NNTR:
The confusion you see, is your confusion.


Your dishonesty has clouded your view and thus prevented you from seeing that Jehoshaphat was never a father-in-law to Ahab

NNTR:

In the case of Josiah, alternatively yes, and to reduce it to another one word, desecration (i.e. defacement, befouling or even vandalism killing)

1 Kings 13:1-2
1Now behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word (command) of the LORD,
while Jeroboam was standing by the altar [which he had built] to burn incense.
2[I] The man cried out against the [idolatrous] altar by the word of the LORD,
“O altar, altar, thus says the Lord:
‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name;
and on you shall he sacrifice [the bodies of] the priests of the high places who burn incense on you,
and human bones shall be burned on you.’”[/i]

NNTR:
You dont appease, influence, induce a deity, with the aim, of it, to be well disposed towards you, by killing an animal on another deity's shrine different to its.

Located about ten miles north of Jerusalem near the border of Israel and Judah, Bethel was known as Luz in pre-Israelite times (Gen. 28:19). The name “Bethel” (beit el) means the "house (or place) of God." Abraham, according to Genesis 12:8, built an altar east of Bethel shortly after arriving in Canaan from Haran. Later, Jacob, believing the place to be the "gate of heaven," named it Bethel. He is depicted as erecting a sacred pillar there shortly after having the dream of "Jacob's Ladder" (Gen. 28:18). The early shrine was apparently outside of the town of Luz, probably at a "high place." The exact location of either the primitive altar or later shrine at Bethel remains undetermined by archaeologists, although some believe the town may have been uncovered.[1]

In the Bible, God calls Jacob to return to Canaan from exile in Haran, and is reported to have said: "I am the God of Bethel" (Gen. 31:13). Later, after Jacob's family had settled near Shechem but had run afoul of the local population, God commanded him to move to Bethel and (re)build an altar there. The town nearby is still identified as Luz at this point, and Jacob called the place "El Bethel." When Deborah, the nurse of Jacob's mother Rebekah, died and was buried beneath an oak there, the site also became known as Allon Bacuth—“Weeping Oak” (Gen. 35:.

PastorAIO:

Where did I get my translation from?
I thought it was self evident. A sacrifice is an offering. And many translations already use the word offering, as can be seen in the same concordance that we have all been reading since.

jamesid29:


This is where I believe ,the first problem stems from sir. You are using your understanding of a word in it's target language to reinterpret what it must mean in it's source language.

Pls note, a concordance is not the same thing as dictionary or lexicon


In other to accurately translate words from one language(SL) to another(TL), one has to have a working level proficiency of the language's structure, grammer, culture,worldview of the speakers,context, quantity, time period and so on.

Even to accurately do a word study without having to be highly proficient in a language, one has to atleast have a beginners level understanding of some of those things mentioned

Without the above mentioned, something might look evident, but that does not follow that it is encompasses the full picture or that it's even correct. I'm glad you recognize these complexities with your example of the usage of the Yoruba word "Ebo"(although your other example of Cult does fall under a different matter).

1 Kings 13:1-2
1Now behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word (command) of the LORD,
while Jeroboam was standing by the altar [which he had built] to burn incense.
2[I] The man cried out against the [idolatrous] altar by the word of the LORD,
“O altar, altar, thus says the Lord:
‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name;
and on you shall he sacrifice [the bodies of] the priests of the high places who burn incense on you,
and human bones shall be burned on you.’”

In that vain, I believe the first step is to address how the Hebrew grammar is structured and where the word wayyizbah fits into that

But before going into that, I would like to nail down your answer to the last conversation. You sort of explained around it but did not really answer the question( Sorry if I am the one that missed your point). I can assure you that my question is not in anyway intended to be a gotcha question. I truly believe it would help us down the road in having some common understanding of translation and language nuance.

So If I may ask it again in a clearer way,
In 2chronicles 18:2, would you say that slaughter/kill is a suitable translation of the verb or do you think the translators mistranslated the verb(whether malicious or otherwise)?

Thanks

Pls note: I'm replying to the entirety of your last post, not just this quoted part. Thanks

PastorAIO:

Au contraire sir. I am not looking at the English word 'sacrifice' to understand the passages. Even in modern English Sacrifice is not limited to a Propitiation. For example, I can make sacrifices in order to afford to buy a new car. The sacrifices here suggests hardships and self imposed deprivations.
It should be obvious that I wasn't focused on Sacrifice as used in modern English because I also said it had to be an Offering. That propitiatory aspect is what can be found whenever and wherever Way yiz bah is used.

Like I said, Ebo is often translated as sacrifice in English too, but when we look at all the contexts in which the word pops up we realise that a closer translation would just be A Nourishment, a feeding. As one can feed Ogun shrine so one can also feed a child. It would be odd to say in English that you've just given your Child a sacrifice when all you did was give him fried plantains.

Where do we set the bench mark for what is a 'working level of proficiency of the language'?

Many scholars of Hebrew texts make the same points as I do. For instance Dr Kipp Davis. He is a great deal more proficient in Hebrew than either of us.

However, I don't agree that because one's knowledge is not thorough then one should stop thinking at all.

On the passages he raised, I believe you can engage his aurguments with the paper you provided a link to. The author already did well in providing arguments from both sides of the conversation . It's a good place to start following the rabbit trail from. Just my opinion though

jamesid29:


That's really what you're doing sir.
Without attempting to understand how each language works on its own terms, you're making authoritative statements on one of them.. This usually leads to a lot of misunderstanding and sometimes serious errors when people make translations in this manner. E.g John 1:1 and the identity of the word.

Like in this case, you're basing your argument on the word wayyizbah and looking it up on a concordance. Two out of those concordance entries don't match your own understanding of the word so your conclusion was, the translators were being malicious in 2kings and as for 2chronicles, the answer is still up in the air.

As I stated in my last post sir, the first misunderstanding stems from your understanding of what the form wayyizibah really means.
The thing is wayyizibah is not really a word on its own. It's a combination of a narrative sequence tool called a waw/vav consecutive ( 'WA' + the doubling of the first letter of the verb it's attached to) and a conjunction of a verb in it's 3rd person masculine singular.

Unlike English, Hebrew verbs & nouns are built from a 3 consonant root word in combination with one of 7 stems(constructor/binyan) namely: "Pa'al/Qal, Niphal,Hiphil and so on".
So for example: שׁ-מ-ר (sh-m-r), in the Qal stem/constructor, we get שָׁמַר (shamar) - meaning Guard. This concept will coming handy latter

Also hebrew verbs also change forms to denote Person,Gender,Number and Tense.
For example using our verb above ( Shamar):
He will guard in hebrew would be just one word Yishmor (יִשְׁמֹר)
She will guard in hebrew would be just one word Tishmor (תִּשְׁמֹר)
As you can see, the three word sentence in English is smushed together into just one Hebrew verb. In that one word denotes the Person ( in this case, the subject in the 3rd person: he/she), Number(singular/plural), Gender(male/ female) and Tense(present, past or future tense in English: in Hebrew its Perfect or Imperfect tense).

This type of smushing of word happens across the board for 1st person, 2nd person, plural, present tense,past tense and so on. This makes a single verb be spelt differently depending on where it's used.
For an English speaker, the verbs Yishmor, Tishmor, Shamar and it's many other forms might look like they are different words, but in reality they are all the same word( in this case Shamar).
So if want to know what the word Yishmor means, you have to go look up what the word Shamar(it's root verb) means. And if you want to look up a concordance on the word Yishmor, you’ll only get the word where it’s used as a 3rd person mascular singular.

Consequently for our verb in question Way Yisbah,technically the "h" here had the ch sound but anyway the second part of the word Yisbah is actually a 3rd person singular of the verb Zabach in the imperfect tense.
Now for the first part of the word(the waw-prefix/ the WAY part), As stated above this is called a Waw consecutive or Preterite (= “past”) or a Wayyiqtol.
This concept is a narrative style used in the Hebrew bible to show a sequence of events. In other words, its used to express the main line of action in a past tense narrative.
English uses the simple past tense to achieve the same result. For example:

George walked toward the cliff, wondering what had happened to his friends. Standing on the edge,he gazed down its face, looking for some sign of them, but no one was there. He sighed, put his hands to his mouth, and shouted yet again. There was still no answer, but then something far below him moved on the face of the cliff.
The main storyline consists of five events: George walked, gazed, sighed, put, shouted, and something moved. The other verbal forms (“wondering”, “had happened”, “standing”, “looking”, and “was”), also identify events (or non-events), but do not describe the next event on the storyline. Both “wondering” and “standing” tell us that George was doing two things at the same time : wondering as he walked and standing as he gazed.
“Looking for” modifies “gazed”, narrowing its focus to tell us that George was not merely admiring the scenery. Only the highlighted sequential verbs identify a sequence of actions.

Also in biblical Hebrew The waw/vav consecutive/ Preterite (= “past”)/ Wayyiqtol is also a thread—a narrative tool used to tell readers that the event that it describes is the next event in the sequence of events in the story.
For example: In Gen 24:17-18:
And ran the servant to meet her, and said, let me drink please a little water from your jar and so she said, .......
The main storyline consists of five events: The servant ran, then he said something, so she said something, and she quickly let down her jar and then gave him water.
Hebrew uses waw-consecutive to show that this actions are a sequence of events. This is done basically by adding waw(W/V) followed by a patach vowel(an "ah" vowel like f[b]a[/b]ther) and lastly a strong dagesh to the first letter of the verb(it's just a sign that generally means double the letter it's pointed on in English: Eg hamock, becomes hammock, if the dagesh is on the m letter).

So the word:
Yō·mer( 3rd person masculine singular of the verb ruts/רוּץ) becomes Way·yō·mer(וַיֹּ֕אמֶר) - And (he) said

Tō·mer( 3rd person feminine singular of the same verb ruts/רוּץ) becomes
Wat·tō·mer(וַתֹּ֖אמֶר) - And she said:

So this is the same way, Yiz·baḥ(3rd person mascular singular of the verb Zabach) becomes "Way yizbah".

If you use an interlinear and check closely under the an highlighted "Way·yiz·bah", you would see a
Conj‑w | V‑Qal‑ConsecImperf‑3ms underneath. This is there to tell you that this word is a "conjunction waw", a verb of the "Qal(stem)", Its a Consecutive imperfect( meaning it's showing a sequence of events in a story: something happened,then another thing happened and so on), and finally it's in a 3rd person masculine singular form of it's verb.

So if you're using a concordance to look up the word Wayyizbah and making a translational judgement of that without understanding what the verb is doing there, you would be looking up wrong thing.
Ofcourse because of time, there's been a lot of simplification and things are generally more complex than this, but I hope you got the general idea.
In other to do an accurate word study of the word and an interpretation of the text itself, one has to

1) Strip the word of it's conjugation and other stuff to get to the root word & stem. This is called parsing. Most good software tools like logos, olive tree etc automatically do this part.
2)Look up the parsed word in a good lexicon to see it's current semantic range. Semantic range can change depending on more discoveries & understanding of the language
3) You can use a concordance to find every instance of the word in it's root word & stem. Languages are very tricky. A word can be used one way a thousand times and used in another way with a different naunce and meaning in a few other place. That's a feature of every language, even English. E.g 9 out of 10 times, the word "to dust" connotes cleaning but in a few cases it can also be used as "to sprinkle"
4)Learn enough about the background, culture, worldview and so on of the text in question. The goal is to try and get into the world of the author and original audience. In other words to think the way they would have thought.. This is arguably harder and slower than it sounds but Cultural river plays a huge role in how we understand any text( or any piece of information/ communication actually). The way I think is different from the way someone brought up in Germany thinks even though we share the same century and there's always a lot of miscommunications when both parties do not understand their cultural differences.
5) It's always a good idea to look up good critical commentaries and other resources on the text, regardless of the level one is( even expert scholars do this). Knowledge doesn't happen in a vacuum and seeing how others who have expertise in the field parse the text can help one see blindspots or gain perspective.

Of course doing all this is not a guarantee that one will not make mistakes( we all have blindspots) but it's a whole lot better than not doing them.


You're making the point we've all been trying to make to you sir. Almost every regular speaker of the Yoruba language, associates Ebo with the meaning Ritual offering. I even did a google search of it and everywhere I looked(even in sites and papers focused on yoruba tradition or spirituality), I didn't see any where ebo meant anything other than ritual sacrifice. You're actually the first person I'm hearing a different meaning from. I am not disputing you're interpretation of ebo because
a) Critical Resources on yoruba spirituality and traditions are not easily accessible, so just because I couldn't find one anywhere that matches what you said after a couple searches doesn't automatically mean I should discard it
b) I do not know enough about the Yoruba conception of certain things in other to authoritatively negate your argument.

Now let's assume you are correct: Imagine you are faced with a text that say, Iya re fun l'ebo


Working proficiency is not an abstract concept or something hard to benchmark. It just basically means knowing enough to work with the language or subject matter.
German scholarship dominated & pushed the field of biblical studies forward a couple of centuries ago. Because of that, many critical commentaries and works are written in German. Today most biblical scholars have to have enough knowledge of German in other to engage with many of those works. They might not be able to speak German fluently but they know enough of the language to work with it.
Most physicist have to know maths to a certain degree so they can do their calculations.
Even in MMA, regardless of one's martial arts background (kick boxing, karate etc), every MMA fighter needs to know how to grapple to an extent. Israel Adesanya comes from a kick boxing background and is not an expert grappler but he won't have been successful in MMA if he didn't pick up enough grappling skills to survive in the octagon.
As I said earlier, working proficiency is not an abstract concept neither is it hard to benchmark. It doesn't necessarily mean one is an expert in the field but means one at least has enough understanding of the field to effectively engage and work with it.

Our conversation has been about 2kings and A) whether what Josiah did was a ritual sacrifice to God and
B)whether translations were intentionally manipulated to hide this fact.
This has been the only conversation between the both of us.
The video of Dr kipp doesn't touch on any of this two points.
In what I watched, he doesn't associate Josiah's killing of the priest with a ritual sacrifice to Yahweh, neither does he even hint at it or even bring it up.
There's a reason for that...
(incase I missed it because I skipped right to section on Israel, pls provide the timestamp and I'll go back & watch it).

On the passages he raised, I believe you can engage his aurguments with the paper you provided a link to. The author already did well in providing arguments from both sides of the conversation . It's a good place to start following the rabbit trail from. Just my opinion though



That's not the point sir. The point is not about not thinking but about knowing our limitations on the things we might reasonably not be certain about.

I'll round up here by giving two examples
1) A scholar I respect alot made an aurgement connecting Hammurabi with Amraphel of Gen 14 using linguistic connections. Problem is, many other expert in the space reject this view and I don't know enough about the augment to speak confidently on it(one way or another).
Best I can do is mention it and leave it at that.( That's if I even mention it at all in the first place)
2) Recently, I was pondering on Matthew 7 and I had an interesting interpretation of one of the verses. It made sense to me based on the text but before I went out telling people about it, I checked it up against some sources to see how well my arguments stacked up. Slowly, I realized I had missed some things and my interpretation was possibly a bit skewed.

So the point isn't about not thinking but about knowing that with everything we know, there's a world of things we are yet to know especially if we haven't done due deligence.
Over the years I've learnt to live with ambiguities. There are very few things I hold on too very strongly. One of the things I can say for certain when it comes to my faith is that the God of the bible is exactly who Jesus portrayed him to be "A just & loving God". This is not an understanding that comes from emotions but from my understanding of the scripture on its own terms. I've seen other people who were anti christians but who allowed the bible speak on its own terms come to the same conclusion( some are even not still Christians but don't doubt God's justice and love ).

I know you might not see things that way but I hope some day, you will.
Have a great week ahead.

PastorAIO:
These are a lot of words. Well let me try to answer them as best I can.

When I first read this post a few days a go you said something that it seems that you have since deleted. Something to the effect that you believe the god of the bible to be 'just and good as portrayed by Jesus' and from that is based your understanding of the verses. Of course my position is diametrically contrary to that.
We all know that premises, context and framing plays a big part in interpretations. So when you start with the premise that Yhwh is 'just and good' then that will colour how you interpret the passages.
So obviously when you see Way yizbah and fail to interpret it as sacrifice that premise plays a part in your interpretation.


I must confess I still haven't read it. I've only skimmed through it though it looked very interesting. I picked up on the fact that he was presenting various contradicting opinions and also offering some of his own. This is the way with scholarship generally.
Almost anything open to interpretation can be interpreted in such a variety of ways that may even contradict each other.

So why do I insist on the interpretation that I have?

First and foremost, unlike you, I do NOT think that yhwh is just and good. Our understandings of the bible will differ to the extent that our premises differ. I don't know if the text I shared looks into the Ezekiel passage that I quoted earlier. But that passage is a clear as daylight admission that Yhwh did give statutes and commandments that children should be sacrificed.


Ezekiel 20
24because they had not obeyed my rules, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their fathers’ idols. 25Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, 26and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the LORD.


This establishes the fact that, for whatever reason, Yhwh intentionally gave statutes and commands. You may say it was a punitive move because they failed to heed his previous commands. Again I am not interested in the motivation. I'm interested in the fact that these statutes were actually given.

It is from this basis that I read much regarding the 'slaughter' of humans on an altar. I see the same word that is used for the slaughter of animals in ritual sacrifice and I see that word applied also to human victims.
Further more I see that the first born is to be redeemed according to commands and I ask, redeemed from what? What happens to the other 'first fruits' that yhwh similarly requests.

jamesid29:



You're making the point we've all been trying to make to you sir. Almost every regular speaker of the Yoruba language, associates Ebo with the meaning Ritual offering. I even did a google search of it and everywhere I looked(even in sites and papers focused on yoruba tradition or spirituality), I didn't see any where ebo meant anything other than ritual sacrifice. You're actually the first person I'm hearing a different meaning from. I am not disputing you're interpretation of ebo because
a) Critical Resources on yoruba spirituality and traditions are not easily accessible, so just because I couldn't find one anywhere that matches what you said after a couple searches doesn't automatically mean I should discard it
b) I do not know enough about the Yoruba conception of certain things in other to authoritatively negate your argument.

Now let's assume you are correct: Imagine you are faced with a text that say, Iya re fun l'ebo

NNTR:
Your argument has no legs to stand on and what you korokoro see, is a mirage, an optical illusion so to speak

God unequivocally condemns human being burnt offering sacrifice made to Him and because Jephthah knows this, he did not made a vow to burn any human being

_{Personal text: Jesus is not a theologian. He is God who told stories.}

PastorAIO:


While the internet is a fine repository off much information there is much it doesn’t cover. I find this to be especially true of things involving Yoruba culture. The best source of information on these things is traditional elders. Not even our age mates.

Luckily I have a Yoruba dictionary written by RC Abraham

It clearly shows that to bö is to feed, but not only to feed but with the intention to fattened or make more robust. In other words to nurture and nourish. So you can feed a cow but if the cow is not getting fatter then that is aböti.

The same way you feed a child you also feed a Orisha shrine. The intention is the same. To nourish and to make robust. That is why Yoruba do not have a shrine for Eledumare because there is nothing that a human can give to say he wants to feed eledumare. On the contrary it is Eledumare that feeds the world. It is Orisha that are fed, not Eledumare. There is no contradiction in meaning when you use bö for children or for shrines.
Similarly my point is that there is no contradiction of meaning when you read Wayyizbah in reference to cattle and when you read it in reference to humans.

I was with a friend when I looked it up and we discovered the word Ibö mbö! What a useful word. Many men I know, including my friend, are languishing under ibömbö. That is Alimony or child support in English. That gave us a laugh.

jamesid29:


LoL... I hope you know that Abraham's Modern Yoruba dictionary is available on online libraries, right...

It is well sir

PastorAIO:


I didn’t know that. It needs to be higher up on Google’s algorithms cos it doesn’t come up when you put in Yoruba words. In fact, ridiculously, I’ve often googled a word only to be sent to Nairaland of all places. Lol.

jamesid29:

Part of my job heavily depends on research..

In any case, I borrowed it and it clearly shows that apart from both words not even sharing the same sound, they don't share the same root or etymology.

Added the other one's that share the same sound but not the same root or meanings for further clarity.

Anyway, it's fine.

PastorAIO:


I don't get what you mean by not sharing the same sound.
And also, where did you look into the etymology to find that they have different roots?

(these are genuine questions, not gotcha questions)

DeepSight:
OK Jamesid29,
Away from all the technicality of language and wayizbahs and Josiahs and Jephtahs and what not.
What is your own take on the concept of a transcendental omnipotent God requiring any kind of propitiatory sacrifice for sins - be it the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament or the alleged sacrifice of Christ of the New Testament.

jamesid29:

That's actually a very fascinating question.

For a being to be truly God from our perspective, he not only has to be omnipotent, he also has to be perfectly Just. A perfectly just being would also have to do justice to sin otherwise he is no longer perfectly Just.
Unlike gods of the ancient world, the bible makes a claim that the God of the bible is also perfectly loving.

So if I may ask you, how do you think the bible resolves the tension between the character of a God who is perfectly just and perfectly loving , and who has to deal with free moral agents who have fallen to sin?

DeepSight:


And your answer is just as interesting.



Do I understand right that by asking this question, you are headed in the direction which generally says that arising from the fall of man, there was no other way to balance the scales of divine justice - the sacrifice of a "pure lamb of God" being necessary to "pay the price" on behalf of mankind?

Because if the foregoing familiar argument is where you are headed, please help me with a few questions -

1. What was the purpose of the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament
2. Does the idea that one person can "pay" for the sins of another meet the requirements of justice?
3. Why must any such "payment" be in torture, blood and death?
4. What has changed after the alleged propitiatory sacrifice of Christ - do humans not still have to live righteous lives to be acceptable to God - as always was the case anyway?
5. Why is genuine repentance of sins insufficient such that a torturous blood sacrifice is required?

These to my mind are more important questions than all the hassle about language technicalities because Christian doctrine centres on the alleged propitiatory sacrifice of Christ.

Many thanks in advance.

jamesid29:

I totally agree with you that language technicalities is really not that important in the grand scheme of things. I just wanted to point out a misunderstanding and really didn't think it would get this long.

In any case,to your questions. I do think they're really important since they're at the core of the Christian faith.
To answer your questions is to start from the very beginning of the bible and trace a matrix of ideas with a unified theme through it.

If you don't mind, I'll like to post a few videos that I believe do a good job at this. The videos are super short (5-10mins ) and very accessible. One of the author is a solid biblical scholar and a couple of college teachers actually use their videos for their first year students

I really do hope you find these resources helpful or at least worth pondering.

DeepSight:
OK Jamesid29,
Away from all the technicality of language and wayizbahs and Josiahs and Jephtahs and what not.

DeepSight:
What is your own take on the concept of a transcendental omnipotent God requiring any kind of propitiatory sacrifice for sins - be it the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament or the alleged sacrifice of Christ of the New Testament.

DeepSight:
Thank you very much for the videos - which I took the time to watch and absorb carefully. Sadly, my hope that they might provide anything new did not materialize. They only provide standard statements of Christian theology without substantively addressing the questions I raised. For example in the first video you have a standard statement about how the animal sacrifices of the old testament absorbed sin and made reconciliation (with God) possible and how the sacrifice of Christ also made this possible in a more perfect way. This does nothing to show exactly why such sacrifices are the way to reconciliation[b] (- - - is God blood thirsty? - - - )[/b] or exactly how such sacrifices present reconciliation. All of the other videos follow in the same pattern of a simple repetition of standard Christian theology without tangible rationalization or justification of same.

In my world view, a creator is primarily responsible for its created work. And consequently the responsibility for the state of the world rests primarily with the creator of the world and not created beings.
https://www.nairaland.com/6902122/creator-judge-created

Thank you nevertheless, for sharing, appreciated.

NNTR:
loll

Ezekiel 22:30
'I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall
and stand in the gap before Me for [the sake of] the land, that I would not destroy it,
but I found no one [not even one].'

This is a very good worded sentence and done expressed so as to wring out information, loll

Phrase words first to be familiar with are: template/die/prototype/archetype/blueprint/exemplar/first model/original etc, then leader, example.

Next will be, to acknowledge that, sin, coming from a bible perspective, Jewish in particular, is a concept that has to do with missing a mark, coming off target, essentially falling short of God's standard, essentially, if said in layman terms, then a fault, defect, glitch, irregularity, crookedness or flaw.

Following will also be, to acknowledge that, the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament were temporaries, precursors of the sacrifice of Christ, of the New Testament, so to speak, who coincidentally is God Incarnate, that's meaning, God personified in human being flesh, i.e. God in human being body or flesh, loll

As for the, aforementioned 'template/die/prototype/archetype/blueprint/exemplar/first model/original etc', we see them in Manufacturing processes, Computing softwares, Biochemistry etc. Take for example, minting coins, requires using a die. Creating word documents requires, to start with, using a normal.dot template. Even, we all, as human beings, are archetypes of Adam and Eve. Nearly all living organisms have their genetics encoded in their DNA

Now, what is going to be the optimum correction, if something should go wrong (e.g. in terms, of a fault, defect, glitch, irregularity, crookedness, flaw, blemish, blotch, streak, wrinkle, kink etc) with an actual 'template/die/prototype/archetype/blueprint/exemplar/first model/original etc'?

_{Personal text: Jesus is not a theologian. He is God who told stories.}

cc: TenQ

tctrills:
We learn of Jephthah in Judges 11 who sacrificed his daughter. Was it an act of righteousness or murder?

DeepSight:
OK Jamesid29,
Away from all the technicality of language and wayizbahs and Josiahs and Jephtahs and what not.
What is your own take on the concept of a transcendental omnipotent God requiring any kind of propitiatory sacrifice for sins - be it the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament or the alleged sacrifice of Christ of the New Testament.

Lev 16:7-10,16-18,21-22: "And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots on the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the LORD's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. … And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remains among them in the middle of their uncleanness. And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goes in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel. And he shall go out to the altar that is before the LORD, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar round about. … And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear on him all their iniquities to a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness."

TenQ:


Conclusion:
Why does God require Blood/Life as sacrifice for SIN?
Because sin MUST be punished (no escape for that)!

Cc:
NNTR

NNTR:


Better, I pause at this juncture, though I have more, plenty actually, to share and shine light on blood and all, loll.

DeepSight:


1. None of this explains the animal sacrifices of the old testament and
2. The concept of an innocent party paying with his life for the sins of guilty parties hardly seems just.

Balancing the scales of justice requires appropriate reciprocal consequences to those persons who deserve them. The idea that anyone can step in and "buy-out" the punishment is a commercial concept which should be alien to true justice, especially justice of a divine nature. Not only is this "buy-out" concept mercantile in nature, it is also intrinsically pagan and thus as far away from the purity of divine justice as can be imagined.

This is aside from the fact that the said sacrifice of Christ is questionable as a sacrifice. Because to lay down a life that you know for sure you are picking up again three days later is a much better deal than any other mortal has.

Steep:

What I think is that the animal sacrifice represented the sacrifice of Jesus, they were temporary till the real sacrifice.