The Jealous God

Originally posted by masqua

Is God really jealous or is it the church/priesthood which contrived to make God seem jealous?

Jealous God-

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven . . . earth . . . water."
Exod 20:4

Not so jealous God-

"And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them."
Exodus 25:18

So i must must agree it is not God who is jealous but MEN, We can see from the example above that men will use God to for thier gain.
In the first section no graven images allowed but all of a sudden God seems to change his mind and says make angels from gold ???

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
Why can't people read the Torah in context?

Yeah, you know I wish I was brought up with the knowledge that the the OT is basically a rip-off from the Torah. Please forgive the ignorant masses on that one, we all thought he was our god. :p

The Lord G-d states He is jealous in regards to the Covenant made with the Hebrews, and just the Hebrews. He didn't pop up in Pharoahs court demanding worship Me or I'll blow up your kingdom.

This is so correct! The God I know and understand is NOT that god, my God is everything and is nothing, my God pwns us ALL (no jealously either)

He brought them out of Egypt made them His people and thats why He gets jealous and angry when they do ignorant things.

Yes, that would be jealously, which turns to violence when his way isnt being heeded.

Yeah...Almighty God is a fearful God...and so is 'its followers' who say 'not to fear' - so it would seem.

"let us confuse their language less they be like us" - Babel
"nothing they put their mind to will be impossible" - little creatures with "God potential" or at least "God" thought so.

yeah...lots of things to make you wonder past all the typical stories. lol

Good stuff, like the Bible, but its saying more than what most Christians think.

Peace

dAlen

The Torah is simply the Books of Moses in the OT. The entire OT deals with the Israelites and their covenant with the Lord G-d. His relationship with the Israelites is a complex one, He saved them from destruction and they tended to ignore Him. The OT is a chronicle of that relationship.

Gentiles are able to join in the Covenant with the Lord G-d. Many Egyptians did during the Exodus. At one time Judaism was a missionary religion up until the Middle Ages. The other nations were/are allotted the Hosts of Heaven as judges and princes, but they are still subordinate to the Lord G-d.

" And when you look up in the sky and behold the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole Heavenly Host, you must not be lured into bowing down to them or serving them. These the Lord your G-d allotted to other peoples everywhere under heaven; but you the Lord took and brought out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be His very own people, as is now the case." (Deuteronomy 4:19-20).

The Lord G-d doesn't go around threatening the nations of the world with destruction or people with damnation. People do that.

Originally posted by Dae

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
Why can't people read the Torah in context?

Yeah, you know I wish I was brought up with the knowledge that the the OT is basically a rip-off from the Torah. Please forgive the ignorant masses on that one, we all thought he was our god. :p

The Lord G-d states He is jealous in regards to the Covenant made with the Hebrews, and just the Hebrews. He didn't pop up in Pharoahs court demanding worship Me or I'll blow up your kingdom.

This is so correct! The God I know and understand is NOT that god, my God is everything and is nothing, my God pwns us ALL

(no jealously either)

He brought them out of Egypt made them His people and thats why He gets jealous and angry when they do ignorant things.

Yes, that would be jealously, which turns to violence when his way isnt being heeded.

[edit on 18/2/07 by MikeboydUS]

Speaking of GOD...

For he does not exist IN something inferior to him since everything exists in him. For it is he who establishes himself.

According to my interpretations of scripture, the above statement is directly saying that "THOUGHT" as we assume, is IN the body, is NOT superior to the body.

Because everything interpretated outside of the body, MUST exist within the body. Because it is ultimately the internal mechanisms within us that determine what the outside world appears AND feels like.

He is eternal, since he does not need anything.

Thought by itself is ENTANGIBLE and therefore does not need anything TANGIBLE to exist.
It is hard for us to comprehend Thought surviving death and existing without a physical tangible body, but we take for granted that this place MAY NOT be physically tangible, it's only because we have color/shape/distance descriptions for EVERYTHING that we understand this world at any degree.

Perhaps a lofty way of understanding this phenomenon would be to think of the body as "thoughts" ignorant brother. By themselves thought and body do nothing and accomplish nothing, but when they work together, neither is inferior to the other, because they work in balance and thus become one unit.

For he is total perfection. He did not lack anything, that he might be completed by it; rather he is always completely perfect in light. He is illimitable, since there is no one prior to him to set limits to him.

Now, this is where people start getting funky ideas... The perfection speeches..
The reason for this is because THOUGHT is something that has existed before the creation of material. Thought has always existed, it would be an impossibility for it to never have existed, because if that were true, Nothing would BE, period.
Thought precedes action
Thought also precedes materials
Therefore this is a convenient way of detailing the order of "creation."
Perfect does not always mean positive, perfect means "it works"
it also means it issues from thought, meaning it isn't the blundering of an animal.
Animals are not aware of their thoughts as we are, their frontal lobes do not have the capacity to "imagine" themselves as vividly as we do.

I realize I could have wrote this with more detail concerning the nature of thought, but this was an attempt to perhaps make people think about religion in a different light.

Thanks for your time everyone.

and NO, I won't stop............ So don't try me... You know who you are.... Stop bugging me..

I have to go back to internal...Wiltshire?. Porthcurno??

RELIGION is doomed for a very good reason? And only for one reason.

"I hurt myself today"

"What have I have become"?

"Intrepid" (Resolutely courageous)" and other "moderators" know!

I am back....Yes, (Ox) its your best friend

Don't give up on the brothers,.,:

Next few weeks will tell

Emily was close, but "not right"!! She did not get it!

I will be back in a few weeks

Look at the news this week. BBC,cnn and SKY esp//..,,,,

Thomas

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
Speaking of GOD...

For he does not exist IN something inferior to him since everything exists in him. For it is he who establishes himself.

According to my interpretations of scripture, the above statement is directly saying that "THOUGHT" as we assume, is IN the body, is NOT superior to the body.

Because everything interpretated outside of the body, MUST exist within the body. Because it is ultimately the internal mechanisms within us that determine what the outside world appears AND feels like.

Here's a quote from Jesus, The Christ himself concerning this very thing.

A servant is not greater than his master.

Now for all those lovers of context.. I'll post the rest and explain its inner effects to dis-spell any notions that I'm grasping at nothing.

John 15:17-27
17) This I command you, to love one another.

Clearly people will take this to mean love one-another, as in separate peoples, which is all good and well, but if the two INSIDE do not agree, nothing can get accomplished.
I will refer to these two statements by Jesus, The Christ to clarify I'm not the only one whose said these things.

When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?

and the obvious

A Kingdom Divided Against Itself Will Fall.

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

The world is made manifest via the body.

We should remember that the body and mind have been in conflict for centuries if not forever thus far and only a few people throughout history have been able to transcend the boundaries.
Therefore Jesus is merely saying that the conflict isn't unique.
World could easily be translated into BODY because without the body we as BODY&MIND combined could not experience the world not to mention we get our ideas of this place from OTHER BODIES (who thoroughly believe they are JUST bodies with a mind., which makes a big difference in teachings) They've separated mind from body.
So if we DO understand the world thru our body, we could say if the world hates YOU (meaning THOUGHT, I say thought because it is our human uniqueness mainly the capabilities of the frontal lobe.) so if we say it hates you, it is hating the pure thought within it... it is fighting it and they are not working in unison ... we would understand the fluid nature of THOUGHT and humans would rarely keep themselves locked in THOUGHT patterns... They only do this because they don't understand the power of thought, they believe that mind and body are separate in one body, although that's how we've come to understand it.. that brings us a lot of problems because eventually our Good thoughts never manifest and they seem distant but all of our bad thoughts seem to manifest all the time.

19) If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

THOUGHT as we know is "new" or rather foreign to material things...
There is a distinct difference between THOUGHT and BODY, we see one as being formless and one as having form.
Well since THOUGHT is foreign, anyone who uses more THOUGHT than natural animal body instincts is seen as odd, unique, better, worse.. whatever, they are viewed differently, as all animals in the animal kingdom would do, if you painted a polar bear with black dots the other polar bears would instantly find that polar bear "different" better or worse.

20) Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

This should just speak for itself at this point.

The body is not greater than it's counterpart THOUGHT....
and if you unite body with thought they will persecute you.
But if they keep his word, they will keep yours as well

21) But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me.

his account is one based on the unison of body and mind.

Now ... For Jesus to know the inner working of the mind so intricately back then, as well as quantum physics (with his claim of heaven the size of a mustard seed) it truly makes me wonder WHO sent him... My only idea would be that the consciousness of the universe knew it needed an anomaly and humanities needs produced him, although I could be wrong.

22) If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Couldn't be further from the truth.
Knowing the difference and meaning of scripture takes away any scapegoats
Would we have known where these problems came from without the help of great speakers...
It was NOT Satan who tempted Eve, it was an Eagle and it was Melchizedek, Jesus, The Logos.
let me ask you this..... What GOD in their right mind would want to keep you from the knowledge of GOOD AND EVIL?.... Hell the knowledge of GOOD AND EVIL is what keeps people from dying!
We know touching a red-hot stove is bad, therefore we don't do it...

23) He who hates me hates my Father also.

This leads me to believe that it is referring to humanity and the universe...
Who-ever hates THOUGHT hates the WORLD and HUMANITY and the BODY as well.

24) If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.

Once again, because of the unity within him, they watched his actions and like the painted polar bear... boom he was different.
and they've also made people hate the possibilities that he's presented, although they down-play and re-write his symbolic meanings.

25) It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, `They hated me without a cause.'

Very true, considering he was just doing the same as ANYONE else CAN do... So verily it is without a cause..

26) But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me;

....................

27) and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

Since you were born, you have been with THOUGHT.
and you know how unity is all pervasive and much stronger than division.
and we all know that when we feel good about ourselves and we feel united in thought and body that anything can be accomplished.

This is a great thread and good thoughts from the OP. I've recently been thinking about the same ideas as expressed in this thread. I won't go into it all but here are my two cents on the original topic:

It is undeniable that God refers to himself in the plural multiple times in the Old Testament. I'm just not sure if that refers to multiple gods or multiple divinity.

In the Old Testament God creates the Earth, sea, plants, animals sky and Adam and then Eve. Adam and Eve are deceived by the serpent in the garden and subsequently expelled. However, we never hear of God's creation of the serpent (which is generally not taken as simply a talking snake). The Serpent has knowledge greater than that of Adam and Eve and yet is not expelled from the garden which means he must have gained this knowledge from somewhere else. The serpent is not expressly stated as part of the original Creation of the Earth as outlined in Genesis. We have no evidence of God creating other cognitive creatures besides Adam and Eve.

I believe that the OP's original OT quotes point to this existence of plural divinity, or the existence of other divine beings who may not be gods themselves but are divine. I believe this is one way the divinity of Christ is justified with the commandment of Monotheism.

It is quite clear in the New Testament that Christ is not one in being with the Father as the Nicene creed would have us believe. I believe Christ and God to be separate in essence and existence so the idea of other divine beings is not really unChristian.

So when the OT God says things like "Let us create man in our image" he is quite possibly referring to separate divine beings (angels if you want to call them that) that are not themselves gods and are subservient to the all mighty God (God the Father, the Allfather, the Creator etc). There are many stories in the OT that refer to separate divine beings such as angels, as in the story of Sodom and Gemorah who possess knowledge and power greater than that of Man but less than that of God the Creator.

I believe the quote about the jealous God refers to the worship of subservient divine beings over the worship of the all mighty Creator God. Even Christians, who worship Christ and in some cases Mary as well, will always worship God the Father above all. The trinity doctrine is an attempt to link Christ with God the Father as one in being so as to justify the worshiping of Christ the Divine under the commandment of monotheism.

However, it is quite clear that Christ was of a higher order than the previous divine beings such as the Serpent or the Angels and, under certain understandings of the term, could well constitute another God.

I believe this is what separates Christians from Jews in a theological sense. Christians are possibly polytheistic under certain definitions where as Jews are strictly monotheistic and have a theological need to deny the divinity of Christ.

So in summary, for clarity, I believe the OP's quotes refer to the worship of other divine beings who are not themselves gods in the sense of being equal to or greater than the all mighty God of Creation. God demands that we worship him first and foremost because he is greater, in both knowledge and power, than the other divine beings. However, the worship of Christ does not go against this commandment as Christ is known as the Son of God the Father and Creator and was put on this Earth by the all mighty God for us to follow and worship hence the commandment in the Gospels "This is my son, in whom I am greatly pleased. Hear Him!"

The blood of Christ is the new covenant for the forgiveness of all sins and therefor over rides the old covenant given to Noah after the flood in the form of a rainbow. The new covenant is God's promise to us that he is no longer a jealous God but a loving and forgiving Father. The fear of a jealous God has been outdated by the creation of Christ and replaced with the assurance of God's love for us all. Christ's sacrifice on the cross was for the forgiveness of our sins, our imperfections, and is evidence that God will overlook our imperfections and transgressions as long as we are still willing to accept him as our Father.

Thats my opinion at least.

One of the problems that I see with many peoples' idea of God is that they want to ascribe human characteristics to God. God, at least the one that I know, is not human. God is a spirit, an energy...

The Greeks further stupified ideas about the creator with their very human like gods and goddesses. This assumption that God somehow has emotions in any form that would be recognizable to humans is rather silly to me. While it is true that God has feelings of love and compassion, et cetera, I don't suspect they are in a form that humans would understand..

I have noticed a couple of references referring to Lucifer as a jealous Angel.

The story has it that he wanted to be "God" and that he rebelled against "God"

Another story tells it that Lucifer wouldn't bow down to Adam and so he was punished for that. This implies jealousy.

He also told Adam and Eve that they could be "like God"

All these things portray him as wanting what "God" has. Jealous

Maybe he is the one that is written about.

He is supposed to be the lord of the air. Technology is based on moving through air.

Man created God in his own image. It is no wonder there is a jealous God.