Why ?

[marty54]

In Sunday school I was taught that God created the universe and then made man and woman, Adam and Eve.They sinned against God and where cast out of the garden of Eden to lead a limited life in toil and misery and bringing about death.
A few thousand years later Moses appears on the scene and while leading his people out of slavery is given the Ten Commandments by God.
Why did God wait for Moses to come along instead of giving His commandments to Adam who was the first man to sin against Him.?
I believe that the commandments that deal with daily human life, like adultery, stealing,killing etc where already considered crimes by human standards before Moses came along.

 

[LilyM]

In Sunday school I was taught that God created the universe and then made man and woman, Adam and Eve.They sinned against God and where cast out of the garden of Eden to lead a limited life in toil and misery and bringing about death.
A few thousand years later Moses appears on the scene and while leading his people out of slavery is given the Ten Commandments by God.
Why did God wait for Moses to come along instead of giving His commandments to Adam who was the first man to sin against Him.?
I believe that the commandments that deal with daily human life, like adultery, stealing,killing etc where already considered crimes by human standards before Moses came along.

To be sure they were, and that is why Cain, the first murderer, was punished by God for his murder. Be that as it may, people were still on the whole inclined and tending to sin, even after the punishment of Noah’s flood, even after God himself appeared to Abraham, even after He led Israel out of Egypt.

The story is one of God CONTINUALLY reminding his erring people, more and more explicitly, as to what His law is. The culmination is with Moses, when God not only sets out his law in minute detail but demands of the whole nation of Israel explicit agreement to abide by it.

 

[marty54]

“The culmination is with Moses, when God not only sets out his law in minute detail …”

Why Moses? And why stop there ?

There are more sins being committed today that put Sodom and Gomorrah to shame.

As regards “…sets out his law in minute detail…” is rather far fetched when he only presented Ten, it is man who keeps putting minute details to laws due to his continouse bikkering.

 

[LilyM]

Why Moses? And why stop there ?

There are more sins being committed today that put Sodom and Gomorrah to shame.

As regards “…sets out his law in minute detail…” is rather far fetched when he only presented Ten, it is man who keeps putting minute details to laws due to his continouse bikkering.

Most certainly not just 10. The laws and commands in Leviticus and Deuteronomy were indeed set by God for the people of Israel too -all 600+ of them. Not by men for themselves, they couldn’t even keep the 10, why would they add more?

And no-one says it stopped there - of course God sent his own son in Jesus Christ who revised and reminded us of God’s law and continues, through His church (or churches, depending on your beliefs) to do so to this day.

 

[puzzleannie]

In Sunday school I was taught that God created the universe and then made man and woman, Adam and Eve.They sinned against God and where cast out of the garden of Eden to lead a limited life in toil and misery and bringing about death.
A few thousand years later Moses appears on the scene and while leading his people out of slavery is given the Ten Commandments by God.
Why did God wait for Moses to come along instead of giving His commandments to Adam who was the first man to sin against Him.?
I believe that the commandments that deal with daily human life, like adultery, stealing,killing etc where already considered crimes by human standards before Moses came along.

yes, precisely right, Jesus tells us God has engraved the 10 commandments on every human heart, and yes Adam and Eve had perfect knowledge and understanding, without concupiscence, yet sinned freely anyhow.

Those who came after did know these laws by human understanding, common to all humanity, yet sinned repeatedly according to Genesis (and all secular history accounts). These laws were inscribed on stone to remind the Jews, who were in the act of breaking them even as God spoke to Moses, of the fact that they are first engraved on every human heart and are the basic laws that govern man’s relationship with God and others.

Because the Jews continued to break all 10 commands of the decalogue, they were burdened with hundreds of other additional laws and rituals, each designed to remind them of some aspect of the decalogue, to help them learn to obey.

 

[marty54]

Reading Leviticus which are said to be “The word of GOD HIMSELF as dictated to Moses” one finds laws that prohibit the consumption of shell fish.
Now could anyone please tell me that this not ridiculous, what is it with Shell fish that GOD found to be abominal that he prohibited man from consuming it and is put on par with homosexuality, adultery,incest ect.
Didn’t HE give leave of everything in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve except the one particular apple tree.
Now if Leviticus is really the “word of GOD…” is open to interpretation and ones own judgement. Truely Leviticus deals with some good moral aspects which even atheists practice but some other parts of it are really baffling, saying the least.

 

[SemperUbiSubUbi]

One possibility for those dietary and sanitary laws is that…God cared about His people. People knew nothing about bacteria back then…or viruses, or sanitization. Cooking was a rather hit and miss thing, done in a fire or primitive stoves. God forbade pork, and pork is a prime carrier of trichinella, which leads to trichinosis, severe cases of which are often fatal. Shellfish can also cause problems, not the least of which is allergic reaction. Ritual clensing may have had spiritual meaning to the Jews, but how many of us don’t know that we should wash our hands before we eat?

It has always seemed to me that God was primarily trying to take care of His Chosen people with these laws. The Old Testament for the most part deals with temporal punishmen and temporal reward, i.e. obey God, and you will be prosperous and healthy, disobey, and you will die. These laws have obvious temporal consequences. Jesus told us, however, that the ETERNAL consequences came from belief in Him, from obedience to God, from sin and one’s reaction to it, etc. So these weren’t part of the natural law of good and evil, they were rules God gave the Hebrew people which, when obeyed, carried their own rewards, and when disobeyed, carried their own punishment. Just my :twocents:

 

[CRW]

Reading Leviticus which are said to be “The word of GOD HIMSELF as dictated to Moses” one finds laws that prohibit the consumption of shell fish.
Now could anyone please tell me that this not ridiculous, what is it with Shell fish that GOD found to be abominal that he prohibited man from consuming it and is put on par with homosexuality, adultery,incest ect.
Didn’t HE give leave of everything in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve except the one particular apple tree.
Now if Leviticus is really the “word of GOD…” is open to interpretation and ones own judgement. Truely Leviticus deals with some good moral aspects which even atheists practice but some other parts of it are really baffling, saying the least.

Obedience! God’s demanded obedience. He demanded love in the details to these stiff neck people. He knew how disobedent they were, how they turned on Moses, after all the miracles he performed. The 1st reading yesterday was Heb 3: 7-14. In part; “The Holy Spirit says: Oh, that today you would hear his voice, Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion in the day of testing in the desert, where your ancestors tested and tried me and saw my works for forty years.”

Obedience! Moses was told to speak to the rock to get the water for the his people in the desert. Moses struck the rock twice with his staff instead. His disobendience of God’s word caused his death and he was not able to enter the promise land.

What we consider minor, strict compliance with Church teaching today, is disobedience of God. We fuss about one hour fast before communion, is chewing gum allow? We fuss about not eating meat on Friday’s of Lent; could God really send one to hell for eating meat on Friday? God is testing all generations to his word. He allow his Son to pass on His Authority to the Church; whatever you bound……

 

[Equus_Pallidus]

In
Why did God wait for Moses to come along instead of giving His commandments to Adam who was the first man to sin against Him.?
.

Sin only entered through Adam, to ask why did God wait is to ask why do babies die. God only knows

 

[Rolltide]

There was another lesson in between these stories that needed to be learned first as well, and that’s the story of Noah. So… the people of the world all turn wicked, and God rescues Noah and his family (and the animals of course) who are the only good people left. So, the flood destroys the world, and mankind is good from that point on forever, right? NOPE! The lesson is that man is made “in his own image”, with free will. We have the freedom to choose right or wrong. So, when the Ten Commandments come along, we know that we are free to choose to obey God, or not (and suffer the consequences). It also explains why God does not actively intervene in smiting sinners and so on. Even if he were to do so, evil people would always return, due to free will. To do so would be to lessen our free will by scaring us into obeying him. The lesson is that we have to be responsible for our own actions, but at the same time we have to come to God because we want to, not because we are forced to. It’s lessons like these that needed to be taught to lead up to Moses.

 

[marty54]

It is good to bring up the story of NOAH.
The deluge “” came about because GOD wanted to cleans the world. After Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, GOD sent his angels (Watchers) to teach man in various chores. Pleased with the sight of women these angles copulated with the women and begot the Nephilim or giants and a great evil spread around the world.So the great Deluge.

A very good story, recited a few thousand years back to teach about evil but does it really hold water to-day.

Don’t you think

 

[puzzleannie]

Reading Leviticus which are said to be “The word of GOD HIMSELF as dictated to Moses” one finds laws that prohibit the consumption of shell fish.
Now could anyone please tell me that this not ridiculous,
. . .
Truely Leviticus deals with some good moral aspects which even atheists practice but some other parts of it are really baffling, saying the least.

\again common error of using men’s thought to ponder God’s actions and intentions.
as was said earlier, those levitical laws were each given to remind the Jewish people of one particular aspect of the decalogue, to teach them in small baby steps how to understand and obey. The point was obedience even when the law was not transparently understandable or sensible in human terms.

for instance there are laws related to mixing–could not mix wool and linen in one garment, or eat meat and milk at the same meal, or separate dishes for different classes of food. These laws helped the people remember the consequences of breaking the commandments. One huge sin committed repeatedly in the course of Jewish history was taking wives from pagan peoples and the OT is full of stories of how catastrophic that was to their faith, families and well-being as a people. Such seemingly “ridiculous” laws about mixing were meant to teach by example obedience to the higher law rooted in the 4th, 6th & 9th commandments about marriage and family.

that is just an example but each of the laws had meaning and purpose in God’s eyes, and the writings of the rabbis are full of debates about them and their meaning and purpose, even tho at first reading by someone unfamiliar with the traditional Jewish way of life, still adhered to by Orthodox Jews, it may seem ridiculous. We commit a fatal error when we judge by our own intellect and understanding and experience alone.

 

[puzzleannie]

It is good to bring up the story of NOAH.
The deluge “” came about because GOD wanted to cleans the world.
. . .
A very good story, recited a few thousand years back to teach about evil but does it really hold water to-day.

Don’t you think

yes it is not only a true story of true events, even tho told in allegorical form it is also an object lesson. bottom line, sin has drastic consequences both for individuals and for who societies. That reality remains true throughout history. As with everything else in the OT it also has an aspect that foreshadows or points to something about Christ and the salvation mystery. In this case, baptism, the need to be literally dead to sin, to die in water and be reborn in water to new life cleansed of sin.

 

[marty54]

Lot’s daughters, fearing that they will not find husbands and that their line (Lot’s line) will die out, make their father drunk and lie with him; their children become the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites.

If this is not incest then what is.?
In Leviticus Incest is described as abominable yet these two daughters not only are not punished but are the source of two middle east ethnic groups.
It seems that the Old Testament is interpreted according to one’s own liking, because whilst some are drastically punished for their sins(Sodom & Gomorah) others just manage to get away with it (Lot’s daughters)

Jewish people of one particular aspect of the decalogue, to teach them in small baby steps how to understand and obey. The point was obedience even when the law was not transparently understandable or sensible in human terms

According to this reasoning it is time that the human race get taught “…in small baby steps how to understand and to obey” because the amount of sin being committed (abortion,wars,murder,destruction of the enviroment,…) not only puts us at par with the jews of old but even lower in the level of disobedience.

yes it is not only a true story of true events,

We only have the OT description of the events there are other stories of floods and deluges but not on the scale described in the OT.

1. There are 57,000 know species of animals (multiply these by two).
2. Noahs sons and their wives are supposed to be the source of all mankind. Why the difference in Aborigines, Asians, Africans,Mayans, American red Indians.
   Food for thought don’t you agree.

 

[LilyM]

So?? David committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, and Solomon had many wives. Were they punished? No - they repented.

Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife, had a child with her maid because they didn’t trust God to give them a child, she laughed and had no faith in God when told she would have Isaac. Were they punished? No.

Who is to say that they and Lot’s daughters, like the King of Nineveh, didn’t avert disaster by repentance when they did wrong?

Besides which Leviticus was written well after the time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Lot. Just as they weren’t bound by a lot of its dietary and other Levitical commands, possibly they weren’t bound by this one.

 

[marty54]

Besides which Leviticus was written well after the time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Lot. Just as they weren’t bound by a lot of its dietary and other Levitical commands, possibly they weren’t bound by this one

So according to you those before Leviticus had no sort of code of laws and anything was permissable except killing, because at least that is the only sin mentioned in Genesis.

Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife, had a child with her maid because they didn’t trust God to give them a child, she laughed and had no faith in God when told she would have Isaac. Were they punished? No.

First of all Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister, secondly after having a child with her hand maiden, Sarah made Abraham trun her and her son away.
Such a kind woman and such a devoted father to Ismael and for this God promised him that his offspring would be conutless like the sand.
Hello, somebody is getting his priorities wrong. I don’t believe it’s God but who ever wrote the old testament.

And finally you did not explain to me how it happened that from one species (genre of Noah) we ended with such an assortd amount of species or genres of humans. Surely the time lapse is to short for any evolution or mutation to occure.