Centralization of Sacrifice in the Priestly Document

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Centralization ofSacrifice in the Priestly

DocumentAnimal sacrifice was practiced in the ancient Hebrew

faith, but not in today's Jewish and Christian faiths? Why?The answer is found in the Priestly text, which Jews andChristians have unfortunately and unwittingly inherited intheir Bible. The Priestly text commands that sacrifices

should only be performed in the place where God resides, atthe altar of his tabernacle, which is assumed to be the templeof Jerusalem, since that is where the tabernacle has residedsince the days of Solomon.[1] The Priestly command tosacrifice at only one central location is as follows:

Any Israelite who kills a cow, lamb, or goat in the campor outside the camp, and fails to bring it to the door ofthe tabernacle of the congregation, to offer it toYahweh, in the tabernacle of Yahweh, blood will beupon that person. They have shed blood, and they shallbe cut off from their people.[2]

Deuteronomy is even more poignant:

Take care not to burn your sacrifices in every locationyou see, but in the place Yahweh chooses within one ofyour tribes, there you must bring all your sacrifices.[3]

Today, an Islamic shrine sits on the spot where the ancienttabernacle of Jerusalem used to sit. Consequently, nosacrifices are performed.

Sacrifice Outside Jerusalem

Yet virtually every "righteous" individual who performedanimal sacrifices in the Old Testament directly violated thisregulation. Abraham sacrificed everywhere but inJerusalem. He built altars at Shechem, Bethel, and Hebron,and these altars were used for animal sacrifice.[4] As

Ancient lore says the Jerusalem temple(above) was built with the help of demons.The Genesis Creation Story was written by

heretic priests of that temple.

THIS SECTION:

GENESISCREATIONSTORY IS A

FORGERY

Ancient Christians believed that some parts ofthe Bible were written by God and other partsof the Bible were written by Satan the Devil.

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10/4/2009http://www.jesusbelievesinevolution.com/priestly_sacrifice_centralization.htm


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Abraham journeyed south, he passed right over Jerusalem,not even stopping there. His son Isaac was no different.Isaac built an altar at Beer-Sheba, but not at Jerusalem.[5]Before them, Noah built an altar and sacrificed animalssomewhere in Mesopotamia.[6] Moses asked Pharaoh to "letmy people go" so that they could sacrifice animals out in themiddle of the Egyptian desert.[7] None of these altars were

even close to the so-called "holy city" of Jerusalem. Clearly,the idea that animal sacrifice can only occur in Jerusalem is afalse doctrine of the priests, and is easily disproved by theearlier texts of the Bible.

Whats more, the Priestly text never mentions any of thesesacrifices. It omits the story of how Noah sacrificed after theFlood, of how Abraham and Isaac sacrificed at randomlocations in Canaan, and of how Moses attempted to sacrificein the sands of Egypt. These omissions were not accidental.The Priestly text intentionally omitted these for the purposeof deceiving people into believing they had to sacrifice only inJerusalem. They did this because they depended upon the

revenue generated when all tithes and sacrifices came toJerusalem, where they were located. To allow the people tosacrifice elsewhere was simply bad business. The almightydollar is the reason why Jerusalem became the city of theAlmighty. Follow the money. Just like modern corporationswhich violate anti-trust laws, the Jerusalem temple priestswanted to monopolize the market for religion by destroyingall competition. To do this, they invented forgeries anddistorted Israel's true history, telling everyone they must paytithes and sacrifices to their Jerusalem temple.

In the early times, for the first six centuries after theHebrews entered the Promised Land, the Hebrews continued

to sacrifice anywhere they wanted, and the God of Israel wasperfectly satisfied with this arrangement. The Hebrews setup altars on the mountain tops, which they called high places.Jerusalem had no special status. Jerusalem was just one ofmany high places. For example, David sacrificed in hishometown of Bethlehem, a rather insignificant town.[8]Solomon sacrificed animals to Yahweh on high places outsideJerusalem, and Yahweh rewarded him for it. Solomon alsosacrificed animals in Jerusalem, but Solomon is not said tohave received any reward for sacrificing in Jerusalem.[9]The Prophet Samuel also sacrificed on the high places, and sodid Saul. God rewarded their sacrifices with the gift of

prophecy.[10] Such was the disposition of the God of Israel,that he rewarded people for sacrificing outside the so-called"holy city" of Jerusalem. If people got a sudden urge to eatmeat or make a sacrifice, makeshift altars were created onthe spot.[11] No special location or temple was required.

Even after the temple at Jerusalem was well established,Gods Prophets continued to sacrifice outside of Jerusalem.For example, Elijah, who prophesied a century after theJerusalem temple was up and running, sacrificed on MountCarmel, and God confirmed that Elijah was justified in doing

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Above: Marduk, the heroof Enuma Elish, the

pagan myth from whichGenesis 1 is derived.

Below: Map of Israel andwhere different parts ofthe Bible came from.




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so by consuming the sacrifice with fire.[12] LikewiseSamsons parents. Moreover, a large number of Yahweh-worshipping kings throughout Judahs history had afavorable policy toward the high places outside of Jerusalem,including Azariah, Amaziah, Jehoash, Jehoshaphat, and Asa.[13] All of these kings lived after the Jerusalem temple wasalready established, and all of them recognized that

sacrificial altars outside of Jerusalem had a right to exist.They did not destroy the high places. These kings were moreancient and thus closer in time to Moses than the Priestlytext, and so their opinions hold preeminence.

The Corruption of the Elohist Torah

As long as the Hebrews sacrificed to Yahweh on the highplaces, Yahweh continued to bless them with freedom andprosperity in the Promised Land. Evidently, God was quitehappy with the high places.

Then, one day, an eight-year old boy named Josiahascended to the throne, and his priests convinced him to teardown all the high places and leave only Jerusalem.[14] Itappears the boy king was easily manipulated by thepriesthood, for these priests supposedly "found" a holy bookthat had been missing from the Bible for hundreds years, [15]yet scholars believe they largely invented it. The book wasDeuteronomy, which, like the Priestly text, commands theIsraelites to sacrifice at only one central location.[16] Thisexplains why Josiah tore down the high places. The name"Deuteronomy" means "second giving of the Law," and it islikely that it was the second edition of the Elohist Torah. The

original Elohist Torah was not compatible with the Priestlytext; therefore, it was reworked into Deuteronomy. This canbe deduced from who "found" Deuteronomy in the temple namely Hilkiah, who was related both to Abiathar'spriesthood at Anathoth and also to Zadok's priesthood atJerusalem.[17] Insofar as Hilkiah was the child of bothtraditions, he sought a merger of the two, and thus we havethe book of Deuteronomy, which merges Elohist and Priestlydoctrines. This is further substantiated by a tradition thatEzra omitted part of the Elohist Torah, and justified thisomission by referencing Deuteronomy in its place.[18]

The priests loved Josiah, so they formulated a falseprophecy that the young king would live long and diepeacefully. Yet, in actual fact, Josiah would later die inbattle at a young age.[19] Obviously, God wasnt filling themouths of the Jerusalem priests with prophecy! Rather,these were the false prophets Jeremiah so frequentlymentions. Josiahs religious reformation lasted exactlythirteen years.[20] By the end of those thirteen years, Josiahlay slain, Judahs armies were defeated, and the Hebrewnation had lost its ability to sustain itself. The once loftykingdom of David was reduced to a puppet state. Over the




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next twenty years, the Hebrew kings played political stuntswith their Babylonian overlords, until finally, Babylonutterly destroyed them in the siege of Jerusalem. The templewas destroyed and Jerusalem was burned to the ground. Thelucky survivors were exiled to Babylon, where they remainedfor 70 years.

Thus, within a generation of Josiahs religious reforms,the Hebrew nation went from freedom to slavery. If onechooses to view history theologically, then one should revisethe book of Kings in this light.

Why did Yahweh abandon his chosen people in the middleof the greatest religious reformation of they had everaccomplished? Why did God punish Israel at a time whenthey were obeying Torah Law better than they ever had inthe past? The answer, I believe, resides in the fact that thetheology of Kings is wrong. That is to say, Josiah was not agreat reformer, but was rather a heretic, and Yahwehpunished Israel with the Babylonian exile because of his

heresy. To the king of Assyria, this was obvious, as he says,

You tell me that you trust in your God Yahweh. Butisn't this the same God whose altars Hezekiah hasdismantled, telling you to worship only at the altar inJerusalem?[21]

The logic of the king of Assyria was simple: Hezekiah toredown Yahweh's altars on the high places. Therefore,Yahweh punished Hezekiah as the Bible tells us and

archaeology confirms. Hezekiah was besieged in Jerusalemand kept locked up like a caged bird, and he was forced toloot the temple and give its treasure to Assyria. TheAssyrians even claimed Yahweh had commanded them toinvade.[22] The next king to remove the high places wasJosiah, and he was slaughtered at Megiddo, whereuponIsrael effectively lost its sovereignty.[23]

This theological interpretation, which reduces Jerusalemand its temple to heresy, is perfectly compatible with Jesusand the New Testament, as Jesus says, "Believe me, the houris coming when you wont worship the Father on thismountain nor in Jerusalem."[24] Likewise Saint Paul, "The

Lord of heaven and earth doesnt live in temples made byhands."[25] Also, the gospels frequently state that Jesusworshipped on mountain tops, an action analogous to earlyHebrew worship on the high places. Moreover, Josephusinforms us that the Essenes refused to sacrifice at theJerusalem temple.[26] Apparently, components of theoriginal Hebrew faith had survived in the Essene sect, buthad been forgotten by other Jewish sects. Jesus resurrectedthe true Hebrew religion from corruption.

Return to this section's landing page: Genesis 1 is a forgery.




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The creationist narrative in Genesis 1 is contradicted bymany ancient Christian texts. Instead of an AlmightyCreator God, ancient Christian texts espouse that theuniverse is born from blind arrogance and stupidity. Theangels caused evolution to occur from species to species.There are many gods, (or aliens?), and the Christian God isust one among them. Satan the Devil writes scripture, and

thus the Bible was polluted with Genesis 1. Archaeology andmodern scholarship demonstrate that Genesis is indeedcorrupted. Cavemen walk with Adam and Eve. Esotericprophecies reveal the coming of Christ, and also reveal thedark forces that govern the cosmos. Such are the ancientChristian writings.

Science vindicates the truth of these ideas. Evolution oftenhappens too fast for Darwins theory. Gaps in the fossilrecord indicate that some kind of unnatural force actstogether with natural selection. Astrobiology reveals thatintelligent life probably evolved long before us. The fossilrecord reveals strange clues that aliens abducted species and

transported them across oceans, and that DNA from diverselineages was combined to spawn hybrid species. Evidently,aliens influence evolution, and they are the gods of theworlds religions.

This is not fiction. All these facts are thoroughly documentedin the links above.

[1]1stKings 8:3-8

[2]Leviticus 17:3-4, see also 17:9, 1:3, 3:7

[3]Deuteronomy 12:11-14

[4]Genesis 12:7-8, 13:18, 15:9-12

[5]Genesis 26:25,33

[6]Genesis 8:20

[7]Exodus 5:3

[8]1stSamuel 20:6,28-29

[9]1stKings 3:2-15

[10]1stSamuel 9:12-10:11

[11]1stSamuel 14:32-35, Judges 13:19-20

[12]1stKings 18:19,30-39

[13]2ndKings 15:1-4, 14:1-4, 12:1-3, 1stKings 22:41-43, 15:9-14

[14]2ndKings 22-23

[15]2ndKings 22:8

[16]Deuteronomy 12:11-13

[17]2ndKings 22:8, Jeremiah 1:1, Ezra 7:1-2, 1 stKings 2:26-27

[18]Wellhausen, Julius. Translated by Black, J Sutherland; Menzies, Allan. Prolegomena to the




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History of Israel 8.1.1.Kessinger Publishing, p 121

[19]2ndKings 22:20, 23:29

[20]2ndKings 22:1,3, 23:23

[21]2ndKings 18:22

[22]2ndKings 18:4-30, The Prism Inscription of Sennacherib at Ninevah

[23]2

nd

Kings 23:8, 23:29

[24]John 4:21

[25]Acts 17:24

[26]Josephus.Antiquities of the Jews 18.1.5




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Centralization of Sacrifice in the Priestly Document

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