They could not rest upon their nationality to be assured of salvation.
people in many other places of the world were being quite saved on their own without Moses or the Jewish prophets , or even Jesus himself, thank you. Jesus was sent only unto his own tribe by his own admission . Jesus may have hit upon certain themes of higher good and preached well enough the Golden Rule , but it is absurd to think that Abraham or Jesus were the discoverers of this internal principal of living.
One takes the entire body of the Ten Commmandments , and the intent has to do with living in accord with the word with a reverance for the world without and the purity of the world within. One strives to remain pure so that one does not have to just blindly "obey" God , but one lives in community with that view (vision/seeing) of all being sacred of Life . But many false dichotomies are present in the non syncretic rigid Judaism , and latter Christianity from the start.
"All in One , One in All " idea.
One thing that St Francis said that is intriguing , was the idea of what one is searching for in God --->is the one who sees. One doesn't obey the Ten Commandments as much as one matures to -->see them in all things, moments/events and reality in actions or at rest . The "righteous" behavior follows from there and keeping oneself pure by temperance and self-control. Having them written down on stone Tablets was all very nice ...i guess this most warlike group of tribes really needed that , but this awareness of these kinds of principals and laws were already known from before . The Books of Moses do not date as far back as that in any case and were written in by many unknown scribes as late as 400 to 600BC.
Sometime read the speech of Chief Seattle , and these words ring as true of what is universally built into man's spirit , of a truth that is self-evident everywhere at all times present in many tribes of man . A reverance for the earth , creation and the will/spirit/essence behind it . A sense of reverence....and native Americans do have a history that goes back some 10,000 years.
One learns to look upon Life and all within it with the point of view of "Thou" rather than "That". From this very significant change in perspective comes flooding in an entire new set of experiences , all prophets hinted at in their individual ways . The tribe of Abraham is only one story out of thousands upon this earth , but the Hebrews, like the latter Christians and Islamist all fell into the morass of non syncretic belief , thus for the most part losing the highest essence of what was signified behind the giving and observance of the law in relation to the changes in one's own self. Yet all religions aspire equally to that one thing :
That is --->All is sacred and worthy of awe and reverence . |
