The Shining Ones - The "god" of the Old Testament

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Please at least try to explain why when Yahweh came down to stay with the people, he needed a tent? This is so silly. And then he supposedly covered his face when the Moses or Aaron would come to see him.

And they had to disassemble and reassemble the tent when they moved.
 
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That commandment of Jesus to love Gd and one another was ALREADY contained in the Jewish law. Hillel the Elder, of the Pharisees, a generation BEFORE Jesus, stated exactly the same thing: he said that the whole law rests on two commandments, and all the rest is commentary. However, that commentary fills in some vital information regarding HOW to love Gd and HOW to love one’s neighbor. Moreover, you had stated that Jesus denied the Ten Commandments. Nothing could be further from the truth. The moral law encapsulated by these statements forms the ESSENCE of Jesus’ teaching. There are five commandments concerning love of Gd and five concerning our love of neighbor. How could Jesus have denied this? No Christian denomination that I am aware of agrees with such a viewpoint, least of all the Church.
 
He didn’t need a tent, He asked for one. Big difference. The full sight of the Lord is too much for an imperfect being to comprehend. He did it to protect His people.
 
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I never said He wasn’t.

Are you sure you’re actually reading my posts?
 
Yes. So please explain why Yahweh demanded they build a tent to exacting specs.
 
Dunno, don’t really care. I’ve always looked on it as the first step towards humility. This is what God asks of us, so this is what we shall do. God asks us to be obedient, both in the OT and the NT. This was just one opportunity for the Israelites to put that obedience into practice.

I’m sure there’s also some symbolic meaning behind most of the tent’s layout, but I’m not well versed enough with it to be able to say what that is.

I don’t see why specific requirements has any impact on His God-ship. It seems like you are just grasping for things you think seem odd.
 
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If you do away with something, is that not a form of denial or rejection? But this is FALSE. Jesus did NOT do away with the Ten Commandments; rather, He explained them in the same way Hillel the Elder had done: the first five relate to our love of Gd, while the next five relate to our love of neighbor. What Jesus DID add was that our neighbor includes our ENEMY as well as relative and friend. We are ALL brothers and sisters created in the image and likeness of Gd.

EDIT: I would add to this that even in Jewish law there is the commandment NOT to rejoice when thine enemy falls. However, LOVE of enemy is something new found in the teaching of Jesus.
 
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Just like with a child, you cannot teach them all the rules the moment they are born; they gradually learn and adopt good behavior as they become capable of understanding it.
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What!!?? So you mean that the “sin” Adam and Eve committed isn’t valid since they were in the “infant” stage of humanity and it doesn’t apply to every human being who have ever existed since them!!???
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You never replied to this post.
 
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Once again, you are conflating need for something with asking for that thing. God needs nothing. That doesn’t make Him requesting anything improper.

He asked for a tent because, with the tent, He could converse directly with Moses. During this time in history, people looked for great sings from their supposed deities. God came in the form of the storm, and the pillar of fire, and other such great signs, to impress upon the Israelites that He was indeed God. But using the tent, He could put on the display of the storm, then settle into something that allowed Him to talk with Moses more privately. It served the two-fold purpose of allowing a distinct, spectacular display of power, and allowing intimate, direct conversation in a way the Israelites would expect given the forms of worship they were accustomed to see from other groups.

All of this is conjecture though. We don’t know why, and I don’t really see why it’s such a sticking point to you.
 
Did you ever read medieval literature or Shakespeare, for example? Find it odd, including but not limited to the language? Same for the Bible: both OT and NT. It seems odd to us because it was written in ancient times by a culture foreign to us. However, its MORAL message and lessons are not (culturally) odd; they are eternal. One must understand how to extract these lessons, though.
 
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Yes I did.
ProdglArchitect said:
Wow… just… wow.

Man, it’s like you purposefully ignored the majority of my post, and focused in on one thing you could twist to suit your needs.

Are you sure you’re not a politician?

To answer your assertion, no, that is completely and totally incorrect. Adam and Eve were created perfect, with direct knowledge of God and control over their appetites. They made a willful choice to act against God, thereby cutting themselves off from His grace. Their children and following descendants, lacking this direct knowledge and grace, eventually fell into barbarism. Then, some time later, God stepped in with Abraham and began lifting them out of it, slowly but surely. Eventually, this culminated in Christ, when access to grace was reintroduced to humanity.
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This forum puts replies to certain posts directly under them and I didn’t see that response. I do now. Thanks.
 
Would you have a problem with actually reading The Shining Ones?
 
In the process of your open-mindedness, you are, perhaps inadvertently, expressing a heretical perspective from that of the Church AND rejecting Judaism and its Scriptures in one fell swoop.
 
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Why does it say this topic will automatically close in 3 hours? Why wouldn’t it stay open until we’re done commenting?
 
mattw699 said:
Please at least try to explain why when Yahweh came down to stay with the people, he needed a tent? This is so silly. And then he supposedly covered his face when the Moses or Aaron would come to see him.

And they had to disassemble and reassemble the tent when they moved.
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I just want to comment on this briefly.

God asked the Hebrews to build a tent as a place where they could begin to implement the Law that He had given them. They needed a place to put the Ark of the Covenant, which is where they were directed to meet with Him. They needed a place to conduct the ritual animal sacrifices. They needed a place where the priests and Levites would exercise their duties. And it was a tent, which was moveable and allowed for disassembling and reassembling, because they were wandering in the wilderness and then conquering the Promised Land. It wasn’t until David’s time that they were settled enough that they could build the Temple.

The tent, or Tabernacle, was a moveable prefiguration of the Temple, which was itself a prefigurement of Christ Himself. Read this paragraph from this link. (The article here is excellent even though it’s not Catholic):
The tent of meeting brings God to the earth. God is no longer in the heavens; He is here in the tent of meeting. Christ enlarged as the tent of meeting brings God to the earth. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). The word “dwelt” in Greek means “tabernacled.” The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. He as the Word was God, and one day this Word became flesh to tabernacle among us and bring God from heaven to earth in the tent of meeting. Today God is in the tent of meeting. This is clearly seen in 1 Corinthians 14 where people coming into the tent of meeting of the local church say “that God is among you indeed” (v. 25, ASV). God today is in the tent of meeting, and this tent of meeting is just Christ enlarged. Christ enlarged brings God to the earth.
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God wanted to allow His people to meet with Him. They couldn’t go up to Heaven…He graciously came down to Earth to meet with us. That is the whole story of Redemption…God coming down, rescuing us, and bringing us back up to Heaven with Him. His Shekinah glory filled the Tabernacle and then the Temple, which was a foreshadowing of Jesus coming down to Earth Himself. Jesus dwelt, or tabernacled, among us. This is the Good News itself!!

No sinful person can bear to look upon God in His glory, so this is why only the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies once a year upon pain of death. And God does not cover His face. God covered Moses with His hand and only allowed Moses to view his backparts, not His face. Afterwards, Moses’ face shone brightly just from seeing the back of God. His shining face scared the people so badly that Moses had to veil His face.

continued…
 
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