The unreliable God

[HansMustermann]

Oh, STEEL is a very late thing indeed. Even pattern welding is really a medieval thing (IIRC the Lombards made the first pattern-welded spathas.) Ancient iron-age swords were just wrought iron. Literally. Early examples weren't even quenched or tempered, because while people discovered quenching early, it makes the metal brittle like glass unless followed by tempering, which was only discovered very late.

It's also the reason why most swords were short, because longer than 2 ft or so, you exceed the tensile strength of iron on impact and it bends. And also one reason why they preferred swords curved forwards.

The more mundane reason why most soldiers didn't have swords until the Romans invested insane sums in that, is that swords were expensive as heck anyway. Iron production was practically homeopathic by today's standards, and involved a LOT or manual work. And on top of that you still needed a very skilled and experienced specialist sword-smith to make a sword worth using anyway. The material being crap didn't make the problem easier, it actually made it harder to make a sword that is a cutting edge weapon (bad pun intended.) You needed someone who learned exactly how to use the right outline, taper, distal taper, etc, to make a sword which not only has a blade, but has the centre of gravity just right, the centre of percussion just right, is just long enough to give you reach but doesn't bend on impact, and is as lightweight as possible too.

A spear or axe didn't have the same problems. Even a 1 ft long spear head just isn't pushing the edge of material properties like a 2 ft long sword. Any village smith could make one of those.

 

[tsig]

Yeah, because fallen humans are so very useful in the execution of random, arbitrary, nowhere plans for nobody. That's why there are so many fallen humans. Because those plans of His have worked so well so far.

Or perhaps God deliberately cultivates fallen humans because He needs them for His nowhere plans. "Mysterious ways", indeed.

Well, Adam was set up to fail so god must indeed need and wants to have mankind in a fallen state.

 

[HansMustermann]

The part of this story that I find most interesting is the presence of God is quite palpable. The people are described as literally sitting before the Lord and talking to Him.

Why would a God that was intimately and personally involved in these affairs no longer be present? Why can't people today do what the Israelites do and point to their God and say, "My faith isn't blind. There's my God. He's sitting right over there."

What changed in these few thousand years?

Actually, that part is just a mind screw for anyone who isn't used to how it worked in those times.

A) Think going to a medium these days. They don't tell you "*I* say that your grandma is happy in heavens" they say "*Your grandma* says to tell you she's happy in heavens". People still think they talked to their grandma, although they actually talked to a medium.

B) Or think using a ouija board. Same deal. They think they actually talked to some ghost, not just played with a wooden board.

I gave those two examples because both are exactly what those people are likely doing there. And we know that not only from the book, but because people have been doing some of that well into the 2nd century AD. And arguably some still do.

A) Those prophets and oracles in the ancient world were not supposed to be just smart guys, but guys that actually channel a god. When Leonidas went to die (and yes, he knew he must die there) because the oracle told him to, it wasn't a case of "oh, ok, she's a smart woman, she knows large scale military strategy better than me" but because he literally thought that a god told him that (through the oracle.)

The prophets in the Hebrew world were not that different. We know from the Tanakh that even dreaming a dream counts as receiving messages from God. And we know that because it actually tells us that in the book. E.g.,

Nuimbers 12:6

And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.​

And they actually regulate who is getting messages from the right God in a dream. E.g.,

Deuteronomy 13:1-5:

13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,

13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

13:4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

13:5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.​

So yes, they asked God, or so they thought, and the above tells you HOW that was likely done. They actually asked Phinehas and the dude pretended to have a vision and told them God's asnwer.

B) Well, as Tim already mentioned in this thread we have a very clearly described example in the book where David gets information from God by... a random numbers game.

Nowdays you wouldn't think that, say, russian roulette would be a perfectly good way to find and punish a criminal from a pool of suspects, but exactly that kind of divination was used all through the ancient world AND middle ages. The idea was that if you ask god nicely, he'll essentially roll the dice for you, or influence who draws the shortest straw, or protect the gal you asked to walk through a fire to prove her innocence if she's indeed innocent.

And again, they could they think with a straight face that they talked to God and got an answer.

Ah well.

But yeah, that's the kind of mind screw I was mentioning earlier. There's stuff that would have made sense for someone at the time. They'd know what "sat before God and asked him" means. But fast forward some time and you start seeing people thinking that, for example, Abraham literally talked to God face to face when deciding whether to kick out his concubine and her kid after Sarah got her own offspring. (Likely either the dude was schizophrenic and had a "vision", or more likely just flipped a coin and called the result a message from God. That is, that's how it would have worked, if he had actually existed, instead of being just a fictive character.)

 

[Bikewer]

It's remarkable that this rather petty, warlike, and decidedly small-scale God morphed into the very large-scale, omniscient, omnipotent (yadda, yadda) God of Christianity.

 

[epix]

So while iron chariots are pretty well known by now as something that stops God (he'll probably crap a brick when he sees tanks), let's look at another overlooked troop that apparently God couldn't help much about.

Mustermann, I think that your OP lowered God's credit rating by a good number of points, so to speak. See, God made a few promises regarding the time that may still dwell in the future and now, seeing God's credibility flowing toward the main drain pipe, I believe that God should put some money down on his promises. Look at this promise, for example.

I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

(Yeah right. Talk to Mustermann about it, Your Most Divine Promise . . .)

Mustermann, check this out: If God is omniscient, then he would know that one nice day you decide to rearrange his credibility. That means he would feel kind of obliged to "give us a sign" that he really meant what he promised - that there would be no flood destroying the earth. That make sense, but the problem is to intercept "the sign." What would be the nature of it? See, the problem is that due to his omniscience, God wouldn't miss the sign, but we are far from being omniscient and can miss anything, anytime.

Actually a debate arose on this particular issue when I was fixing electrical outlet in HP8 years ago. I just chipped in saying that the promise of no another flood of "Biblical proportions" translates into the absence of water as the sign in general. But that would mean an exceptionally severe and long drought occurring with famine and tens of thousand folks starving to death as the consequence. So this option didn't work well. But my suggestion relating to the absence of water turned out to be inspiring: You create an event where water is an essential item for the survival, like if you can't douse the fire, the construction steel gets soft by the heat and can no longer support the load.

I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Genesis 9:11
And so Michael, Gabriel and I had the month and the day of the sign from God taking place. But we didn't have the year. Since Michael is really a clever guy (that's why he made an archangel) he stayed with water, or H₂O₁. The only way to utilize those 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of oxygen was to render them as 2001. So we had the year. I was done fixing and left, so I got nothing to do with the rest - with all the details. I swear, I didn't talk to Michael and Gabriel about that no more...

Be quiet!

They meant well, Heavenly Father; they just wanted to create a sign that would restore your credibility...

What?! My credibility is unassailable, you nitwit!

But there was Mustermann appearing in the FutureScope and...

What Mustermann?! What are you babbling about?!!! Out of my sight! Right now!!

So I was found guilty (my lawyer was a crank, obviously) on three counts of something. God caused a leak in 2001(!) showers in the SR2 sector of Heaven and I had to fix them all. Never got so wet in my life and never will - if I can trust God's promise regarding that earth-destroying flood. Michael and Gabriel got demoted all the way down to junior assistant angels. And that's all coz of you, Mustermann.

 

[HansMustermann]

Err, so the evidence that God exists and you can rely on him is that... a miracle violating the conservation of matter DIDN'T happen? Heh. Fine, then watch me be a god: I make a covenant with you that the entropy in the universe will never decrease. See, if it doesn't happen, it's proof of my divinity

I would think that miracles NOT happening is kinda the status quo. The default state. You don't need a God for miracles to NOT happen. What matters more is relying on him for stuff that involves something happening. For stuff where nothing unusual happens, meh, if that's what he's reliable for, we can do just fine without praying to him

 

[catsmate]

True.
Actual sword steel is a late (1000AC?) invention and people had to come up with very expensive and time consuming tricks like pattern welding to get good blades.

I'd expect many, if not most, of the weapons to be bronze. Even in what we call the 'iron age' many metal tools were of bronze.

ETA: Are there any surviving records on militia requirements for town citizens?
I am thinking of the lists from medieval Europe where there were specifics on what gear what income group were supposed to own.

Not that I'm aware of.
Offhand (I'm in bed and there's be objections if I went hunting up books right now) all I can recall is a few bits of trivia;
The Sumerian Tablets of Shuruppak (~2600 BCE) indicate that even at that early date, Sumer’s city-states provided for the maintenance of up to 700 full-time soldiers.

 

[Leumas]

Actually, that part is just a mind screw for anyone who isn't used to how it worked in those times.

A) Think going to a medium these days. They don't tell you "*I* say that your grandma is happy in heavens" they say "*Your grandma* says to tell you she's happy in heavens". People still think they talked to their grandma, although they actually talked to a medium.
[snip]

Also don’t forget the express mention of a BOOK of CURSES that they apparently used on regular basis:

2 Chr. 34:24, “Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah”

Also, don’t forget the way that YHWH ordained they should DIVINE whether a woman has been unfaithful or not (as customary much OFFERINGS were necessary too….the poor Hebrews were giving these darned Levites offerings left right and center….a woman could not breath without having to atone for it by giving some offering to a Levite….all as ordered by YHWH of course):

Numbers 5

The Test for an Unfaithful Wife
11 Then the LORD said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[c] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the LORD. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the LORD, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the LORD cause you to become a curse[d] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[e] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the LORD and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.’”

 

[Leumas]

I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Genesis 9:11

Hey Epix,

I know it is standard fair for casuists to pick verses out of context and to build some contortionist hermeneutics around the faulty deductions they can extrude out of such claptrap. But in this case you have failed abysmally.

The sign that YHWH put as an indicator and REMINDER for HIMSELF that he ought not to destroy earth with water is the RAINBOW….you needn’t have gone about doing such amazing acrobatic pirouettes to find the sign…..it was in the next few verses right after the ones you quoted.

Genesis

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Besides…..consider this AMAZING coincidence…..the Emergency Number to dial when there is an emergency in the USA is 911………wow….could that be a coincidence of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS??????

Maybe God inspired AT&T to make the emergency number 911 according to Genesis 9:11 so as to CALL GOD but discovered that they kept getting a busy signal so assigned operators to do so instead of God…..no?

Have a look at this video and have a laugh…….

 

[epix]

Hey Epix,

I know it is standard fair for casuists to pick verses out of context and to build some contortionist hermeneutics around the faulty deductions they can extrude out of such claptrap. But in this case you have failed abysmally.

The sign that YHWH put as an indicator and REMINDER for HIMSELF that he ought not to destroy earth with water is the RAINBOW….you needn’t have gone about doing such amazing acrobatic pirouettes to find the sign…..it was in the next few verses right after the ones you quoted.

I'm not surprised that you, as an atheists, would call the matter out of context not being able to grasp meaningful link between water and fire (as 9/11) nailed to two significant disasters. Water and fire are natural opposites and as inherent opposites, water stands for a fiction (Biblical story) and fire for non-fiction (WTC).

Later I was allowed to talk again to junior assistant angel Michael (formerly Archangel Michael) who cooked up and together with then-Archangel Gabriel executed the memorable and now infamous sign without God's consent. Michael said that he was very much aware of the original sign, but was pretty sure that current version of Homo sapiens in its neural decomposition wouldn't be able to tell apart natural rainbow from the "sign rainbow." That's why he programmed it into the works:
http://vimeo.com/26407117

(Mankind, get your eyes fixed, will'ya. )

 

[Leumas]

I'm not surprised that you, as an atheists, would call the matter out of context not being able to grasp meaningful link between water and fire (as 9/11) nailed to two significant disasters. Water and fire are natural opposites and as inherent opposites, water stands for a fiction (Biblical story) and fire for non-fiction (WTC).

Later I was allowed to talk again to junior assistant angel Michael (formerly Archangel Michael) who cooked up and together with then-Archangel Gabriel executed the memorable and now infamous sign without God's consent. Michael said that he was very much aware of the original sign, but was pretty sure that current version of Homo sapiens in its neural decomposition wouldn't be able to tell apart natural rainbow from the "sign rainbow." That's why he programmed it into the works:
http://vimeo.com/26407117

(Mankind, get your eyes fixed, will'ya. )

 

[epix]

http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer

Umm... I don't think that one is well-trained. Naw. Don't pick that one.

 

[tsig]

I'm not surprised that you, as an atheists, would call the matter out of context not being able to grasp meaningful link between water and fire (as 9/11) nailed to two significant disasters. Water and fire are natural opposites and as inherent opposites, water stands for a fiction (Biblical story) and fire for non-fiction (WTC).

Later I was allowed to talk again to junior assistant angel Michael (formerly Archangel Michael) who cooked up and together with then-Archangel Gabriel executed the memorable and now infamous sign without God's consent. Michael said that he was very much aware of the original sign, but was pretty sure that current version of Homo sapiens in its neural decomposition wouldn't be able to tell apart natural rainbow from the "sign rainbow." That's why he programmed it into the works:
http://vimeo.com/26407117

(Mankind, get your eyes fixed, will'ya. )

Looks like downsizing has hit even the heavenly host.