The ways of sacrifice; Claiming the firstborn

I personally think this first born crap was just a way of taking children away from parents so they could be conditioned and trained to be soldiers. These young ones would need to be taken away young so the conditioning would be better. Less ties to the people makes the best control. So first born given to god was created as a recruitment strategy.

Other than the fact that most countries were controlled by religious people back then, there was no real tie to god with this. If it was second born, people would have only had one kid with each wife.

More Sadomasochism

He's the ultimate power, he brought us into this world he can take us out.

The children he murdered actually received the ultimate blessing.

He slaughtered himself/his son (w/e) to himself to create a loophole for a law he created.

And here we have the thread that attempts to excuse such behavior.

Another example of how religion makes good people do bad things.

a reply to: Prezbo369
No children whatever are killed in the laws I've been quoting.
The only behaviour being defended in this thread is the behaviour of killing food animals and eating them as food, while consciously thinking of them as being "given to God", or else giving the food to other people as God's representatives.
As you would have known if you had read the OP.

Everything else you brought up is off-topic for this thread.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Prezbo369
No children whatever are killed in the laws I've been quoting.

The Lord has taken the lives of the firstborn among the Egyptians, both humans and animals, but left the Israelites untouched.
So in their case the lives of the firstborn are “owing” to him and claimed accordingly.

Human and animal sacrifice.

The only behaviour being defended in this thread is the behaviour of killing food animals and eating them as food, while consciously thinking of them as being "given to God", or else giving the food to other people as God's representatives.
As you would have known if you had read the OP.

So you think that every time people say grace (or something similar) they're making a sacrifice?

Everything else you brought up is off-topic for this thread.

No you (as usual) choose to ignore, distort and avoid what is written in favour of your contrived and desperate interpretations.

I come into your threads hoping for an honest examination of such parts of the bible, and are always left (predictably) disappointed.

originally posted by: Prezbo369
"So in their case the lives of the firstborn are “owing” to him and claimed accordingly."
Human and animal sacrifice.

No human sacrifice is involved. The firstborn children are "redeemed" instead.
"Animal sacrifice" simply means that animals which are bred and raised as food animals are killed and eaten as food. Calling the event a "sacrifice" does not leave them any worse off than they would have been

So you think that every time people say grace (or something similar) they're making a sacrifice?

The other way round, really. I suggest that "sacrifice" is a way of acting out what modern people say with words; acknowledging their God as the ultimate source of their food.

No you (as usual) choose to ignore, distort and avoid what is written in favour of your contrived and desperate interpretations.

I ignore, and will continue to ignore, all attempts to drag the discussion off-topic

I come into your threads hoping for an honest examination of such parts of the bible

That is not what you are looking for when you enter any thread.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
No human sacrifice is involved. The firstborn children are "redeemed" instead.

As I said, desperate and contrived.

"Animal sacrifice" simply means that animals which are bred and raised as food animals are killed and eaten as food. Calling the event a "sacrifice" does not leave them any worse off than they would have been

So every time an animal is killed for food, it's being sacrificed? Does this mean wholesale slaughter houses are just massive sacrifice temples?

The other way round, really. I suggest that "sacrifice" is a way of acting out what modern people say with words; acknowledging their God as the ultimate source of their food.

If you change the definition of the word (as you are prone to do) then sure.....

I ignore, and will continue to ignore, all attempts to drag the discussion off-topic

I'm keeping you on-topic, despite your attempts to change the definitions of words.

That is not what you are looking for when you enter any thread.

Critiques of the bible and more importantly your own interpretation have no reason to be anything but completely honest, there's enough tinder.

However defenders of such things......have to work hard in order to present any kind of defense (even resulting in the attempted and disingenuous change of definition of certain words...).

originally posted by: Prezbo369
So every time an animal is killed for food, it's being sacrificed?

No, the other way round. When an animal is being sacrificed, it is being killed for food.

I'm keeping you on-topic, despite your attempts to change the definitions of words.

The topic of this thread, as defined by the openng post, is the offering of first-born animals (and the fact that first-born sons are not being sacrficed).
Anything else is off-topic.

originally posted by: rickymouse
I personally think this first born crap was just a way of taking children away from parents so they could be conditioned and trained to be soldiers.

The massive flaw in your suggestion is that the children were not being taken away from their parents. Five shekels were paid to the priests, and they all stayed with their families. End of story. Even the Levite chlldren, who were to become priests, would be learning the family business in their own families.

And this "conditioned and trained to be soldiers" is quite anachronistic. What you are doing is taking a phenomenon of modern Africa and projecting it back three thousand years to a time when it wasn't happening.
In the days before the kings, every grown male was effectively a part-time soldier, whenever the leaders needed to call the people into battle (like a militia). That's one of the reasons why the ancient world had a "campaignng season" for its wars; unless you were being raided, warfare would be timed for the periods when the men were not working in the fields.
In the time of the kings, like David, there were also mercenary soldiers, many of them hired from abroad.
But all this "taken to be conditioned as soldiers" business is an unhistorical fantasy. That practice is a device invented in modern times by groups which don't have the authority to "call the people to arms",or the money to hire the professionals.

a reply to: DISRAELI

www.sikyon.com...

This is just one example. Some children in other areas were taken at a much younger age and trained to sometimes become leaders of the military. Ancient Rome had a minimum fighting age of twenty years old but it was the only one I know of that did that. They have found evidence of special acadamies in Rome that trained kids from very young.

I am assuming that these first born may have been taken to train and even as tenders for the soldiers at young ages. The People living in Rome did not want their kids going off to get killed, they recruited a lot of soldiers from their territories. Now, these kids were not actually fighting till later but were being indoctrinated in these schools.

Read your history, there are quite a few articles about this on the net, many that are actually legit.

a reply to: rickymouse
Sparta was famously unusual.
If this was happening in Israel, the texts would have said so.
I must repeat, there is NOTHING in the laws I quoted about chikdren beng taken away from their parents.
Look over them again. Money is paid to the priests.That is all that happens.

a reply to: DISRAELI

This was happening all over. Israelites were often surfs and their kids would have been taken for regular soldiers by the big powers in the region. I am questioning our interpretation of what the scriptures say, not the scriptures themselves. Remember that the first born male is often the strongest unless they have a genetic flaw. Remember that the Emperor took the first born, they did not kill them there. The people could have been told that they were taken to die while in fact they were going to a place to become future soldiers. If the people knew, they would try to find their kids.

Now maybe the priests did have a say so as to which kids were taken. Like a shephard having control of which sheep were sold. These kids could have been taken away for many reasons, and some that were not adequate probably were killed.

I question what the parting of the red sea actually means also. Now a bridge over the water made by god that allowed everyone to walk on water would be better than our interpretation, after all god let Jesus walk on water. Now, it would be technically be parting of the water because it seperates the water. It would still be a miracle but it would be easier for the people to walk on water than the rocky slimy bottom of the sea. God could have let the soldiers chasing them get into the middle then released the miracle and they would sink with their armor and chariots. Thrashing around in the water.

I don't have to accept others interpretations of what the bible says. I can read it myself.

originally posted by: rickymouse
I am questioning our interpretation of what the scriptures say, not the scriptures themselves.

This is an important statement. You claim to be re-interpreting what the scriptures say. But how can you interpret what they say, when you are not even looking at what they say?

The people could have been told that they were taken to die while in fact they were going to a place to become future soldiers. If the people knew, they would try to find their kids.

No! NONE of the parents were told that their children were going to die. NONE of the children were taken away, so "trying to find them" doesn't become an issue. There is no reason for a single child to leave his mother's arms.
"hello, priest, we've just had our first son. Here is five shekels." End of story

I can read it myself.

The problem is that you're not reading it. You're not even looking at it.

All right, here is the full text of the relevant statements on the subject;
"Every first-born of man among your sons you shall redeem"- Exodus ch13 v13
"Nevertheless the first-born of man you shall redeem...and their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary"- Numbers 18 vv15-16
“Behold, I have taken the Levites [that is, the priests] from among the people of Israel instead of the firstborn that opens the womb among the people of Israel” -Numbers ch3 v12.
Now please tell me how your "interpretation" of scripture is using those words to arrive at "taking away to train as soldiers"? The concept is simply not there.

Please, for heaven's sake;
If you are claiming to interpret scripture, then just look at the scripture to see what it actually says.
If you are claiming to offer history, don't go picking up bits and pieces from the internet and mixing them with your own fantasies. Find some real books on the subject.


P.S. The red sea issue is off-topic for this thread.

a reply to: DISRAELI


I've read the bible many times. My mother was overzeleous with religion so I learned to use what the bible said to straighten her out. Frogs are not evil. The Owl is also not evil. But a bunch of people she was associated with thought they were. God used the frogs to help free the Israelite, how could they be evil.

I armed myself with the scriptures to persuade her that she was being misled. She had had a stroke and she fell for some of the religious misconceptions that were floating around. Wind chimes are not a tool of the devil either. If you get obsessed with them then I suppose they could be considered as such by the neighbors.

Now, every different branch of Christianity is interpreting something wrong and interpreting some things right. It separates the Christians from one another. This divides the Christians into little groups, each group cherrypicking what they consider to be pertinent. Christians should concentrate on the sayings of Jesus and only use the Old testament as a history book. The old testament is there to try to show how people strayed from god and to help guide them a little. What Jesus taught was all you needed to do to be saved was to believe in god and get baptized. Now if you wanted to be a disciple, you needed to shed all your earthly ways and follow him. Being a disciple does not give you more clout in heaven, there is no real reward offered for this job there from what I read. Many people think they will be sitting next to Jesus and be a foreman up there, that is not really true. Everyone is equal in heaven. If a person preaches because they believe they will gain prestige or power in heaven, they probably will not make it there. You teach because you want to enlighten people to the inner peace that belief in god can give us. In essence you are doing a service to god with no reward other than to see others feel better.

But of course I know nothing because I am not a minister or elder in a church so I should be ignored. It is only my interpretations of the scriptures that is making me think this way. Because I do not believe as many Christians believe, I do not feel at home in many churches. Good is an interpretation, what is good for some is bad for others. Jesus tried to bring people together into a group where everyone was equal, I believe that was a very good thing.

Jesus or god would not want Christians arguing amongst themselves of these things. Satan would though. We should concentrate on trying to come together instead of breaking the church apart by arguing over interpretations of the old Testament. I still consider myself a Christian even though I don't go to church because I like to follow the teachings of Jesus in my life and believe that we should treat others with respect even though we do not see eye to eye on everything. God gives us the wisdom to identify deceit, some of which is not even known by the one who is deceiving others. Parroting is done by many people who do not actually try to evaluate if the info is true or relevant to the situation.

a reply to: rickymouse
All this is off-topic for this thread.
All I suggested is that the way to interpret scripture is to look at the words and see what they say.
I was recommending this procedure for the passages relating to "the claim on the first-born", because that is what you weren't doing.

originally posted by: rickymouse
The old testament is there to try to show how people strayed from god and to help guide them a little.

So consider that this is how I'm using it. I'm not treating the OT as a detailed manual to be followed, I'm looking for what from God can be found in it.

We should concentrate on trying to come together instead of breaking the church apart by arguing over interpretations of the old Testament.

If you think that, why are you arguing over my interpretation?
I'll tell you what, you might be more comfortable exploring my thread series on 1 Corinthians, which is precisely about what defines the church and brings it together over against the rest of the world;
1 Corinthians; The blueprints of the church

This thread is a sequel to
Abraham and Isaac and
The shared meal