|
Adam: that's fair, and my interpretation is another interpretation, which only adds to the confusion. In fact none of the versions I read said "Sunday" so it is entirely a cultural addition that I made. They said "the sabbath day" or "seventh day" so "Sunday" is really just an invention. Frankly I can't imagine that it matters a whole lot as long as there's an observed day.
Chew: you da man. It was interesting and helpful to me. It showed a different God than the popular culture has shown us.
The best interpretation I can make at this point, considering translation and whatnot, is that the whole idea was to get these rules down, a set of rules that was far better than any other nation had, a set of rules that would set the people up to be prosperous. At the end, God is really concerned that without Moses around the people will return to their ways of debauchery.
But I was really struck by the fact that Moses isn't allowed in at the end, he has to die before reaching the promised land, all because of some minor transgression years and years ago. Here's the greatest servant of God that the world has ever known, but whoops, he made a minor error in the Desert of Zin.
The Old Testament God is truly a jealous God, easily angered, incredibly intolerant of other religions. Having chosen His people, he will lead them to outright destroy other tribes. So I have to figure that, regardless of translation orr interpretation, the "no killing" commandment refers specifically to the Israelites killing other Israelites for sport, and that war is not only allowed, but deeply encouraged.
[Edited by Dagnabit on 03-28-2001 at 01:00 PM]
|