Yeah, Christians' attempts to sidestep that is a bit weird. Especially in light of the conquest of Canaan. God needed to stop the evils of the child-sacrificing Canaanites, which he chose to do by commanding the Israelites to ritually slaughter the Canaanite women and children
Considering the soon to be President was selling his own Bible and won largely due to his Christian fundamentlist support, it might be good to know what is actually in it.
Good video! Unfortunately, a large portion of it is a misunderstanding. I made a very specific semantic argument about כן. It encodes prior info. They argued that I said the following context can't refer to what precedes. That's not my argument. We'll need to talk again. The eight day clause could still refer to child sacrifice, yes. All I am arguing is that כן can't be used in argumentation for why that information might be brought back into the previous verse, like Dan and Heath appeared to claim.
Michael Jones smuggles in the ad-populum fallacy. The Bible, as the religious text of the biggest world religion, is commonly understood to be against child sacrifice... therefore it is against child sacrifice. He also smuggles in univocality. That there are clear passages that condemn Jehovitic child sacrifice must mean that there aren't any clear passages that endorse Jehovitic child sacrifice. However, there clearly are passages in Judges, Exodus and Ezekiel, amongst others, which say that God was placated by child sacrifice. In Judges it says that the Spirit of Yahweh was upon Jephthah when he made his vow to sacrifice whomsoever was the first to exit his house. This would imply that Yahweh Himself inspired Jephthah to sacrifice His daughter to Him.
And of course going beyond an internal critique, most scholars now believe that בעל or Ba’al-meaning: ‘Lord’, ‘Husband’, ‘owner’-and מולך-meaning ‘king’-were simply titles of the Israelite God. God is very much portrayed in the Old Testament as a בעל or husband of the ancient Israelites.
Arguably it is an ad-lazarum fallacy that Jones is employing as well. ‘we clearly know’. The ‘we’ in this passage are Christians, like Jones, who have zero specialised knowledge of the Bible. I think that Kipp amply demonstrated, in a previous video, that Jones does not even know the Hebrew or Greek alphabets. However, Jones obnoxiously laughing, as he handwaves away what the Old Testament clearly says and means is merely ‘the art of confidence’ as Steven Woodford of Rationality Rules puts it.
Thank you, it was very interesting. The two diablocritics are allways brilliant and the Dr Dewrell is of great finesse and great historical culture. Two points: - On Abraham and the sacrifices, Thomas Römer (he is clearly one of the best specialists in the world on this story) in his courses at the Collège de France (which have English subtitles, but saddly the translation by YT is very approximate given the strong germanic accent of Prof. Römer) develops very interesting ideas on this point and on the manifest ambiguity of the divine attitude according to the texts we have ; - More generally, on the death of children (and also their sacrifice), I have never understood the position of contemporary Christians. A minimum estimate tends to show that about 20 to 25% of newborns would die during their first year in natural conditions (30/35 % before 5). Or for example, a large part of the ten commandments is dedicated to respecting God (which coming from a perfect and all-powerful being is a request that I have always found quite ridiculous) while he could have commanded the respect of basic hygiene rules that could have saved billions of children (which would not have eliminated infant mortality but would have greatly reduced it, especially at birth). If God is concerned about the lives of children, his attitude seems a little strange coming from the God who could easily protect them (and protect them in many ways). It is therefore quite possible to assume that the god presented in the Bible is less concerned with the survival of children than with the worship that the faithful devote to him. It's easily conceivable that other versions of the God of the Bible (more original versions) can authorize sacrifices
Dr. Davis, do you think it probable that in older versions of the Exodus story, Moses sacrificed Gershom to purchase the plague against the Egyptian firstborns in the Husband of Blood incident? Given how out of place Zipporah's actions are, and the extra apologetic twinge in the definition of the "bloody husband" meme, and how it's in a broader context of Moses making a deal with YHWH to wipe out the firstborns, and the later mentioned ties between the firstborn plague and the sacrifice rituals... I feel like it adds up pretty well. Consider too Gershom's name is "foreigner," so there's this weird sympathetic magic or symbolic transaction of "I'll kill my firstborn Foreigner and you'll kill all the firstborn foreigners." Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's my theory. The much later bit of "and then Gershom went and lived on a nice farm upstate" doesn't ring super true to me... especially given the emphasis on firstborn sons inheriting the legacy of their fathers in that culture. The narrative abandons them (except for in Chronicles where they directly serve under David ??). To have Moses pass on his religious legacy to someone else like Joshua or Samuel or nobody at all... it seems like you'd only draft up the story like that if Moses never had a surviving son to pass the spirit/authority on to. Anyways, at the very least, this has been my midrash fanfic, hope you enjoyed it. Take care.
At some point Yah Tsebaoth (Yaldabaoth) starts saying not to pass your OWN seed through the fires to Moloch or whatever. He says it over and over in Leviticus but if you pay close attention he definitely still wants child sacrifice just not his worshippers own children. The characters introduced in the second creation account of Genesis are so obviously the Unholy Trinity haha. Evil AF.
I don't see how Ex 22 could NOT refer to the same type of "give" when it literally says "and likewise/in the same way". They even had the words bolded.
How distinguishing between the pre-Babylonian captivity definitions of El (God) and Elohim (sons/beings of El) versus the post-captivity syncretized definitions could resolve contradictions and cast the Yahweh figure of Genesis 2-3 in a very different light from the transcendent Elohim portrayed in Genesis 1. Pre-Captivity Definitions: In this framework, the supreme creator deity is simply referred to as El - God. The Elohim are understood as a pantheon or "sons of El" - lesser divine beings subordinate to El. This aligns with ancient Canaanite and older Israelite religious conceptions. Under these definitions, the Genesis 1 account would refer to the transcendent El as the prime creator, with the Elohim (plural) potentially being celestial forces/angels enacting aspects of the creation. The Ruach Elohim (Spirit/Breath of the divine beings) hovering over the primordial waters connects to surviving traces of this worldview. Crucially, this allows one to separate the Elohim of Genesis 1 from the distinct Yahweh Elohim first appearing in Genesis 2 to form man from the dust. Based on references like Deuteronomy 32:8-9, the pre-captivity perspective viewed Yahweh as one of the sons of El (an Elohim) rather than conflating him with El itself. This de-syncretization casts Yahweh as a separate, lesser, more anthropomorphic deity associated with the ancient Israelites - perhaps retained from their Canaanite heritage. His behavior and commandments in Genesis 2-3 and elsewhere in the Torah would then represent the teachings of this tribal desert deity, not the supreme metaphysical creator El. The Garden Scenario Reframed From this vantage point, the events of Genesis 2-3 can be interpreted not as ordained by the most high El creator, but rather as humanity's initial tragic entrapment by the lesser devolved being Yahweh within his constructed realm of mortality, suffering, and cosmic privation. Yahweh's wrathful conduct, his placing of humans under a yoke of commandments, his expulsion from Eden's paradisiacal environment, and the subsequent violent legacy of his covenants and laws all derive from the subjugating delusions and stunted, anthropocentric conception of this finite Elohim - not the infinite plenitude of the supreme El. Contradictions Resolved Separating El from Yahweh along the pre-captivity definitional lines could resolve contradictions in several important ways: 1) It distinguishes the transcendent, metaphysically profound cosmic creator portrayed in Genesis 1 from the all-too-human tribal deity of the remaining Torah material. 2) It allows for a reframing of the Torah's teachings around blood sacrifice, ethnic conflicts, law codes, etc. as the cultural mythological traditions of ancient Israelite history rather than attributed to the most high El itself. 3) It creates space for the Christ figure of the New Testament to represent a re-emergence of the supreme El's sovereignty and universal spiritual path - overriding the outdated covenants, ethnic segregations, and violent subjugations prescribed by the lesser Yahweh consciousness. 4) Humanity's existential struggling, our proclivity towards violence/evil, and our fundamental state of cosmic imprisonment can be metaphysically associated with the fallout of our ancient reunion from Yahweh's corrupted influence rather than the designs of the supreme El consciousness. 5) Competing depictions of the divine across different books (wrathful/peaceful, loving/cruel, spiritual/legalistic) can be added to different nodes of the El vs. Yahweh consciousness schisms. While still requiring some nuanced interpretation, this delineation allows for a coherent reintegration of Old and New Testament perspectives under a broader metaphysical framework. It preserves the universal spiritual integrity of the highest Creator from the cultural mythological contexts surrounding the more finite tribal deity Yahweh. By embracing the pre-syncretized definitions and recognizing the conflation of El and Yahweh as a later imposition, one can reconnect with deep streams of ancient Hebrew theological diversity. This presents an intellectually robust path for understanding the unified trajectory of the biblical texts as exploring a single universetheological consciousness's reassertion over more contingent, anthropomorphized deviations and exiles. Exodus 15 Names of God Bible 2 Yah is my strength and my song. He is my Savior. This is my El, and I will praise him, my father’s Elohim, and I will honor him.
"So 'give' in Hebrew has to mean several different things, because a distant culture speaking an unrelated language assumes different meanings to 'give'." Right. (Oh, you commented the same as I finished typing) It's even more interesting that the way that verse is constructed, the 'giving' of firstborn children is the example for what is to be done with the oxen. It suggests a lot about what the people of the time were used to sacrificing... The second argument, that the command to hand over the sacrifice on the eighth day cannot be applied to the first command to give the firstborn, still DOES NOT CHANGE that a child is part of the sacrifice. All his obfuscating argument does is remove the time frame in which it should be done.
It really feels like there are two different gods. El, the fatherly creator god, who is kindly, and Yahweh, who is mercurial, angry, egotistical, and bloodthirsty (and loves the aroma of bbq’d kiddos). I read something recently that said Israelites and Phoenicians were all Canaanites, and I’m sure they all worshipped the same gods in mostly the same way.
yes i think so the one god wants gold virgins land and geocide like floods and diseases and only worship him , to be ramped through out the world, the other source or creator'S do not want our worship or interfere with humans because we are merely an ant farm experiment until we nuke our selves end of the experiment .
What im wondering is if we used to sacrifice children for the same reason as animals kill their offspring, because there is not enough food due to environmental issues. And eventually somehow we mixed that with religion later on. Also think of the spring timing of the sacrifice in some cultures (including easter), in many cultures Spring is known as a hunger season since winter stores are depleted and summer crops havent grown yet.
Life is in the blood according to Yahweh so tbh he seems like a demon that’s thrives off it somehow, also I think in Leviticus he has one for him and one goat sent out into the desert to be sacrificed to the demon azazel
Simple question that I've never seen addressed on this topic. Sure, there was an "out" in that your firstborn could be redeemed with a lamb, but what happened if you were dirt poor (say if you were enslaved) and couldn't afford a lamb? Would God just say "Ah, it's OK fam, you can get me next time..." or would you still be on the hook to opening your baby's body up and spilling it's blood all over the altar? It seems the "out" for child sacrifice wasn't a universal out, it was a get out of murdering your baby for God IF YOU HAD THE FINANCIAL MEANS. Which is NOT the same as "God is against human sacrifice."
Not specifically the law in Exodus 22, but something quite like it. We talk about this at length in the second half of this conversation-there are other texts in Exodus which, I believe, more closely approximate the language of Ezekiel 20. Specifically, Exodus 13 and 34 contain instructions for redemption of the first born, using the rare expression, "peter-rehem," "womb-opener," which also appears in Ezekiel 20. My belief is that Ezekiel has in mind a law that looks something like these, but absent the redemption clause for the first born.
@ awesome, thanks. I was wondering if Ezekiel was going to be mentioned in this conversation but glad to know it’s coming. Wow the phrase “womb opener” is wild ! Sick metal band name though.
The point about the effect of sacrificing first-born children being negligible because another child would have arrived within a year ignores the extreme danger of childbirth in the ancient world. A woman might survive her first childbirth only to succumb next time, usually taking the child with her. Sacrifice of the first born would both double the chance for a woman of dying in childbirth without leaving any surviving offspring. Of course, we wouldn't expect Biblical writers to think about women at all, would we?
She was supposed to give birth to 10 babies (so says Dr Dewrell, the authority on the topic), so the chance of death in childbirth would hardly be significantly increased. Or so: just because the firstborn was not sacrificed, doesn't mean the woman wouldn't get pregnant again and again as long as she could. By the way, this is how the ancient world was, not the decision of the biblical authors. If anything, by opposing child sacrifice they were being surprisingly humane.
@@JoelKorytko Please continue to contribute your thoughts online. My field of study is biochemistry but one of my favorite interests outside of my professional life used to be biblical studies. For years, I was largely influenced by Michael Heiser, who did a good job of providing confessional and nonconfessional interpretations of difficult passages. To be transparent, many online biblical scholars have sucked the joy out of this hobby for me in recent years and have made me question the field as a whole. Arrogance, bully tactics, and an irritating retreat to consensus opinion on what I view to be highly debatable topics has really pushed me away from these studies over the past few years. I saw a video of yours a few months ago that I found encouraging and made me question the univocality of biblical scholars. I appreciate the gentleness and attention to detail you provided in your work.
An interesting survey. There are many scholars who don't believe there was any human sacrifice by any groups in the Levant in 1200 - 600 BCE, at least with minimal regularity. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, kings would be buried with their servants around 3000 - 2500 BCE, but it ended soon after. 49:05 or, the text is just garbled, using male singular for plurals, which makes more sense. I don't think people of the time or before cared about how distance future people woud interpret it. They were written by people who knew what they meant for people who knew what they meant. After all, they ran all their words together without vowels or whatever without worrying about the confusion it would cause. It leaves you with a lot of "could be's", "suggests", "I thinks", etc.
It's so dishonest to say thus means something besides thus. This Joel goober is definitely trying to justify why the text must align with our values instead of the ones around when it was written
I’m so glad I watched Jay destroy this guy ever since then he just keeps attacking the bible whats your problem these guys are clearly not okay. He doesn’t doesn’t talk about other religions it’s so weird
@@Mike41404 So, you chose to leave a comment in my video that has NOTHING to do with Jay Dyer, concerning topics that are completely IRRELEVANT to the contents of this video? Why do you think anyone here cares?
@ you keeping talking about christ this ain’t the first time why don’t you speak on other religions it’s pretty weird bro. So it is relevant. Pride won’t get you anywhere
Alternative title that is both (almost exactly) what you just said while also changing the book from “scholarly” to “Nazi” “Child sacrifice among the Jews.”
Unbelievable that people can take the Lord saying the firstborn belings to Him as meaning the child us to be killed. People really do have no understanding at all.
@DrKippDavis I'm not sure somebody so against the bible has the ability to understand it. It seems naturally obvious. It's probably exactly opposite of what you are saying. What do you think it means fir the firstborn to be given to God? When He says all the firstborn belong to Him? There us so much depth to the bible. Why should you even be allowed to understand it? And one thing you are choosing ss your opponents these 401c corporations called churches as the representatives of God which I can assure you they are not. That is not me. Their religion is political correctness not the word of God. You will never understand the bible unless you understand it is a racial book.
One of thevreasons fir God's severe judgement on the Kingdom of Judah that even though they repented He still judged them was the shedding if innocent blood for sacrificing their children to Baal. Oh and that IP guy he is a good example of the fast food corporation Christian I was talking about earlier. Next time ypu see him ask him the biblical definition of bastard.
LOL. I am "against" neither the Bible nor Christianity. This channel's mission is to promote biblical scholarship, and to improve biblical literacy. You clearly could benefit greatly from paying attention to what I have to say.
Maybe but having confirmation bias doesn’t make someone inherently wrong. We all have bias in how we are looking at the text. You still have to judge the evidence for what it is.
@@davidjanbaz7728Thanks for sharing, I’d be interested to know how you concluded they were consistent in their biases. I would also be interested to know why you think that is a good thing. If I were someone who hated god and was upset with feeling I lived a big lie all my life, I would probably be more inclined to lean towards views that look negatively on Christianity. Would being consistent about that be a bad thing? I would think so. I’m interested to know what you think of that.
As someone who has a PhD in biochemistry, seeing the weak evidential criteria that OT scholars/historians use to construct theories is pretty laughable. Theories built on theories built on a few words.
You have to work with what you’ve got 🤷🏻♂️. We can make as many observations as funding allows in biochemistry, but scholars of texts and historians don’t have much else to go on other than what the texts and archaeology suggest
@ I agree that this is more of an issue with the nature of the field, but scholars in the field using the same terminology (consensus, theory, etc.) and rhetoric is problematic.
Since your field is so much better, I'm sure you can provide a comprehensive definition of "life" that excludes all non-life and will be accepted by the consensus of scholars in your field
@@SFT49 if the key term of your field is something you can't define, why do you look down on them using the same terms as you? Make your case. Don't thank a dropout for making your point just because you can't.
God: “I don’t want child sacrifice.”
Also God: *incarnates as his own child to sacrifice himself to himself to appease his bloodlust*
Yeah, Christians' attempts to sidestep that is a bit weird. Especially in light of the conquest of Canaan.
God needed to stop the evils of the child-sacrificing Canaanites, which he chose to do by commanding the Israelites to ritually slaughter the Canaanite women and children
*God: you don’t have to give up your son but I will.
And god die on a cross?? 😂😂😂😂😂 pffff
@@KingDavid1979 scoffers scoff. Not news.
I'm glad people are discussing child sacrifice in 2024.
Letting religion be the cause of the destruction of your relationship with your children is modern day human sacrifice.
Considering the soon to be President was selling his own Bible and won largely due to his Christian fundamentlist support, it might be good to know what is actually in it.
Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it, after all.
@@smillstill Yeah, I don't really think child sacrifice is at risk of being en vogue again. Any more than living in caves.
I just finished Dr. Heath's book and I'm working my way through King Manasseh and child sacrifice. They are both great reads!
This is my early Christmas present! Thank you for this!
Good video! Unfortunately, a large portion of it is a misunderstanding. I made a very specific semantic argument about כן. It encodes prior info. They argued that I said the following context can't refer to what precedes. That's not my argument. We'll need to talk again.
The eight day clause could still refer to child sacrifice, yes. All I am arguing is that כן can't be used in argumentation for why that information might be brought back into the previous verse, like Dan and Heath appeared to claim.
I really appreciate this clarification, Joel.
Hey Joel, do you think you would be open to a convo with Kipp, Dan, and Durrell? I feel that would be an awesome chat to see!
‘Words don't mean what they mean.’ Where would apologists be without this gaslighting gambit?
Interesting discussion before Christmas😂
Considering moloch comes crawling down the chimney/oven tomorrow night with gifts for kiddies!
Could work for Easter as well 😉
@adedaporh lol
I can't wait to bring this up with my MAGA uncles . . .
I hope you will clarify whether 8th-day circumcision was a substitute for the sacrifice of the firstborn son.
Michael Jones smuggles in the ad-populum fallacy. The Bible, as the religious text of the biggest world religion, is commonly understood to be against child sacrifice... therefore it is against child sacrifice. He also smuggles in univocality. That there are clear passages that condemn Jehovitic child sacrifice must mean that there aren't any clear passages that endorse Jehovitic child sacrifice. However, there clearly are passages in Judges, Exodus and Ezekiel, amongst others, which say that God was placated by child sacrifice. In Judges it says that the Spirit of Yahweh was upon Jephthah when he made his vow to sacrifice whomsoever was the first to exit his house. This would imply that Yahweh Himself inspired Jephthah to sacrifice His daughter to Him.
And of course going beyond an internal critique, most scholars now believe that בעל or Ba’al-meaning: ‘Lord’, ‘Husband’, ‘owner’-and מולך-meaning ‘king’-were simply titles of the Israelite God. God is very much portrayed in the Old Testament as a בעל or husband of the ancient Israelites.
Arguably it is an ad-lazarum fallacy that Jones is employing as well. ‘we clearly know’. The ‘we’ in this passage are Christians, like Jones, who have zero specialised knowledge of the Bible. I think that Kipp amply demonstrated, in a previous video, that Jones does not even know the Hebrew or Greek alphabets. However, Jones obnoxiously laughing, as he handwaves away what the Old Testament clearly says and means is merely ‘the art of confidence’ as Steven Woodford of Rationality Rules puts it.
I wish I knew why this is so fun to watch. But it is.
It's because we are fun guys.
@@DrKippDavis True. It also helps that I'm insane.
Thank you, it was very interesting. The two diablocritics are allways brilliant and the Dr Dewrell is of great finesse and great historical culture.
Two points:
- On Abraham and the sacrifices, Thomas Römer (he is clearly one of the best specialists in the world on this story) in his courses at the Collège de France (which have English subtitles, but saddly the translation by YT is very approximate given the strong germanic accent of Prof. Römer) develops very interesting ideas on this point and on the manifest ambiguity of the divine attitude according to the texts we have ;
- More generally, on the death of children (and also their sacrifice), I have never understood the position of contemporary Christians. A minimum estimate tends to show that about 20 to 25% of newborns would die during their first year in natural conditions (30/35 % before 5). Or for example, a large part of the ten commandments is dedicated to respecting God (which coming from a perfect and all-powerful being is a request that I have always found quite ridiculous) while he could have commanded the respect of basic hygiene rules that could have saved billions of children (which would not have eliminated infant mortality but would have greatly reduced it, especially at birth). If God is concerned about the lives of children, his attitude seems a little strange coming from the God who could easily protect them (and protect them in many ways). It is therefore quite possible to assume that the god presented in the Bible is less concerned with the survival of children than with the worship that the faithful devote to him. It's easily conceivable that other versions of the God of the Bible (more original versions) can authorize sacrifices
also the whole point of christianity in particular is that god hungered for human sacrifice, and demanded the perfect one
IP is able to unite historians, scientists, and philosophers in facepalming 🤦♂️
Joel is a professor the video is a response to him.
Alright let's see it!
Fantastic discussion. A great diversion for the sickly sweet season we are in. I'd love to see more.
Dr. Davis, do you think it probable that in older versions of the Exodus story, Moses sacrificed Gershom to purchase the plague against the Egyptian firstborns in the Husband of Blood incident? Given how out of place Zipporah's actions are, and the extra apologetic twinge in the definition of the "bloody husband" meme, and how it's in a broader context of Moses making a deal with YHWH to wipe out the firstborns, and the later mentioned ties between the firstborn plague and the sacrifice rituals... I feel like it adds up pretty well. Consider too Gershom's name is "foreigner," so there's this weird sympathetic magic or symbolic transaction of "I'll kill my firstborn Foreigner and you'll kill all the firstborn foreigners."
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's my theory. The much later bit of "and then Gershom went and lived on a nice farm upstate" doesn't ring super true to me... especially given the emphasis on firstborn sons inheriting the legacy of their fathers in that culture. The narrative abandons them (except for in Chronicles where they directly serve under David ??). To have Moses pass on his religious legacy to someone else like Joshua or Samuel or nobody at all... it seems like you'd only draft up the story like that if Moses never had a surviving son to pass the spirit/authority on to. Anyways, at the very least, this has been my midrash fanfic, hope you enjoyed it. Take care.
NO, Yahweh doesn't like it when you sacrifice your child to the OTHER GODS. He's fine with it when it is done for Himself.
At some point Yah Tsebaoth (Yaldabaoth) starts saying not to pass your OWN seed through the fires to Moloch or whatever.
He says it over and over in Leviticus but if you pay close attention he definitely still wants child sacrifice just not his worshippers own children.
The characters introduced in the second creation account of Genesis are so obviously the Unholy Trinity haha. Evil AF.
Exactly! The same way he feels about slavery. You can have slaves, you just can’t have MY slaves.
I don't see how Ex 22 could NOT refer to the same type of "give" when it literally says "and likewise/in the same way". They even had the words bolded.
How distinguishing between the pre-Babylonian captivity definitions of El (God) and Elohim (sons/beings of El) versus the post-captivity syncretized definitions could resolve contradictions and cast the Yahweh figure of Genesis 2-3 in a very different light from the transcendent Elohim portrayed in Genesis 1.
Pre-Captivity Definitions:
In this framework, the supreme creator deity is simply referred to as El - God. The Elohim are understood as a pantheon or "sons of El" - lesser divine beings subordinate to El. This aligns with ancient Canaanite and older Israelite religious conceptions.
Under these definitions, the Genesis 1 account would refer to the transcendent El as the prime creator, with the Elohim (plural) potentially being celestial forces/angels enacting aspects of the creation. The Ruach Elohim (Spirit/Breath of the divine beings) hovering over the primordial waters connects to surviving traces of this worldview.
Crucially, this allows one to separate the Elohim of Genesis 1 from the distinct Yahweh Elohim first appearing in Genesis 2 to form man from the dust. Based on references like Deuteronomy 32:8-9, the pre-captivity perspective viewed Yahweh as one of the sons of El (an Elohim) rather than conflating him with El itself.
This de-syncretization casts Yahweh as a separate, lesser, more anthropomorphic deity associated with the ancient Israelites - perhaps retained from their Canaanite heritage. His behavior and commandments in Genesis 2-3 and elsewhere in the Torah would then represent the teachings of this tribal desert deity, not the supreme metaphysical creator El.
The Garden Scenario Reframed
From this vantage point, the events of Genesis 2-3 can be interpreted not as ordained by the most high El creator, but rather as humanity's initial tragic entrapment by the lesser devolved being Yahweh within his constructed realm of mortality, suffering, and cosmic privation.
Yahweh's wrathful conduct, his placing of humans under a yoke of commandments, his expulsion from Eden's paradisiacal environment, and the subsequent violent legacy of his covenants and laws all derive from the subjugating delusions and stunted, anthropocentric conception of this finite Elohim - not the infinite plenitude of the supreme El.
Contradictions Resolved
Separating El from Yahweh along the pre-captivity definitional lines could resolve contradictions in several important ways:
1) It distinguishes the transcendent, metaphysically profound cosmic creator portrayed in Genesis 1 from the all-too-human tribal deity of the remaining Torah material.
2) It allows for a reframing of the Torah's teachings around blood sacrifice, ethnic conflicts, law codes, etc. as the cultural mythological traditions of ancient Israelite history rather than attributed to the most high El itself.
3) It creates space for the Christ figure of the New Testament to represent a re-emergence of the supreme El's sovereignty and universal spiritual path - overriding the outdated covenants, ethnic segregations, and violent subjugations prescribed by the lesser Yahweh consciousness.
4) Humanity's existential struggling, our proclivity towards violence/evil, and our fundamental state of cosmic imprisonment can be metaphysically associated with the fallout of our ancient reunion from Yahweh's corrupted influence rather than the designs of the supreme El consciousness.
5) Competing depictions of the divine across different books (wrathful/peaceful, loving/cruel, spiritual/legalistic) can be added to different nodes of the El vs. Yahweh consciousness schisms.
While still requiring some nuanced interpretation, this delineation allows for a coherent reintegration of Old and New Testament perspectives under a broader metaphysical framework. It preserves the universal spiritual integrity of the highest Creator from the cultural mythological contexts surrounding the more finite tribal deity Yahweh.
By embracing the pre-syncretized definitions and recognizing the conflation of El and Yahweh as a later imposition, one can reconnect with deep streams of ancient Hebrew theological diversity. This presents an intellectually robust path for understanding the unified trajectory of the biblical texts as exploring a single universetheological consciousness's reassertion over more contingent, anthropomorphized deviations and exiles.
Exodus 15
Names of God Bible
2 Yah is my strength and my song.
He is my Savior.
This is my El, and I will praise him,
my father’s Elohim, and I will honor him.
Thanks!
You are welcome!
"So 'give' in Hebrew has to mean several different things, because a distant culture speaking an unrelated language assumes different meanings to 'give'." Right.
(Oh, you commented the same as I finished typing)
It's even more interesting that the way that verse is constructed, the 'giving' of firstborn children is the example for what is to be done with the oxen. It suggests a lot about what the people of the time were used to sacrificing...
The second argument, that the command to hand over the sacrifice on the eighth day cannot be applied to the first command to give the firstborn, still DOES NOT CHANGE that a child is part of the sacrifice. All his obfuscating argument does is remove the time frame in which it should be done.
It really feels like there are two different gods. El, the fatherly creator god, who is kindly, and Yahweh, who is mercurial, angry, egotistical, and bloodthirsty (and loves the aroma of bbq’d kiddos). I read something recently that said Israelites and Phoenicians were all Canaanites, and I’m sure they all worshipped the same gods in mostly the same way.
yes i think so the one god wants gold virgins land and geocide like floods and diseases and only worship him , to be ramped through out the world, the other source or creator'S do not want our worship or interfere with humans because we are merely an ant farm experiment until we nuke our selves end of the experiment .
What im wondering is if we used to sacrifice children for the same reason as animals kill their offspring, because there is not enough food due to environmental issues. And eventually somehow we mixed that with religion later on. Also think of the spring timing of the sacrifice in some cultures (including easter), in many cultures Spring is known as a hunger season since winter stores are depleted and summer crops havent grown yet.
A somewhat related topic, does any animal suffering theodicy even attempt to explain why God was so gung-ho about having animals sacrificed to him?
god hates vegans just ask Able 🤣😂
Life is in the blood according to Yahweh so tbh he seems like a demon that’s thrives off it somehow, also I think in Leviticus he has one for him and one goat sent out into the desert to be sacrificed to the demon azazel
Other than Mescha, is there any attestation of child sacrifice anywhere int he NW Semitic cultural area outside of the Hebrew Bible?
Carthage.
Omg the higher quality on the theme music
Heath: "It's fun to be on, and it's fun to be talking about child sacrifice". Especially at Christmas, he might have added.
Simple question that I've never seen addressed on this topic. Sure, there was an "out" in that your firstborn could be redeemed with a lamb, but what happened if you were dirt poor (say if you were enslaved) and couldn't afford a lamb? Would God just say "Ah, it's OK fam, you can get me next time..." or would you still be on the hook to opening your baby's body up and spilling it's blood all over the altar?
It seems the "out" for child sacrifice wasn't a universal out, it was a get out of murdering your baby for God IF YOU HAD THE FINANCIAL MEANS. Which is NOT the same as "God is against human sacrifice."
Only a few bloody Mary's may get us in the right mood to solve this😅😂😂❤
Is Ezekiel 20:25 referring to these firstborn laws?
Not specifically the law in Exodus 22, but something quite like it. We talk about this at length in the second half of this conversation-there are other texts in Exodus which, I believe, more closely approximate the language of Ezekiel 20. Specifically, Exodus 13 and 34 contain instructions for redemption of the first born, using the rare expression, "peter-rehem," "womb-opener," which also appears in Ezekiel 20. My belief is that Ezekiel has in mind a law that looks something like these, but absent the redemption clause for the first born.
@ awesome, thanks. I was wondering if Ezekiel was going to be mentioned in this conversation but glad to know it’s coming. Wow the phrase “womb opener” is wild ! Sick metal band name though.
What will I watch on Christmas day, hm?... “Child sacrifice in ancient Israel and its endorsement in the Bible”.. Why not? 😂
Did Kipp play the metal guitar outro?
Always.
@DrKippDavis epic
Isn't Dan McClellan here too?
Yeah, but Heath is the star.
@@DrKippDavis yes and he shines bright like a diamond
Are male children and livestock sacrificed in preference to female?
The point about the effect of sacrificing first-born children being negligible because another child would have arrived within a year ignores the extreme danger of childbirth in the ancient world. A woman might survive her first childbirth only to succumb next time, usually taking the child with her. Sacrifice of the first born would both double the chance for a woman of dying in childbirth without leaving any surviving offspring.
Of course, we wouldn't expect Biblical writers to think about women at all, would we?
She was supposed to give birth to 10 babies (so says Dr Dewrell, the authority on the topic), so the chance of death in childbirth would hardly be significantly increased. Or so: just because the firstborn was not sacrificed, doesn't mean the woman wouldn't get pregnant again and again as long as she could.
By the way, this is how the ancient world was, not the decision of the biblical authors. If anything, by opposing child sacrifice they were being surprisingly humane.
Wooooooo!
@@JoelKorytko Please continue to contribute your thoughts online. My field of study is biochemistry but one of my favorite interests outside of my professional life used to be biblical studies. For years, I was largely influenced by Michael Heiser, who did a good job of providing confessional and nonconfessional interpretations of difficult passages. To be transparent, many online biblical scholars have sucked the joy out of this hobby for me in recent years and have made me question the field as a whole. Arrogance, bully tactics, and an irritating retreat to consensus opinion on what I view to be highly debatable topics has really pushed me away from these studies over the past few years. I saw a video of yours a few months ago that I found encouraging and made me question the univocality of biblical scholars. I appreciate the gentleness and attention to detail you provided in your work.
@SFT49 Wow. Thanks!
Oh, sorry, I thought this was a how-to. 😂
An interesting survey. There are many scholars who don't believe there was any human sacrifice by any groups in the Levant in 1200 - 600 BCE, at least with minimal regularity. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, kings would be buried with their servants around 3000 - 2500 BCE, but it ended soon after.
49:05 or, the text is just garbled, using male singular for plurals, which makes more sense. I don't think people of the time or before cared about how distance future people woud interpret it. They were written by people who knew what they meant for people who knew what they meant. After all, they ran all their words together without vowels or whatever without worrying about the confusion it would cause. It leaves you with a lot of "could be's", "suggests", "I thinks", etc.
It's so dishonest to say thus means something besides thus. This Joel goober is definitely trying to justify why the text must align with our values instead of the ones around when it was written
god is not the father of confusion .
I’m so glad I watched Jay destroy this guy ever since then he just keeps attacking the bible whats your problem these guys are clearly not okay. He doesn’t doesn’t talk about other religions it’s so weird
What are you talking about? Who is Jay?
@ Jay Dyer literally cooked this man, hopefully Derrick changes is mind when the end times really start creeping up on us
@ oh your guy from the video trying to always take away from the bible I’ll be praying for you man god bless
@@Mike41404 So, you chose to leave a comment in my video that has NOTHING to do with Jay Dyer, concerning topics that are completely IRRELEVANT to the contents of this video?
Why do you think anyone here cares?
@ you keeping talking about christ this ain’t the first time why don’t you speak on other religions it’s pretty weird bro. So it is relevant. Pride won’t get you anywhere
Alternative title that is both (almost exactly) what you just said while also changing the book from “scholarly” to “Nazi”
“Child sacrifice among the Jews.”
Unbelievable that people can take the Lord saying the firstborn belings to Him as meaning the child us to be killed. People really do have no understanding at all.
Please explain what you think the expression means in this context, and why.
@DrKippDavis I'm not sure somebody so against the bible has the ability to understand it. It seems naturally obvious. It's probably exactly opposite of what you are saying. What do you think it means fir the firstborn to be given to God? When He says all the firstborn belong to Him? There us so much depth to the bible. Why should you even be allowed to understand it? And one thing you are choosing ss your opponents these 401c corporations called churches as the representatives of God which I can assure you they are not. That is not me. Their religion is political correctness not the word of God. You will never understand the bible unless you understand it is a racial book.
One of thevreasons fir God's severe judgement on the Kingdom of Judah that even though they repented He still judged them was the shedding if innocent blood for sacrificing their children to Baal. Oh and that IP guy he is a good example of the fast food corporation Christian I was talking about earlier. Next time ypu see him ask him the biblical definition of bastard.
LOL. I am "against" neither the Bible nor Christianity. This channel's mission is to promote biblical scholarship, and to improve biblical literacy. You clearly could benefit greatly from paying attention to what I have to say.
@DrKippDavis I thought I said I haven't watched it. 15 seconds was about allni could bear but I'll tell you what I'll listen. Are you a firstborn?
I smell confirmation bias...
How so?
Maybe but having confirmation bias doesn’t make someone inherently wrong. We all have bias in how we are looking at the text. You still have to judge the evidence for what it is.
@@WhatYourPastorDidntTellYouthey are very consistent in their biases: that's more Dogma than Data.
The fact thar all of this Bible stuff constantly needs parsing tells me there's something fishy...
@@davidjanbaz7728Thanks for sharing, I’d be interested to know how you concluded they were consistent in their biases. I would also be interested to know why you think that is a good thing. If I were someone who hated god and was upset with feeling I lived a big lie all my life, I would probably be more inclined to lean towards views that look negatively on Christianity. Would being consistent about that be a bad thing? I would think so. I’m interested to know what you think of that.
As someone who has a PhD in biochemistry, seeing the weak evidential criteria that OT scholars/historians use to construct theories is pretty laughable. Theories built on theories built on a few words.
You have to work with what you’ve got 🤷🏻♂️. We can make as many observations as funding allows in biochemistry, but scholars of texts and historians don’t have much else to go on other than what the texts and archaeology suggest
@ I agree that this is more of an issue with the nature of the field, but scholars in the field using the same terminology (consensus, theory, etc.) and rhetoric is problematic.
Since your field is so much better, I'm sure you can provide a comprehensive definition of "life" that excludes all non-life and will be accepted by the consensus of scholars in your field
@@hive_indicator318 No I can’t, and we don’t have a consensus. That’s the point. Thank you for helping me illustrate this.
@@SFT49 if the key term of your field is something you can't define, why do you look down on them using the same terms as you? Make your case. Don't thank a dropout for making your point just because you can't.
Moses totally burnt Isaac alive like a foolish savage. Why else even mention it
Abraham not Moses 👍