1)When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?
2) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. Can I buy Canadians and if not, why not?
3) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15: 19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
5) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
6) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
I know many of you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Despite his misapplications and his tendency to violate context, Amorphous does make a good case. How can we derive unchanging ethical and moral absolutes from a document we routinely disregard and declare irrelevant to life in the modern world? How can we claim that God's word is eternal and unchanging while at the same time teaching that it has changed?
1) Amorphous describes his neighbor's objections to the burnt offering in the back yard. I can empathize with his neighbor. The sacrifices described in Leviticus are only permitted within the Temple and must be facilitated by a Levitically pure priesthood. In the absence of an existing Temple, the rites of sacrifice cannot be practiced. That is not the same as saying that those laws are obsolete or done away with. Yeshua's sacrifice certainly fulfilled the spiritual components of the sacrificial system, but fulfilling and obsolescing are two different things. The book of Acts shows us that the believers remained engaged in the Jerusalem Temple system, long after the death and resurrection of the Master. Obviously they did not regard the Temple worship as obsolete.
Ever since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the sacrifices detailed in the Torah have not been possible (and will not be possible) until the Temple is rebuilt. Amorphous and his transference of those laws from their Temple context to the suburban American backyard raises some humorous possibilities, but ultimately it is an irrelevant argument.
2) Amorphous plays on emotions evoked by our historical memory of American slavery. He claims that Exodus 21:7 suggests a man sell his daughter as a slave. Actually, the passage in question does not suggest that a man sell his daughter as a slave. Rather it addresses one of the unpleasant possibilities of life in the Ancient Near East where a debtor might find himself or family members being taken into slavery in lieu of unpaid debt. The Torah seeks to protect a woman who might be caught in that barbarous system of economics by insuring her right of redemption and forbidding her resale to another. Thus she cannot be used as a sexual slave, passed from owner to owner. She must be treated with dignity and accorded her rights.
The Torah law he criticizes is actually one meant to defend the cause of the slave and the rights of women. Far from being obsolete, it is from Torah laws like this one that the world has learned to treat women with the respect and dignity.
He goes on to cite Leviticus 25:44 as granting him permission to buy slaves from Mexico or Canada. This time he is correct. The passage he is citing is part of a prohibition of buying Israelites (which arguably includes believers) as permanent slaves. The Torah allows fellow Israelites to be purchased only on a temporary basis, and then only as a type of "hired-hand." After seven years, or at the year of Jubilee, the Israelite slave is released and must be paid for his labor. The same passage does, however, allow for the purchase of heathens as life-long slaves. Of course, slavery is illegal in Canada, the United States and Mexico, so even if he were to find some heathens for sale in either Canada or Mexico, he would have other legal issues to deal with. He again makes a satirical point by transferring the world of the Ancient Near East into Western society. But pointing out that the Torah condones slavery is not the same as proving that Torah is no longer relevant.
3) Amorphous also speculates about contact with ritual impurity, namely women in menstruation. Like the laws of sacrifice, the purity laws have a relevant context only when there is a functional Temple. The purity laws of clean and unclean are designed to protect the pure sanctity of the Temple precinct and priesthood. In the absence of the Temple, the purity laws are only vestiges of a very different world. That does not mean the purity laws are obsolete or done away with. If a Temple was rebuilt in Jerusalem tomorrow, every worshipper going up to that Temple would be bound by the laws of clean and unclean.
Women in menstruation are only one possible source of ritual impurity. He selects that particular one because it will incite the strongest reaction. By transferring those laws from their Temple context to the postmodern culture of the West, Amorphous again paints a comical scenario, but one that has no real bearing on the relevance of Torah.
4) Amorphous accuses his neighbor of Sabbath violations and wonders about the death penalty associated with the sin. The death penalty assigned to Sabbath-breakers and to other grievous sins of Torah were not vigilante-style executions as our Amorphous imagines. Those sentences were determined through a court of law employing the adversarial system of justice. If such a court of justice (namely the Sanhedrin) existed today and had jurisdiction in the United States, and the accused Sabbath-breaker was not a heathen, but was demonstrably obligated by Torah to keep the Sabbath, then he would be well advised to get a very good lawyer. Amorphous could stand as a witness of the prosecution in the trial, but a guilty verdict would not be achievable without an additional witness. Also, intention to belligerently break the Sabbath would have to be proven. If all of those criteria were met, then an execution under the auspices of the court would commence.
It strikes us as barbaric and antiquated to imagine someone being stoned to death for breaking the Sabbath. But our self-righteous indignation is the result of us holding the Sabbath in much lower esteem than God does. We have considerably less trouble imagining a court of law putting a murderer to death because that is a reality still present in our cultural milieu. The Sabbath is the most often repeated positive commandment in the Scripture. It may not seem like a big deal to us, but apparently it is to God.
5) Amorphous drives his finest point regarding the eating of unclean animals. Deuteronomy describes it as an abomination to God, just like homosexuality. Yet even the most right-wing among conservative Christians will enjoy a little lobster tail once in a while. So how can we condemn homosexuality?
In that case we must either acquiesce to the notion that parts of the Torah have been abolished, or, the other possibility, that we have been wrong about the shellfish, and the rest of the kosher laws.
Certainly we could turn to several NT passages that some have interpreted to be abrogations of the kosher laws, but that would only prove his point about the eternal, unchangingness of God's Word. If what was called an abomination in one case is now called breakfast, why shouldn't an abomination in another case now be called healthy human sexuality?
6) The reference to the defect in eyesight is actually Leviticus 21:18, not 20:20, but our comedian has overtaxed himself with the reference to 20/20 eyesight and mistaken it for a verse and chapter reference. Regardless of the error, the eyesight law is on the books only in regard to the priesthood of Israel, and it is a reference to blindness, not astigmatism. It is part of a list of prohibitions that forbid a maimed priest from facilitating the sacrificial service of the Temple.
Our modern sensitivities and equal opportunity dogmas are offended by a passage like Leviticus 21:18. Like the sacrifices themselves, the priests handling them needed to be without defect. A priest with a disqualifying defect was still fully employed within the priesthood and had the rights to all venues of the priesthood except for the sacred service of the altar.
Still, even if the Amorphous had perfect 20/20 vision and was without any form of physical defect, he is forbidden to approach the altar unless he is a direct and certifiable descendent of Aaron. There is no wiggle room here. And again, those laws are relevant only when there is a Temple or altar to approach in the first place.
...Fear God, and keep his commandments.
For the full discourse on this plagerized article please link to;
http://www.what-if.net/cgi-bin/bethimmanuel/redir.cgi?articles/laura
