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"It ain't what you think!" and "There's more
to it than meets the eye."
Fabulous Old Testament Allegories
01/17/2020
The idea that humans developed up from lower forms of life and
struggled to graduate into the intelligence and ethical level of modern
Man is basically a modern myth developed in a growing pique against
religious oppression in the intellectual and social realms. See:
Origin of Modern Geology
As you may easily determine, great and advanced
civilizations sprang up overnight in the Indus valley, in the Orient, in
Sumer and Mesopotamia, in North and South America, and in Africa. These
civilizations were capable of doing enigmatic and wondrous things. See:
Ancient Civilizations
and The Great Pyramid.
One of the latest discoveries that has been translated turns out to be
an incredibly advanced set of trigonometric information set in the 60
based number system. This table allowed ancient builders to calculate
distances and values with greater precision than modern trigonometric tables.
While it is true that some segments of Mankind descended
into primitive savagery and subsistence hunter-gatherer living, total intellectual irresponsibility and
superstition, many did not. Without accepting the nature of the Golden
Age and its conditions, modern Man is struggling unsuccessfully to
understand fully the scope and level of these capabilities and
achievements of the latter, while determined to believe that all of Man
evolved upward rather than devolved downward. See all the articles under
"Reconstructions and Mythology Material".
It may be that not only is the Garden of Eden story an
allegory, which may have been developed early by the Akkadian and Hebrew mythmakers, but
this may have set the pattern in a larger sense than what has been
realized for that which followed. Maybe the entire Old Testament history
of Israel is an allegory with the very thinnest base in reality. This
would have been developed over centuries following the original
allegorical model,
and of course, the false, sin-breeding paradigm. Some of the allegories are
"hidden" or spread out over different books of the Old Testament, and many
of them relate to the romantic model of God and his people.
The Fabulous
Allegories
God meeting Adam in the Garden
of Eden
God has set the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the center of
Adam's home, the Garden of Eden, and then forbade Adam to eat the fruit
thereof. One day Eve at the Tree of Knowledge had just been beguiled by the
beautiful serpent and had eaten the forbidden fruit. She then brought
the fruit to Adam to share the experience. Now ostensibly, this was the
perfect woman, designed especially for Adam by God himself. Of course
Adam loved his mate more than life tself, and chose to share her fate, whatever it was, and so also ate.
God
appeared walking in the Garden in the cool of the day per usual to meet
with his children, but Adam and Eve hid in fear. What would have
happened if they had met God per usual? Adam could have said straight
up, "Something happened that you should know about. The woman that I
love more than my own life ate the fruit and brought some to me, and I
ate it to share her fate. What are you going to do about it?" Would
God have said?, "Welcome to adulthood and equality, my son, I would have
done the same thing" or would he have said?, "Love and romance be
damned! I can't stand to have any of my commands ignored, even if they
are arbitrary. Now, you must be cursed and pay a very heavy price, lose
your home; and you with all your future offspring must live in a
violent, dangerous, and troubled world, and age, decay, and die!"
No, in this allegory Adam's Sin was NOT eating the
fruit, but accepting this demeaning restriction upon his freedom and
sovereignty, and then choosing to be afraid of God! Traditional, law
oriented religion cannot see this truth in the allegaory.
Note: We should all
understand that the story of Israel in the Old Testament is at worst
largely invented or fabricated, at least greatly exaggerated and
embellished, and at best intended to be allegorical mythology.
Moses, and Aaron with his censor
disobey an angry God
The context is that the Children of Israel were camped in their square
formation–four tribes to a side–in the wilderness, and they were
continuing to murmur against Moses, and complain about their brethren
having been killed by the anger of the Lord. Moses and Aaron met in
front of the Tent of Meeting and the glory of the angry God appeared
overhead with the command , "Get away from the midst of this
congregation, that I may consume them in a moment!"
Moses turns to Aaron and essentially says, "Belay that!
Take your censor and incense and go out into the midst of the people and
intercede for them!" Even though the hail of stones from the sky had
already started, Aaron went out into the midst of them and stood between
the living and the dead, and the plague was stopped. So, the moral of
this story is what? That we are at times to stand in the face of an
angry God, defy his command and do the exact opposite? Or that we can be
more merciful than God?
Achan and the stolen loot
Jericho stood as a fortress city guarding the border to the land of
Canaan. In conquering their new land the Israelites had to deal with Jericho.
The Israelite army marched around the city for seven days. Then the priests
blew their trumpets, the people shouted, and "the walls came tumbling
down". God knocked its walls down with the understanding that all the
treasure and booty was to be his and be dedicated to the religious order and its service.
Now, scrambling over the rubble and combing the city on
their way to slaughtering every last man, woman and child, including the
animals, the soldiers naturally came across many Jericho citizen
possessions, including gold and silver treasures, that they coveted for
themselves and their families. As it happened, one man by the name Achan
actually took some of the treasure and hid it under his tent instead of
turning it over to the priesthood.
The next order of business was to conquer the smaller
city of Ai nearby. The people were confident of victory, and sent a smaller
contingent of fighters to destroy the occupants. This troop got soundly
defeated and got chased all the way back while suffering about a 2% loss in
fatalities. The people were now in despair, and Joshua and
the elders went before the Lord with dust on their heads, prostrated
themselves and complained, accusing Him of leading them into a no-win
situation, claiming that it would have been better if they had not set
out to conquer the land.
And the Lord said to Joshua, "Arise, why have you thus
fallen upon your face? Israel has sinned! They have transgressed my
covenant which I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted
things; they have stolen, and lied...Therefore the people of Israel
cannot stand before their enemies...and have become a thing for
destruction. I will be with you no more unless you destroy these things
from among you." Then somewhat elaborate instructions were given that
would lead to exposing the guilty party. "In the morning you shall be
brought near, by tribes, and the tribe that the Lord selects shall be
brought near by families, and the family that the Lord selects shall be
brought near by household, and the household that the Lord selects shall
be brought near man by man. And he who is selected with the devoted
things shall be burned by fire, he and all that he has, because he has
transgressed the covenant of the Lord..."
The next day they went through this process, and sure
enough the tribe of Achan came by and was indicated. Sure enough, the
family line of Achan came by and was indicated. Do you think Achan was
beginning to sweat? Sure enough, the household of Achan came by and was
indicated, and sure enough then Achan came and was identified, guilty as
sin, quaking in front of Joshua.
Then Joshua said the strangest thing to Achan, "My son,
give glory to the Lord and render praise to him; and tell me now what
you have done; do not hide it from me."
Give glory to the one who has just condemned you and
your entire family to be stoned and burned? Praise his name? We all understand that
God is displeased when we steal from each other, but do we make a fatal
mistake when we fail to realize that He becomes unhinged when we steal
from him? Tell what you have done? By this time the entire congregation
knew what Achan had done.
Well, Achan didn't give glory and didn't praise, but
merely confessed. Men were sent to his tent to uncover and retrieve the
booty that he had unduly sequestered. Then the somewhat guilty people of
Israel took Achan, all of his family, all of his animals and all of his
possessions to the valley of Achor where they stoned them with stones
and burned them with fire. "The the Lord turned from his burning anger!"
Wonderful! Not!
We need to ask what would have happened if Achan had accepted the
implication of "My son" and the invitation to praise? "Israel has
sinned, THEY have taken..." What is this corporate guilt business? Is
that because the Ten Commandments don't indicate that coveting is less
of a transgression than stealing? Every man-jack scrambling over the
treasure acquired in the battle wanted some, was tempted to take some
for themselves. Achan is especially guilty because he had the courage to
act? Or is that because we should all be
closer, more loving and sharing, in unity and more affirming and fulfilling to each
other so that the temptation wouldn't even arise?
If understood properly, this
is a wonderful allegory.
David and Bathsheba
It has been noted a few times down
through history that women tend to be practical, sometimes marrying for
status and security instead of being in love with the real man. With this in
mind, let's set the stage for prince Solomon going out into the wilderness
disguised as a shepherd tending a flock of sheep.
The story starts with us being
introduced to David as the youngest of the sons of Jesse. God told Samuel,
the reigning prophet of Israel, that he had repented of making Saul king and
that he had chosen a son of Jesse to be the replacement. When Samuel went to
visit Jesse, he found that David was the youngest and was out tending the
flocks of his father.
Maybe the nation came to love
David for his exploits, but that doesn't mean he was a lovable man for a
woman. We can see him as a rough character who became a champion killer, who
led a band of bandits surviving in the wilderness when he was estranged from
Saul the king of Israel. After his sordid adulterous affair with
Bathsheba, who was married to one of the premier warriors, he discovered
that she was pregnant, a big problem. David did not get to become king
because he was uncreative, and so he tried to hide his infidelity by
inviting Bathsheba's husband Uriah to come to the palace from the battle
front to be honored and feted. The plan was to have Uriah spend the night
with his wife so as to explain the pregnancy. When this plan failed, David
sent Uriah back to the front lines to be murdered so that he could then take
Bathsheba to wife legitimately as a noble gesture and obscure the
infidelity.
Bathsheba would be the one to know
about marrying a man for status and security.
Synopsize
the rest of the story
Song of Solomon
Some Rabbis have complained about this piece of literature being
included alongside the sacred Torah and the Prophets, claiming it is
somewhat pornographic and without spiritual merit. This of course is
amazing in and of itself given that the two other collections of
scripture in the Old Testament contain
stories and accounts of genocide, massacres, incest, bestiality, infanticide,
fratricide, patricide, unwarranted slaughter, murder, betrayal, gang rape, and explicit adultery. Talk about
swallowing a camel and spitting out a fly!
This book is an allegory that is
the final piece of the greater David and Bathsheba allegory. It is the crown
Jewel that is attempting to portray God's ardor and passion for his people.
The King with Queen Esther
It should be understood at the outset that the name or word for
"God" is not even mentioned in the book of Esther, and this story of passion
and lust, subterfuge and intrigue, treachery and betrayal,
vengeance and violence is devoid of any direct reference or special insight into the
character of God, devoid of any overt uplifting content outside of the
standard "the good guys win, the bad guys lose" plot. Beyond this, its
only possible spiritual value is if it is an allegory.
After her failing to favor him with a requested visit, the king of
Persia became displeased with his beautiful queen Vashti. After consulting
with his wise male advisers he had her banished from the court and now needed a
new queen. The advisers came up with a plan to search all the provinces of
the kingdom for the most beautiful young women to be candidates. After
spending a year being prepared in various ways to please the king, they all
spent a night in his chamber to win his favor. Wouldn't you know that the
king chose a young Israelite named Esther (name of the planet Venus) to be
his queen.
The king was so delighted with his new queen that he held a banquet
in her name, and did the completely unprecedented thing of granting a
remission of taxes to the provinces. But in this world all cannot continue
to be well. Haman plotted to destroy all the Jews and hornswoggled the king
into supporting his plot with a kingdom-wide edict.
When Esther learned of the plot, she entered the forbidden
space of the king unbidden and risked the penalty of death for doing so.
When the king saw her standing where she should not be, he knew that she had
an urgent request, he said tp her, "What is your request, my queen? It shall
be given to you, up to the half of my kingdom!"
Now this is REAL power, to be able to go where you are
forbidden to go and to be offered half of a world empire. No MAN has ever
been able to do that!
In the mind of enlightened Jewish believers, this is an allegory of God and his
bride, his people, and all of the other various aspects of the story are
merely dramatic window dressing. Concerning this story, what is ugly and
vicious on the outside is incredibly beautiful and romantic on the inside. |