Friday, January 28, 2011

Exodus 25-30 The Tabernacle of Extreme Boredom

Exodus 25-30

I'm asking you to be strong and work your way through these five chapters just so we can get past them.

God gives Moses EXTREMELY detailed plans for the tabernacle.  Size, color, design, placement.  Why?

Doesn't Jesus rebel against this grandeur and focus on the message instead of the style?  If so, why is the Catholic churches are so ornate?

30 comments:

  1. I am not a Catholic. I went to a funeral at a Catholic church in Texas and went with a friend to a Catholic mass in New Jersey. Both churches were anything but ornate. They looked more like a Walmart than a church.

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  2. The perfumes sounded interesting, but the scents are holy and can't be used on people.
    The details of the construction, the garments, and the methods of sacrifice are also interesting.
    And I can't think of anything snarky to say about it.

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  3. When I first read the Bible I was pretty surprised by all this Tabernacle business. You don't really hear about it much.

    As I understand it, the Tabernacle was a tent that served as a precursor to the Jewish temple. It only appears in E and P stories (J focuses on the Ark).

    The Priestly sources are obsessed with proper priestly duties and functions. All their writings assume a central point for sacrificial duties (ie no "high places" like we see in JE.) This, in their time, is the Temple in Jerusalem. Before that, the Tabernacle served the same purpose. Before this point, in P, there is no sacrifice- because there wasn't anywhere to do it!

    These chapters seem to be actual instructions for Levite priests, in the Jerusalem temple. While undeniably boring, they are a very revealing peek at later Israelite worship.

    From the New English Bible Oxford annotation on 29:1-46

    The passage ascribes the origin of the Aaronite priesthood to the Mosaic period. However, in early Israelite history, eligibility for serving as a priest was not confined to a tribe, or to a clan within a tribe. As history unfolded, the Levites came to be recognized as the priestly tribe. Later (namely in the postexilic period) a subgroup, supposedly descended from Aaron, a Levite, became the only priests.


    I for one have a very hard time tracing the development of the Levite-priest relationship. But this is basically why P has such an axe to grind for Aaron.

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  4. Only snark here is to restate what I said a few lessons ago, that sometimes a picture is worth much more than a thousand words. Apparently written language is an older technology than mechanical drawing or drafting.

    Is this Abbie basically Abigail or אביגיל of 'Better than Esdras' fame?

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  5. Yes, sorry, it is I! My OpenID flaked out and I have to log in differently. Which I guess works out for the better, I won't be called Esdras anymore.

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  6. How do you pronounce that wood? :-D 25:5 It comes up allot. And how did it get that name? LOL Anyone think there should be a diagram that goes with these instructions? 26:13.

    Flat tax? 30:15 Also a minimum of half a shekel. I like that idea.

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  7. OK, I wasn't going to bring up the wood, but since Edward did:
    The plural of seraph is seraphim, and the plural of cherub is cherubim, so "shittim" is the plural of shit. Which is what the tabernacle was made of.
    I do not know how this never got pointed out in Sunday School.

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  8. @Barbara
    Shittim, the plural of Shittah, which is Hebrew for wood from the acacia tree, which appears in the Bible. reference

    I don't know if you were joking or not.

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  9. @Barbara
    Shittim, the plural of Shittah, which is Hebrew for wood from the acacia tree, which appears in the Bible. reference

    I don't know if you were joking or not.

    Ok the bug with posts being deleted is this. If you preview your post and then click edit, make your changes then if you click Post Comment it will appear like it has posted and you won't see the Word Verification part, the comment will just post. But then just give it a min or so and reload the page and your post will be gone. Well this may be public knowledge, however i thought someone else had mentioned that their posts were being deleted so i thought i would disclose what i had found.

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  10. They spent all that time on the details, so it must be important to them. Blue porpoise skins and silver clasps and all that are symbolic. There are 1000-page books explaining the symbolism. I haven't read any of the books yet :-)

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  11. @Bruce
    "God gives Moses EXTREMELY detailed plans for the tabernacle. Size, color, design, placement. Why?"

    This is to be a sanctuary for God. He is going to be their King and dwell with them. He would manifest His presence among them so that people would not ask "Is the Lord among us or not?". And this sanctuary is where God would keep his court as Israel's King. It should be designed to house royalty. Why would He not tell Moses exactly how He wants His sanctuary built? This is where He will dwell when He is with the people, and should He not have the best and what He desires? This structure would set Him apart from the other structures that would be around Him. If any army looked in they would see it and most likely think, that is where their King is.
    I used to work for a company that built modular homes. You could get very detail on things you wanted in your home, light switch placement, colour of rooms, style of fans, different material used for the outer walls, sizes of rooms, window placement. God is just instructing Moses on how He wants his dwelling place built is all.
    Those are my thoughts.

    "Doesn't Jesus rebel against this grandeur and focus on the message instead of the style? If so, why is the Catholic churches are so ornate?"

    No Jesus gets upset about their use of the temple.
    Psalm 69:9; Isaiah 56:7; Matthew 21:12; Mark 11:15; John 2:14-17. But i might have miss understood your question.

    I don't want to go there on the second part of your second question. :-D

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  12. @Barbara
    Shittim, the plural of Shittah, which is Hebrew for wood from the acacia tree, which appears in the Bible. reference

    I don't know if you were joking or not.

    Ok the bug with posts being deleted is this. If you preview your post and then click edit, make your changes then if you click Post Comment it will appear like it has posted and you won't see the Word Verification part, the comment will just post. But then just give it a min or so and reload the page and your post will be gone. Well this may be public knowledge, however i thought someone else had mentioned that their posts were being deleted so i thought i would disclose what i had found.

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  13. New Note 6

    @Barbara
    Shittim, the plural of Shittah, which is Hebrew for wood from the acacia tree, which appears in the Bible.
    I don't think this system likes my url, it has deleted this comment a few times.
    http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Shittim?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Shittim&sa=Search#922

    I don't know if you were joking or not.

    Ok the bug with posts being deleted is this. If you preview your post and then click edit, make your changes then if you click Post Comment it will appear like it has posted and you won't see the Word Verification part, the comment will just post. But then just give it a min or so and reload the page and your post will be gone. Well this may be public knowledge, however i thought someone else had mentioned that their posts were being deleted so i thought i would disclose what i had found.

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  14. @Barbara
    Shittim, the plural of Shittah, which is Hebrew for wood from the acacia tree, which appears in the Bible.
    I don't know if you were joking or not.

    I do have a online reference for the above comment, however the system keeps deleting my post when i include it, even as text and not an active link.

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  15. I feel certain these chapters were the inspiration for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk

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  16. I don't know whether Jesus rebelled against the grandeur etc., but certainly some factions of the Reformation did in a big way, and to this day there is a certain architectural minimalism associated with Protestantism.

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  17. The depth of detail was interesting - and I know it can be interpreted that the big guy is insuring that the Israelites show their devotion by delivering the raw materials and then performing the construction per his design ... but I still can't understand why the creator of everything wouldn't have provided such an edifice in the beginning and hung a sign outside announce "this is my house, enter and learn".

    Pretty circuitous.

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  18. but I still can't understand why the creator of everything wouldn't have provided such an edifice in the beginning and hung a sign outside announce "this is my house, enter and learn".

    You really have to answer these questions backwards. (Like the "why Canaan?" question.) Obviously that would make sense, but that's not what happened. At the time P wrote, there was a tradition of worship at one location. So P devised his history to explain why. (Whether the Tabernacle was an actual object situated in the Holy of Holies or a metaphorical stand-in for the Temple, I don't know.

    E talks mainly about a "Tent of the Meeting" which some thing is a synonym for the Tabernacle, but some don't. Perhaps this northing tradition took hold in Jerusalem after the fall of the northern kingdom? (Speculating!)

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  19. I’m speculating: The passages have a feel of a description written after everything was built. There’s details (ring and pole placements, angels facing this way or that) that seem to be specifics worked out during a build.

    That leads me to wonder if the passage is not really about what the Israelites built then and there in the desert, but so they can recreate the same structure precisely wherever they move to.

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  20. Looks to me that all of the detail is just a red herring for what they ( the people who wrote the book) really want. Money and the justification to worshipers to give it freely. It's a smoke screen so the priests can collect!

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  21. @Abbie - re: " ...answer these questions backwards"

    Good point - I mostly look at the OT & NT from the "if god is all-powerful, he could have cut out a lot of screwing around by printing his commandments in pure energy and suspending them between the earth and the moon for all time, augmented by occasional spankings for the bad apples" stance.

    It ***IS*** more fun to play detective/archaeologist. I'll give it a try!
    ;-D

    @Cunni - I had a similar thought. Slipping on the priests "shoes" - we can see them 1) building up a nest egg, but displaying it in plain sight to remind everyone that they have wealth, power; 2) coincidentally diminishing the wealth of the common folk, thus solidifying their power.

    Devious!

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  22. @Edward: I should have put a smiley face after the comment. I realized that after I posted. I read the passage last night and it just cracked me up, evev after I researched the wood and found out it was acacia.

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  23. @Lorraine

    Yes the reformation did because the Roman Catholic church had corrupted and perverted the Word of God and His teachings.

    Allot of people died during that time.

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  24. @Skepticali,

    "if god is all-powerful, he could have cut out a lot of screwing around by printing his commandments in pure energy and suspending them between the earth and the moon for all time, augmented by occasional spankings for the bad apples"

    He did it in a better way, if you are still around in the later months we will get to it. Where He placed them you will know them no matter where you are.

    @Barbara
    I was thinking you were making a joke.

    @Cunni

    Ya that sounds plausible until you get to the later chapters and in the other books you see how little the priests do get.

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  25. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  26. @Abbie - a late thanks on the Richard Friedman book - downloaded and read the first 100 pages today - good stuff.

    Warning to others - the pdf is a scan, so it's a little hard on the eyes. I then downloaded the Kindle for PC version, which is easier to read, but contains some OCR errors. So now I use the pdf to clarify what the Kindle version garbles.

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  27. Someone previously pointed out that the depiction of Yahweh is a very physical one in Exodus. These chapters drive that point home quite thoroughly. This deity not only plans to reside materially with his people, but is extraordinarily concerned with the particulars of his accommodations.

    This is a section where Yahweh is also at his most Canaanite!

    @Abbie: You have said that you think there's no doubt that the religion of Israel is an offshoot of Canaanite religion. Looking at the description here, I am convinced that the Yahweh of the OT and the Yahweh of the Canaanite pantheon (son of El Elyon) are one and the same. For example, Exodus 25:18-20 talks about the two golden cherubim that are to be placed at either end of the ark. This is a Canaanite convention, the cherubim serving as footrests when the deity comes down and rides into battle with his people.

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  28. Looking at the description here, I am convinced that the Yahweh of the OT and the Yahweh of the Canaanite pantheon (son of El Elyon) are one and the same

    Yeah, I mean, for chrissakes, they still called him El sometimes! It doesn't take a rocket science to notice the connection.

    I know there's written references to "Yahweh and his Asherah" on stone vessels. The high places were Canaanite sanctuaries. The sacred Terebinth (Oak) poles/trees were associated with Baal. Important worship sites like Shechem and Shiloh had Canaanite precursors. Gideon originally had a -baal name. One of Saul's sons originally had a -baal name.

    (I don't know if the Ark, Urrim & Thummin, etc, had Canaanite precedents. But I wouldn't be surprised.)

    Plus, archaeologists find no delineation between Canaanite and Israelite culture. (Unlike, say, Philistine, which was unique.) Early Israel shares an unbroken cultural relationship to its neighbors. (Moab, Edom, etc.) There is no evidence Israel came in from Egypt and conquered the land. The evidence is they were always there.

    In Genesis, the Israelites are portrayed as nomadic, but living largely in Canaan. Does this reflect a genuine cultural memory of a nomadic past? It would explain why they differentiate themselves between Canaanites and other inhabitants (Amorites, Jebusites, etc.) Those people held the city-states, and the poor Israelies were out in the cold.

    That's a big theory that's floating around, but I dunno. There are plenty of pro-nomad anti-urban references up into Joshua, and the general Exodus storyline is all about nomading about. But by the time any of this was written down, the Israelites were themselves urbanized.

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  29. This is the best name for a blog post ever. And that's really all I can think of to say!

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  30. I'm a few days behind, and I already hate myself and want to die. I'm trying to push myself through chapter 30, and looking at the blog posts, there doesn't seem to be much going on until Leviticus. I feel like I'm in a Geometry class.

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