I really should invest in a commentary.
• Oh, and the Israelites were not to go near the Tent of Meeting or they would die (18:7, 22).
• The Levites were the ones allowed to work near the tent of meeting and they bore the responsibility for offenses against the Tent of Meeting. God gave them things in return for the work – their inheritance. It was the tithe that the Israelites brought. They would get no other inheritance (18: 21 -24).
• The Levites had to give their tithe from what they received too – 10% to Aaron, the priest. Their tithe had to be the best 10% of everything they were given. It was actually a tithe to God, but it was given to Aaron just as the Israelite’s tithe to God was given to the Levites. If they gave this 10%, they would not be guilty (in that matter) of defiling the offerings of the Israelites and they won’t die (18: 25 – 32).

Numbers 17 – Reading Note

• God said he was going to put an end to the grumbling against Moses and God once and for all by making Aaron’s staff sprout. This would mean that the people were not going to doubt Moses’ leadership again (17: 1 -5, 10, 11).
• God didn’t just make Aaron’s staff sprout like he said it would; he made it produce almonds.
• I don’t know where the people got the idea that anyone who went near the tabernacle would die.