Atonement in the Old Testament

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Have it here with a KJV version, you and I use it for different things. I use it for Studies, usually with exegetics. Or sometimes I use it to see what God is up to.

a reply to: yulka

I believe the Authorized version is the preserved word of God.

I not only use it, I believe every word of it.

a reply to: DISRAELI

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life”. Leviticus ch17 v11

Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

The blood of a being is not the source or dwelling of the spirit. This is just one of the many issues with this so called "god"... As if one can destroy a life to forgive their own sin, it would do nothing but compile it

Forgiveness of sin comes with forgiving...

The OT people didn't have a clue...

Thank God HE came to set things right

originally posted by: Akragon
The blood of a being is not the source or dwelling of the spirit.

It was something they could understand as representing life.
That was enough for the purpose.

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
no one ever spoke Koine Greek it was dead in the water by 300AD...

Please do not try to derail threads by changing the topic.
Koine Greek is not relevant to this thread, since the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic.

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: Akragon
The blood of a being is not the source or dwelling of the spirit.

It was something they could understand as representing life.
That was enough for the purpose.

Except its something they clearly did not understand... blood is pretty much the same as flesh...

In Jesus' time they were no more advanced in this knowledge then they were when these rules were written...

HE had a different understanding of God then they did... and the obvious conclusion is...

These Gods were not the same...

originally posted by: Akragon
Except its something they clearly did not understand... blood is pretty much the same as flesh...

He was not writing a medical textbook, but communicating with them in language they could understand, for the sake of making a theological point.

These Gods were not the same...

I have an existing thread on the question of whether the God of Jesus was also the God of the Old Testament.
The God of Jesus, the God of the Old Testament
I will discuss the point in that thread, not in this one.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I took part in said thread, and the last post in it was well over a year ago... and the original topic has drifted into oblivion...

This isn't the same issue... this god wanted the blood of the innocent to redeem sin

Jesus didn't want sacrifice but mercy... to him the "sacrifice" was internal/spiritual... not physical

originally posted by: Akragon
this god wanted the blood of the innocent to redeem sin

No, he wanted them to understand that their sin could be dealt with, and this was one way that they could grasp the point.
At the same time, he made it clear through the prophets that he did not want them using the sacrifices as a substitute for reforming their lives.
I touched on that issue near the end of the OP, and it will also be the topic of my next two threads (on Obedience and Repentance).

Jesus didn't want sacrifice but mercy... to him the "sacrifice" was internal/spiritual... not physical

The relation between the Old Testament understanding and the teaching of Jesus will be the topic of future threads.
This one is (deliberately) about the Old Testament alone.

Incidentally, that earlier thread remains on record as a permanent point of reference, and it will be used or evoked whenever the issue is brought up.

Look at it this way - what is at-two-ment? I would say it is to be in-two-minds.
The mind is carrying an image of yesterday and it also carries an image of tomorrow - the mind has before and after.
In the image of yesterday - there is a 'you' that did something and in the image of tomorrow there is a 'you' that can do something. Where does the image of yesterday (all past) and the image of tomorrow (all future) appear?
The sacrifice is of that 'you' in 'this' image - if the past is projected into the future it is an old image 'covering' what there really is.
This is what there is - whatever is actually happening but no one sees or hears what there is (glory of God) because the one that is separate from God lives in time (past/future) - but look now and see if you can see or hear time.
God is always present but man believes in time - so that is where he lives. Kill the one who lives in time - sacrifice the illusion of separateness.

What there really is (God) has been split into two because the mind (thoughts) cannot say anything about what there really is. This is the unnameable - the unspeakable - it is all there is.

This present image is the image of God and in that ONE image there maybe a dream of someone separate happening - that separate someone has to be sacrificed. It is ok though nothing will really die because there is just this - which is the ONE life - the illusion of separateness will just lift away - it was just covering the truth - which is hiding right here in plain sight.

If there is mind - concepts - then there is always two - me and something.
But really there is just what is happening which is not two and this that IS, is not a concept.


"There is no 'I' that is separate from this mass of energy we call creation". Jac O'Keefe.

There is only the ONE but man thinks he is as well.
When the separation is seen through all there is is what there is.
The idea of time gives space for there to be an illusionary something other.

There is nothing other than this - that IS.

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
I thought God was Omnscient? So how did the event of the temptation go unnoticed until god walked in the garden

You're taking the Genesis account more literally than I do

And yet their physical presence was hidden from god by the bushes

No. "Where are you?" was a summons.
He knew exactly where they were.

You musn't take these things so literally. He knew exactly what was happening.

You are the one taking it literally. You're taking the Genesis story as literal, when it was never meant to be. The Genesis creation story is a beautiful allegory that represents man's evolution of consciousness.



You're taking allegory and human instinct, shame and the desire to hide or disguise oneself, to pour blood all over oneself, or cover oneself in one's excrement, to wash oneself "clean" with water, and telling us that these are God's pathways to atonement. In reality the human experience is much more complicated than that.

"Original" refers to what we were born with. It is about the fact that none of us are following God's will.

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

If we are like gods, then we can't be born in "sin", (unless the gods are sinners) but upon a path of evolutionary enlightenment. Biblical stories are allegories meant to aide us in developing self control and purposeful enlightened evolution.

originally posted by: windword
You are the one taking it literally. You're taking the Genesis story as literal, when it was never meant to be. The Genesis creation story is a beautiful allegory that represents man's evolution of consciousness.

In fact I've always been comfortable with the theory of evolution, so I don't see the Eden story as a literal account.
The other poster was taking the story literally in order to present God as ignorant; my point was that even within the story we should not suppose that things were really "hidden" from God. He knew everythng that was going on.
I am fine with treating the story as allegory. I should demur from "beautiful", though, because the whole point of the story is that something is happening that ought not to be happening. It's purpose is to explain how death came into the world.

You're taking allegory and human instinct, shame and the desire to hide or disguise oneself, to pour blood all over oneself, or cover oneself in one's excrement, to wash oneself "clean" with water, and telling us that these are God's pathways to atonement.

In these threads, I've been taking the release of the scapegoat, and washing rituals, and the blood sacrifices, and expounding them as God's way of teaching the people of Israel that atonement is possible.
What I said about the scapegoat is also relevant here;

What we have here is a dramatized metaphor which expresses and teaches two important points.

1 ) It is necessary for sin to be remedied. It must not be allowed to remain part of the life of the people.

2 ) It is possible to find a remedy for sin.

If we are like gods, then we can't be born in "sin", (unless the gods are sinners)

This argument assumes that "X has become like Y" means "in every respect", and that is not the case at all.
You are making an assumption which is not true to the way language is used.
When you signed up to this site, in 2011, you became a member of ATS, like me, but that does not mean you became "like me" in every other respect.
One man can say to another "You have now become a Mason, like me", yet the first man can be a husband and father of children and the second a bachelor.
Similarly, "like one of us"in that passage is specifically restricted to the quality "able to know good and evil" (that is, determine the boundary line between them).

a reply to: DISRAELI

This argument assumes that "X has become like Y" means "in every respect", and that is not the case at all.

You make a lot of assumptions.

A child is created in the image of its parents, yet it has yet to "become" like them, as it has a lot of "evolving" to do. Even then, it will have an outlook and its own meaning of life that differs from each of its parents.

If we are to accept the concept that we are made in "THEIR" image, and the concept of a "Father God", who has sent us from his protective care, into the world, then I can't see why we should assume that we are "born into sin", or somehow rejected by "Dad. But rather, that we are, in "THEIR sight", ready to learn about our relationship to the mundane world and the divine, through self control (able to know "good and evil") and with a purposeful sense of enlightened spiritual evolution; "Mind over Matter"

28God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

We can't rule over the natural world, if we can't subdue our own nature.

a reply to: windword
I stand by my point that "X has become like Y, in this respect" ought not to be taken as meaning "X has become like Y in every respect".
The Genesis story is an attempt to account for what is observably wrong with the world and the human race, answering questions like "Why do we all die? Why do we have to work?"
Therefore "something has gone wrong" is the key element in the story.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The Genesis story is an attempt to account for what is observably wrong with the world and the human race, answering questions like "Why do we all die? Why do we have to work?"

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

The problem of "imperfection" is addressed before the "Eating of the Fruit". The creation of a "Helper" is metaphor for mankind's evolution reaching adolescence, and a need for further introspection. So, according to the story, a part of Adam's being was externalized.

I disagree that Genesis tries to explain what is "wrong" with humanity. And, certainly, the idea of a scapegoat, to atone for what is wrong with mankind, is contrary to the creation story of Genesis, which gives mankind "dominion" over the natural world, while charging mankind to "know" the "good and evil" that we inherited from our Makers.

a reply to: windword
We agree that the scapegoat rituals imply that something is wrong.
But the scapegoat rituals and the Eden story are part of the same religious tradition, the same belief system.
So I think that confirms "something has gone wrong" as the intended moral of the Eden story.
The lesson is rubbed in by the sheer multiplicity of rituals to deal with sin, so many types of act repeated on so many different occasions, incessantly.
The necessity of them seems to show that sin is, at the very least, widespread and persistent and almost ineradicable.
The purpose of the Eden story is to account for the condition which the atonement rituals are trying to deal with.

a reply to: DISRAELI

So I think that confirms "something has gone wrong" as the intended moral of the Eden story.

Except, one can't really, with any intellectual honesty, not blame God(s) for what is perceived to have gone "wrong".

The lesson is rubbed in by the sheer multiplicity of rituals to deal with sin, so many types of act repeated on so many different occasions, incessantly.

There is no lesson learned from transferring blame onto an innocent animal, or person. There is no lesson learned, nor freedom earned, from "the sheer multiplicity of rituals", which are based in ignorance and superstition.

There is no redemptive value in "scapegoat" rituals.