"Are you saying that God blessed Abraham and Sarah BECAUSE they had the same father???"
No. I don't presume that "God's" blessing was determined by the incest. God is supposed to be beyond determinism. What I said is that he blessed her, and that she was an incestuous woman. Thus, there is no censure,but rather acceptance...and the implication of righteousness.
"When you start with one male and one female, there really is no other choice: for them to "be fruitful and multiply", they must interbreed"
Lack of "choice" is not a legitmate defense here, Ken. Choice was infinite. Nobody is criticising the mythos of Adam and Eve. Their choices were indeed limited to incest with their kids.
"The next generation had to marry cousins; there was no other choice."
This was under the control and planning of God. God's ideas were either stupid and evil, or they were intelligent and Holy. Why do you fight against the "blessedness" of incest which I brought up?
"Since Adam and Eve had perfect DNA with no genetic defects, there was no physical problem with their offspring interbreeding"
Apparently there were. According to your own references, their offspring had to be probibited from intercourse with kin. Furthermore, your words and tone expresed moral disgust at the idea. Whereas now you consider it more of a medical question. Why shouild god hate an act which He considered morally pure? Why "abomination" for an act which was His own preferred method of having humans be "fruitful"? It is not their fault that the method of incest multiplied genetic defects in offspring, is it? Their DNA did not modify as a result of moral shortcomings, did it? Why the expression of such intense loathing?
As you say, God saw nothing wrong with it as it was His whole idea. Later He has second thoughts when He discovers that the cattle and sheep fare much better when they are bred outside the herd.
"Fornication by definition means sex outside of marriage, so Abraham and Sarah never committed fornication together"
That is a wild statement. What? You figure it was necessary for people to have some sort of primitive marriage ceremony before they could practice incest? Who told you this?
You said that Abraham came of a pagan society, and of course he was a sinner; but you make this wild statement that he and Sarah did not practice incest till after they were married.
"The issue you are bringing up is not one of incest, but a question of whether it was right for Abraham to marry his half-sister"
No. The issue I brought up was the question of the incest with Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Reuben, etc.--and of the strange affection God seemed to have for these particular kinds of relationships. Abraham the Father; Jacob, the Father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Don't you find it abominable?
"Yes, Lot had fallen so low that he offered to have his two virgin daughters raped by a violent homosexual crowd..."
Yes. And he later fathers his daughter's kids. Not only does God not condemn this, but He has his angels take extraordinary neasures to save this filthy man who was trying to get his daughters gang raped. The angels blind the men outside, and save Lot. The next morning they take he and his wife and daughters by their hands and personally lead them from the city. This extreme solicitousness from the hands of angels indicates the incredible fondness God felt for this depraved and pathetic man. Such a travesty.
Not only does God not condemn Lot, but He considers him so righteous and good, that He sends angels to personally lead him and his family by the hands out of the city. So, although we are appalled by the lack of censure, we are more horrified by the assistance and special protection given to this immoral man. Actions speak louder than words. We are incredulous at the assistance and comfort and personal attention of God to this; and we are disgusted at the claim of righteousness.
RIGHTEOUS
1 : acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2 a : morally right or justifiable
"Can you really read this story and conclude that God approved of what Lot did? I don't think so."
God called him "righteous", and His actions show that He so considered him. If God hated sin He could have fried him like He did the others.
"Can you begin to understand why I am excited about my relationship with God as a result of what Jesus did for me?"..."Revelation 6:11 talks about white robes being given to Christians"
Believe me, Ken. your excitement is palpable.
"Verses 4 through 32 which you quoted are NOT a prescription to cure leprosy. Those steps were only to be performed if the leper had ALREADY been healed!"
Don't get hung-up on semantics. The verses use the word "cleansing". If you prefer it, that is fine. The word "cleansing" was used in the Old and New testaments to indicate a moral condition of depravity. "Healing" was used for someone who was (as an instance)--lame.
The previous 59 verses are spent describing how to diagnose leprosy (and how to determine whether or not it is infectious), and how to differentiate the sores from such other afflictions as "boils". It describes procedures for sterilization (burning clothing, for example) and quarantine--all of course relative to the intellectual sterility, paucity of understanding, and prevalence of superstition expected in primitive tribal peoples.
What is important to note is that the rituals are designed to disinfect the clothing and so forth, but it is conducted in the superstitious fog of those ancient times. Keep in mind that these people (like all pre-scientific people) considered lepers to be "sinners" who were being "punished" by God. They knew nothing of the Mycobacterium leprae bacterium. They only knew that isolating the victim prevented the spread to other members of the tribe. They attributed diseases to supernatural disfavor, and so invoked weird rituals of propitiation.
Even in the Christian Council of Ancyra in 314 A.D they were defined as morally unclean. Of course, we now know that disease is not a punishment from any Gods, nor does it indicate moral value. Nor do we "cleanse" them by splattering blood all over the place in the repulsive performances of primitive rituals. Instead we use MDT.
Now, look at Leviticus and the primitive altar sacrifices and consider how dirty and contaminated that whole area would be. Then, consider chapter five of Numbers, and the "Law of Jealousies". If a man is feeling jealous he can pay the priest to force his wife to drink a mixture of parasites and filth from the bloody sacrificial floor, and they will then judge her guilt or her innocence based upon how well her immune system deals with this wonderful test. What a wise and wonderful God!
14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD:
17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:
18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:
21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.
25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar:
26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.
27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled;
30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.
31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity. |
