Rants and Raves: February 2010

Most people don't know that God asked for human sacrifices in the Old Testament and that these played an important role in the founding of Israel. They don't even know there were any, so let's start with the passage that people do know about: where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son:

Genesis 22:1-2 (NIV):

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

Of course in this case it was just a test and Isaac was let go. But not all children were so lucky. For instance, look at Judges 11: 29-39 (NIV):

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Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break."

"My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."

"You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed.
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In this case God could control who or what came out. He chose the child, maybe to punish the father for making such a vow in the first place. Maybe Jephthah was expecting his dog to greet him, or his servant or wife.

Both these cases were to be burnt offerings. The person or animal was killed, then cut up and the pieces were burnt on the altar. If it was an animal it would be skinned first.

But individuals weren't the only burnt offerings- sometimes whole towns were sacrificed. For instance in Deuteronomy 13:12-17 (NIV):

If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, [a] both its people and its livestock. Gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt. None of those condemned things shall be found in your hands, so that the LORD will turn from his fierce anger; he will show you mercy, have compassion on you, and increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your forefathers,

The footnote says:

[a] The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them.

The term is “herem”. Leviticus mentions it here:

Leviticus 27:28-29 (NIV):

"But nothing that a man owns and devotes to the LORD -whether man or animal or family land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the LORD." 'No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death.

It didn't just apply to Israelites. For instance, look at the genocide at Jericho:

Joshua 6:17-21,24 (NIV):
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The city and all that is in it are to be devoted [a] to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury."

When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD's house.
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In fact, all the people living in the promised land were meant to be sacrificed:

Deuteronomy 20:16-18 (NIV):
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However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy [a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
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It did start out that way, for instance:

Deuteronomy 2:32-34 (NIV):

When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed [a] them—men, women and children. We left no survivors.

Deuteronomy 3:1-6, 8-11 (NIV):

Next we turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan with his whole army marched out to meet us in battle at Edrei. The LORD said to me, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon."

So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed [a] them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying [a] every city—men, women and children.

So at that time we took from these two kings of the Amorites the territory east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge as far as Mount Hermon. (Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.) We took all the towns on the plateau, and all Gilead, and all Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of Og's kingdom in Bashan. (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaites.)

Joshua 8:24-26 (NIV):

When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed [a] all who lived in Ai.

There are many more examples. But then the Israelites ran into problems.

Joshua 9:22-26 (NIV):

Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, "Why did you deceive us by saying, 'We live a long way from you,' while actually you live near us? You are now under a curse: You will never cease to serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God."

They answered Joshua, "Your servants were clearly told how the LORD your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you the whole land and to wipe out all its inhabitants from before you. So we feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this. We are now in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you."

So Joshua saved them from the Israelites, and they did not kill them.

Judges 1:21, 27-35 (NIV):

The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land. When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely. Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live there among them. Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, who remained among them; but they did subject them to forced labor. Nor did Asher drive out those living in Acco or Sidon or Ahlab or Aczib or Helbah or Aphek or Rehob, and because of this the people of Asher lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land. Neither did Naphtali drive out those living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naphtalites too lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, and those living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became forced laborers for them. The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. And the Amorites were determined also to hold out in Mount Heres, Aijalon and Shaalbim, but when the power of the house of Joseph increased, they too were pressed into forced labor.

Judges 3:5 (NIV):

The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

The reason given for their lack of success was given as:

Judges 3:1-4 (NIV):

These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.

The price for not sacrificing everyone was high:

Joshua 7:12 (NIV):

That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

Psalms 106:34-41 (NIV):

They did not destroy the peoples
as the LORD had commanded them,
but they mingled with the nations
and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons.
They shed innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
and the land was desecrated by their blood.
They defiled themselves by what they did;
by their deeds they prostituted themselves.
Therefore the LORD was angry with his people
and abhorred his inheritance.
He handed them over to the nations,
and their foes ruled over them.

To this day three of the 613 commandments to the Jewish people involve finishing off this work:

601 Not to keep alive any individual of the seven Canaanite nations (Deut. 20:16)

602 To exterminate the seven Canaanite nations from the land of Israel (Deut. 20:17).

613 To destroy the seed of Amalek (Deut. 25:19)

Of course these cultures no longer exist so the commands cannot be carried out, but I read somewhere that some believe in the end times the descendants (seeds) of the Amaleks will be revealed so at least that commandment can be carried out.

Let's hope that never happens. Human sacrifice belongs in the past.

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[a] The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them.

All NIV Bible quotes are from:
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica
taken from http://www.biblegateway.com

My husband debated Christopher Monckton at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney yesterday. It was two hours and in that time I noticed some of the debating tricks the Viscount used. I thought it would be fun to pass these on.

How to Debate Climate Change Monckton Style

When it is your turn to speak, walk forward to center stage in a deliberate manner, plant your feet far apart and thrust out your belly, leaning forward as much as possible. This will give you the air of pomposity that will remind people that you are nobility and your views should not be challenged. Further this by using an internationally recognized symbol on all your work to impress people:

Start your presentation with something emotional- starving people in Africa is a good topic. Makes it look like you are doing it for them, not for your own bank account and the attention you crave.

Next relate the problem to how it affects your audience. Scare tactics work well here. People will believe anything you say.and won't notice that you are using your right to free speech to tell people they don't have any. Global conspiracy? Sure! Show them they will be the victims and that they need a lord to be their saviour.

Then go to the topic of the discussion. Here you are at a terrible disadvantage because any graph you put up is going to show, even to the least scientific member of the audience that temperatures are rising. So use distractions and big words and terms the audience has never heard of before. It will reinforce that you are a genius and they couldn't ever hope to understand the topic let alone trust what their own eyes are telling them. They will feel dumb and helpless and dependent on you.

Know facts and figures, be well read and have a photographic memory so you can pull any figure out of the air that you need. If you don't know, guess, but say it promptly with authority so no one will know.

Always make it sound like you've spoken with the experts or that you know them personally and that they are on your side.

Answer a question, but let the other side answer first. That makes you look gracious. Then, say “Well no, that's not quite right”. People won't notice when the rest of what you say agrees with the opponent- all they will remember is that you said it was wrong.

Take every opportunity to answer questions. Use these questions to slide right into a speech of a related topic that you have already prepared.

Always compliment the question, even if just to say it is interesting. They'll be thrilled to hear that from someone who is as important as you.

If the opponent makes a good point, give the shortest possible answer to it and go directly into a question and topic that is as far related to it as possible. That will confuse he opponent and kill the impact of your opponent's argument.

When you are making your concluding remarks, remember that the audience is there so you can comfort them. They don't want global warming to be true- who does? What they want is someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about to reassure them that everything's going to be all right and they will fight anyone who says otherwise.

In the end that's all you have to do.

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I photoshopped the Jughead picture which comes from here, and joined it to another picture I photoshopped using one of Monckton's slides and his publicity shot from here.

The top photo comes from here.