In Reply to: pre-requisite Logic posted by Eben Abram on September 30, 1997 at 02:28:30:
Shalom Eben,
I wish to remind you that you still owe me an answer...
Anyway... I agree with you... D’vorah does a great job defending her position... I’m sure that you will agree that we all strive to please Yahweh El-Shaddai... the best we know how... I do it by sticking to the Tanakh...
I only have the Tanakh to guide me on what the sacrifices were all about... I went to take another look at what I posted to see if I made a mistake in any way... I will let the passukim/verses speak for themselves... Hopefully the Ruach HaQodesh with show us all the ONLY truth that was covered for so many generations...
I think that we all need to go back to the Tanakh and study about the different type of sacrifices... including the ones offered regularly by the levim/priests by themselves (the morning and evening sacrifices...) that D’vorah alluded. We shouldn’t brush aside the PEOPLE’S SACRIFICES... just because we don't like them. Of what I can gather on this issue after reading the Tanakh, the temple sacrifices that were made of the people’s offerings were becoming less and less popular. In any case, When Yahushua was born his parents had a pair of delicious roasted turtledoves eaten at Yahweh’s table at the temple... Now don't tell me that these pigeons were burned to ashes...
Maybe the Levim at the second temple didn’t do much work, but at the first temple they surely did... Now there is no question in my mind whatsoever that they took your offerings and ate them at the temple... this is a true fact from way back to Moshe days... Let’s look at Samuel’s parents’ offering at Shiloh before there was any temple built...
1 Samuel 1:3-5 * Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to Yahweh Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of Yahweh.
4 Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. [SEE HERE, APPARENTLY THEY HAD TO WAIT THEIR TURN IN LINE FOR THEIR SACRIFICE... IF YOU FOLLOW THE LOGIC... the place was only so big]
5 But to Hannah he gave a double portion [SEE, THEY ATE THERE] because he loved her, and Yahweh had closed her womb.
Now along with all this there is a very sad story about Eli’s sons... they were corrupt levim/priests, and stole the sacrifices from the people... I don't know about Judaism today, but Christian clergy does the same --- they steal money from the laity under the pretext of a ‘tithe’.
1 Samuel 2:12-17 * Eli's sons were wicked men; they had no regard for Yahweh.
13 Now it was the practice of the priests with the people that whenever anyone offered a sacrifice and while the meat was being boiled, the servant of the priest would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand.
14 He would plunge it into the pan or kettle or caldron or pot, and the priest would take for himself whatever the fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.
15 But even before the fat was burned, the servant of the priest would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give the priest some meat to roast; he won't accept boiled meat from you, but only raw."
16 If the man said to him, "Let the fat be burned up first, and then take whatever you want," the servant would then answer, "No, hand it over now; if you don't, I'll take it by force."
17 This sin of the young men was very great in Yahweh's sight, for they were treating Yahweh's offering with contempt.
There is no way that we can change the Tanakh to read what we think it ought to read... what it is written it is written... I personally believe that we are beginning to see the newday light, now that Yahushua HaMashiach is getting ready to come and restore the perpetual sacrifices... like in the days of old... and as Malachi would write.. ‘let there be meat in my house’
I love it the way it used to be in king Josiah’s days... The levim/priests had to work hard even on the high holy days...
2 Chr. 35:7-15 * Josiah provided for all the lay people who were there a total of thirty thousand sheep and goats for the Passover offerings, and also three thousand cattle--all from the king's own possessions.
8 His officials also contributed voluntarily to the people and the priests and Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah and Jehiel, the administrators of Elohim's temple, gave the priests twenty-six hundred Passover offerings and three hundred cattle.
9 Also Conaniah along with Shemaiah and Nethanel, his brothers, and Hashabiah, Jeiel and Jozabad, the leaders of the Levites, provided five thousand Passover offerings and five hundred head of cattle for the Levites.
10 The service was arranged and the priests stood in their places with the Levites in their divisions as the king had ordered.
11 The Passover lambs were slaughtered, and the priests sprinkled the blood handed to them, while the Levites skinned the animals.
12 They set aside the burnt offerings to give them to the subdivisions of the families of the people to offer to YAHWEH, as is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle.
13 They roasted the Passover animals over the fire as prescribed, and boiled the holy offerings in pots, caldrons and pans and served them quickly to all the people.
14 After this, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were sacrificing the burnt offerings and the fat portions until nightfall. So the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the Aaronic priests.
15 The musicians, the descendants of Asaph, were in the places prescribed by David, Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun the king's seer. The gatekeepers at each gate did not need to leave their posts, because their fellow Levites made the preparations for them.
Baruch atah HaShem Yahweh
Shalom Aleichem,
Lou