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PRIESTLY FACTIONS


Priestly factions and the compromise
solution in the book of Numbers

      The traditions in Exodus come from variant sources, and there are parallels to the myth of origins as hereditary, divine ordination found in the book of Leviticus. However in Numbers, itself composed of variant sources, there are novelties introduced in an attempt to 'reconcile' the disparate accounts that surface in Exodus, as different factions in the Levitical priesthood struggled for supremacy. We are both told that the Aaronite priesthood was 'hereditary' and then again that 'God assigned the rest of the Levites to serve Aaron.' This appears to be an attempt at compromise. The Levites, as a tribe of Israel were priests, but they were priests in a subordinate position to their superiors, the hereditary Aaronite priesthood. Whether such a compromise would have satisfied the Northern Levites is questionable, but the fact that it is found in Numbers suggests that what we are reading here is a later work (later than Exodus) and an attempt is being made to reconcile inconsistent accounts and somehow bring into line the dissident factions in the priesthood who were dissatisfied with the claims to superiority of those claiming descent from Aaron. We are first told that the priesthood is hereditary.

"These are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the first-born, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priests, whom he ordained to minister in the priest's office. But Nadab and Abihu died before YAHWEH when they offered unholy fire before YAHWEH in the wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of Aaron their father." (Numbers Chapter 3 verse 3)

      The earlier tradition is briefly recapitulated. Next a novelty is introduced, and the earlier laws making the priesthood hereditary are partially abandoned, even though the earlier laws called for the death penalty to be imposed upon interlopers. Other Levites could serve as priests in subordinate positions to the 'Aaronites'.

"Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. And you shall give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the people of Israel ... And with you bring your brethren also, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may join you, and minister to you while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony." (Numbers Chapter 3 verse 6; Numbers Chapter 18 verse 2)

     The point is driven home in a series of polemical stories in Numbers, stories which clearly indicate that the compromise was not considered satisfactory by the dissidents factions the Aaronites had attempted to place in subordinate positions. In the story of the rebellious Levites (whom the earth swallowed to the horror of everyone) this fact is acknowledged. First, the Numbers narrative points out to the non-Aaronite Levites that they had been offered the compromise position, but nevertheless they continued to 'murmur' against Aaron. The polemic concludes with God breaking out against the subordinate Levites and they are all swallowed by a sinkhole in the earth. (The italics are mine.)

     In the following passage the compromise solution is alluded to and the fact that it was rejected is acknowledged.

"God has brought you near, and all your brethren the sons of Levi with you. And would you seek the priesthood also? Therefore it is against YAHWEH that you and all your company have gathered together; what is Aaron that you murmur against him?" (Numbers Chapter 16 verse 10)

     Next the traditional 'Aaronite' mythology of 'divine hereditary ordination' is recapitulated followed by a threat against the Levites who had been subordinated.

"'In the morning YAHWEH will show who is holy, and will cause him to come near to God; him whom God will choose God will cause to come near. Do this: take censers, put fire in them and put incense upon them before YAHWEH tomorrow, and the man whom YAHWEH chooses shall be the holy one. You have gone too far, sons of Levi!." (Numbers Chapter 16 verse 5)

      The Levites are portrayed in the polemic as insolent and rebellious against the great Moses, himself. They once again reject the compromise solution, and 'talk back.'

"Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also now lord it over us? Moreover you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you think we are blind? We will not come up." (Numbers Chapter 16 verse 13)

     The polemic concludes with God in a fury. In great alarm, Moses ordered everyone to stay clear of the rebellious non-Aaronite Levites. After everyone had scattered in every direction in terrified panic, in great wrath the Levites were destroyed by God for their insolence in refusing to accept the compromise plan offered to them by 'the Aaronites.' They are taken down 'alive to Sheol' and fire consumed 250 other rebellious Levites who offering 'unauthorized incense' in the wrong way. (Did they want to go so far as to have the priesthood, as well? They have gone to far, those other Levites.) The story is polemical.

     Lest anyone should forget, or fail to remember the point of the polemic, some renovations are made to the temple.

"The censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives; so let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar ... Thus they shall be a sign to the people of Israel. So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered; and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar, to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no one who is not a priest, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, should draw near to burn incense before YAHWEH, lest the same should happen to them." (Numbers Chapter 16 verse 38)

     Furthermore, if anyone even supported the cause of the rebellious Levite, they, too, were threatened with being sent alive to Sheol and burned to death by God. (This is a polemical reference to those elements of society who supported the cause of non-Aaronite Levites.)

"The next morning the congregation of the people of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, "You have killed the people of YAHWEH." And when the congregation had assembled against Moses and against Aaron, they turned toward the tent of meeting; and behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of YAHWEH appeared. And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, and YAHWEH said to Moses, "Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment." And they fell on their faces." (Numbers Chapter 16 verse 41)

     Plague began to spread through the congregation (note that plagues were more frequent that heavenly fire or sinkholes, and this 'threat' was more credible against the congregation, as things like this happened. It could then be suggested that these were caused by their rebellion against the Aaronite cause.) Moses turned immediately to Aaron who offered 'authorized' incense, being the only one who could offer incense and actually have a chance of making it work. Indeed, Aaron is the great hero of the book of Numbers. Older stories are recapitulated in this manuscript, such as the stories of the quail, with the difference that in Numbers horrors and plagues are appended to older myths, horrors which, of course, only Aaron could stop with his magical incense or his powerful goat sacrifice. The plague was halted and the rest of the people saved. Once again, this ridiculous tale of 'magic incense' and its great power of control over God (but only when offered correctly) is a transparent polemical device. It is an attempt to justify the cultic rituals and magical practices of the Jerusalem temple priesthood.

     The polemic continues with the story of Aaron's rod. All challengers were invited to place their 'rod' beside the rod of Aaron, and God would demonstrate who would be allowed to be priest. There were many who came forward to challenge the authority of 'Aaron' and (by proxy, through the device of this polemic) the authority of 'the Aaronite priesthood' in the Jerusalem temple.

      This is another clear indication that the attempt at compromise offered in the book of Numbers was unsatisfactory to the Levites who had been excluded by the temple priesthood (through the endlessly repeated fiction of 'hereditary rights' and 'descent from Aaron,' an ancient parallel to the mythology of 'the divine rights of kings,' nailed down by polemical appeals to 'the authority of Moses'.) However, as one can see when considering the calf narrative, 'the Aaronites' were not the only ones who could compose polemics, and, in the end, public support for the excluded Levites, also evidenced in the Numbers parables, made it the case that the Aaronites were not the only ones to get their polemics included in the Bible. This probably also goes a long way toward explaining the contradictory nature of the Bible, in that the Aaronites were not strong enough to exclude variant manuscripts, but, instead were forced to attempt to 'harmonize' them.

      Of course, only Aaron's rod was blessed by God, thus settling the issue once and for all.

"And on the morrow Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds, and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds." (Numbers Chapter 17 verse 8)

     And if you will believe that, well then that settles it, doesn't it?

     The Numbers compromise caused more problems than it solved, and that it was ultimately unsuccessful is demonstrated by the inclusion of Non-Aaronite priestly polemics in the Bible. Deuteronomy ignores the divisive issue of 'Aaronite descent' and accords an equal status to all Levites, dispensing with the attempted 'compromise' found in the book of Numbers. The attempted power grab by a small faction of 'Aaronites' is commented on here, and rejected. The reference to 'the place that YAHWEH will choose' is a post temple polemical reference to the Jerusalem Temple, for it is a constant refrain in Deuteronomy that there is only one place for priestly service (the temple, of course). ALL LEVITES can serve in the temple, according to Deuteronomy. (The italics are mine.)

"And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives--and he may come when he desires--to the place which YAHWEH will choose, then he may minister in the name of YAHWEH his God, like all his fellow-Levites who stand to minister there before YAHWEH. They shall have equal portions." (Deuteronomy Chapter 18 verse 6)

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RELATED ESSAYS

The story of the Golden calf, and the two versions of the story of the Ten Commandments

Two separate traditions

Did Moses write the Torah?

Was the Torah written during the time of Moses? The late dating of the Torah laws.

The radical prophets and the early church rejected Moses as the author of the Torah

For summary of what I believe and why I believe it, visit my Site Summary page...


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A Unified Field Theory

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The Unified Field Theory
is also available as a zip file -> unified.zip

Introduction :The Pioneer Effect and the New Physics. A brief description of the new physics required to explain the 'Pioneer Effect', which is the constant deceleration of space craft as they fly through space.







Principles of Evolution: A Study in the Evolution of Bedbugs


A couple of years ago my bedroom was invaded by bedbugs. There were two variant genetic lines. One type of bedbug was an enlongated, thin, tubular insect, and the second genetic line was a flat, perfectly circular insect. The result of the cross breeding of these two genetically distinct variants was the production of a bedbug with charcteristics of both, an enlongated, flat bedbug with a central bulge (such that the shape of the bedbug was somewhere between 'long' and 'circular'). The long skinny bedbugs were such strange and unfamiliar looking insects that at first I did not recognize them as being bedbugs, and considered them to be a seperate species of insect. However, as the photographs of bedbugs above indicate, enlongated and skinny bedbugs are not uncommon, and the photographs also show the variants that are produced by genetic combinations that result in an insect somewhere in between 'circular' and 'enlongated'.

Therefore it is my hypothesis that evolution occurs by means of the transfer of dominate genes, with the production of such dominant genes being the product of 'biological algorithms', a genetic software program that brings physical characteristics into harmony with behavior, such that when behavior changes, and a conflict then exists, this acts as a trigger and causes the release of dominant genes. The result is rapid evolution of species. The bedbug is a relatively new insect, not the product of millions of years of evolution but rather an insect that is evolving in real time. The newly emerging dominant form of the insect is the flat, round ciruclar insect, well adapted to living in human bedrooms (it is flat, rather than tubular, thus allowing it to hide in the smallest cracks, living a stealthy lifestyle, and it is round, which gives the insect a maximum storage capacity such that it must endanger itself only a few times a month by emerging to feed.

Other examples of rapid evolution include the development of long legs in an invasive species of toad in Australia. As the toads move into the mountainous regions of Australia, and their behvaior changes, making them 'climbing toads', over the course of just a couple of decades the toads in the highlands have grown long legs specially adapted to climbing. It is worth noting here that the toads are poisonous, and are a successful invasive species because they have no natural predators in Australia, and so it would not be the case that the toads with long legs were 'the fittest survivors', because all the toads are survivors, and therefore predation does not explain the rapid emergence and spread of such well adapted, long legged toads. Once again we see evidence for the existence of biological algorithms and the rapid spread of dominant genes through a population, which once introduced proceed to overwhelm the older genes which are being replaced (making toad long legged and a bed bug round and flat).


A Theological Experiment

My interest in pursuing the Unified Field Theory is spurred on by my need to discover the theoretical explanation of a new form of propulsion (as explained on this page: Why the Unified Field Theory?). The experiment involving the bedbugs came out of nowhere.

I also believe that it is possible to justify theological propositions using experimental methods. If a thing is an objective truth then it can be verified and proven true by means of experimentation. Such a theological proposition is of more value than a ‘divine revelation’, since such revelations depend upon nothing more than establishing authority figures which requires the creation of artificial hierarchies, for the only reason why I might be encouraged to believe an authority figure who orders me to believe unsubstantiated opinions is if I could somehow be convinced that this authority possessed a mind that was somehow superior to mine, and thus was fit to express opinions as though opinions were unquestionable facts and thus worthy of being elevated to the status of absolute dogma.

There is a self evident human inequality which is visibly apparent. Some people are ‘beautiful’ and thus are the true elite on this planet, and some people are not. It is this sexual inequality and the degeneration that follows upon beauty that is the true driving force behind all the evil that happens on earth. The need for ruthless oppression and the pursuit of wealth and the consequent creation of suffering and poverty which must follow upon this practice is for the purpose of creating an artificial alpha elite.

The true elites are the young and the beautiful. The artificial elite are the rich and the wealthy. The elite aging rich artificial alpha male has no good looks, for he is physically degenerate, but he will be found escorting beauty because he has a beautiful wallet. If he loses his wallet he will be found at home with all the other unattractive aged beta males sitting in a rocking chair watching reruns of Bonanza. No money, no sex. It is for this reason that the alpha males are found to be so ruthless and so violent in pursuit of their goal. The alpha male has fallen. The beta male has arisen and now the whole planet is full of ruinous destruction for it.

We see in religion a confused and contradictory reaction to this reality. On the one hand religion preaches a sexless heaven where castration and the clitorectomy create ‘pure spirits’. Muslims throw women under sacks. On the other hand religion supports hierarchy and is the prop of the elite alpha male. It is for this reason that religion is incoherent when it comes to speaking about sex.

Now we see this same principle at work in all of nature. Guppies dance and show off their colorful tails and the guppy who dances with the most colorful tail is the sexually successful guppy. Therefore it is the doctrine of the ruthless oppressor which teaches that the solution to human sexual violence is to be found in castration and the creation of pure ghosts. This would be equivalent to damning an aardvark for having the ‘sinful aardvark nature’ or prosecuting an anteater for the high crime of ‘ant genocide’.

Therefore it was my theological hypothesis that the correct solution to this problem is to give every guppy a beautiful colorful tail. I compare this solution to the classic religious solution which is to cut off every tail since having a tail is ‘sinful’. If having a tail is sinful then God must be sinful for no human being has any choice in deciding whether or not they would be born with a colorful tail, or whether they would not.

When I was young I was a beautiful guppy with a lovely tail. So everyone seemed to think. I am older now. My nose became very badly sunburned and destroyed. It seemed good to me to test my hypothesis by using these ‘biological algorithms’ to correct this problem. I healed half my nose as you can see by the line separating the still very dark patch on the side in the photograph below.





I documented my experiment on these pages. one two t hree four fi ve six


I have confirmed to my own satisfaction that my theological proposition is correct and that religious dogma is erroneous, being based as it was upon nothing more than ‘divine revelation’ which is just a form of opinionated speculation. For the time being I am not continuing this experiment, for I must wait until the weather on this planet improves, and the dark clouds of ruthless oppression break letting a little sun shine come through so that I can show the world the truth about God, by showing people how God goes about giving an old guppy back his beautiful colorful tail.


Until then I will have to sit on the sidelines, while all my scientific breakthroughs are deliberately ignored, while I wonder to myself what ever in the world could be wrong with the human race, because what this all will prove at the end of it all is that there definitely was something wrong with the people on this planet.