May 7, 2008
Taken from Dr. Constable’s notes on Deuteronomy:
“The ceremonial custom of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk is known from the ancient Canaanite tablets found at Ugarit [i.e., the Ras Shamra Tablets]. Such a rite was superstitiously observed by the Canaanites, hoping that through magical acts they could increase fertility and productivity (14:21; Ex. 23:19; 34:26).”
161
“. . . various Canaanite cults regularly engaged in the practices of seething a kid in its mother’s milk as a fertility rite of sympathetic magic intended to coerce the deity into granting fertility to the wives, fields, and flocks of the cults’
adherents. Such rites of sympathetic magic ‘worked’ on the premise that the gods were in some way part of and subject to the same natural created order that human beings also inhabited. By finding the common natural connection points, human beings could ‘push the right buttons’ and thus manipulate the gods . . .
“Israelites do not, through an act of sympathetic magic, try to
coerce the deity into blessing them with fertility for the year to come; but instead, after the year’s crops have been harvested and whether that year’s harvest has been fruitful or not, Israelites bring a tithe to God as an act of gratitude [cf. vv. 22-29].” 162
Samuel J. Schultz, Deuteronomy, p. 55.
162
Michael L. Goldberg, “The Story of the Moral: Gifts or Bribes in Deuteronomy?” Interpretation 38:1 (January 1984):21-22.
April 25, 2008
i was going through this in devotions this morning. What does it mean? Context helps us here:
In Deuteronomy 14 the broad context is what does it mean to take the Lord’s name (be a part of His people) and not do that in vain. Both in Deuteronomy 14 and Exo. 23 the immediate context is on tithing. Giving back to the Lord his due.
The picture also helps. The mother’s milk would be the sustenance provided for the kid as well as for the family. The kid is itself a picture of God’s provision through goat herding.
I think the meaning is that we should not use all of God’s provision for our own purposes because we are God’s people.
April 23, 2008
It’s amazing how Deuteronomy affects the rest of the Old Testament.
Deuteronomy 11:22-25
For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
And then the book of Joshua uses the term ‘foot’ to show what God is doing in giving them the land.
Deuteronomy 7:17-24 “If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’ you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed. You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God. The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.
And then the book of Judges emphasizes the term ‘hand’ to show what God is doing in delivering them from their enemies.
April 10, 2008
Here’s a quote from a report of the debate between Daniel Wallace and Bart Ehrman (author of Misquoting Jesus) I found interesting:
Perhaps the most provocative part of Wallace’s lecture was his comparison of what Ehrman claimed was true about New Testament transmission with the transmission of sacred texts in another religion: Islam. Wallace gave three basic points that showed that what Ehrman wanted to see in New Testament manuscripts simply wasn’t there—specifically, an early, controlled text in which the earlier manuscripts were destroyed. Wallace noted that, “You can’t have wild copying by untrained scribes and a proto-orthodox conspiracy simultaneously producing the same variants. Conspiracy implies control and wild copying is anything but controlled.” As far as I was concerned, this was the silver bullet that ripped a hole through Ehrman’s entire thesis. Further, Wallace noted, the lack of controls that Ehrman argued for were only true of the Western text-type, not the Alexandrian.
Find the further review here.
