Inerrant Lie #77

Another lie from "God's ineffable, inerrant word":

According to the written testimony of the various contributors to the ‘Holy Bible' canon, the LORD tells a number of lies; and teaches his princes, principalities, prophets, kings, judges, priests, and people to do likewise.

In Exodus 23, while the Israelites were allegedly serving the LORD at mount Hor (always at instant hazard to their own lives from the LORD), Moses says the LORD made a promise to him which the historical record contained in the various applicable books following Exodus in the canon confirm He did not keep.

Perhaps this sort of back- handed faithfulness is to be expected from a LORD who says to His own people, “ye shall know my breach of promise,” as Moses says the LORD did in Numbers 14:34. Every broken promise is a lie, however, especially when told by the omniscient and only God, as the LORD claims always throughout the canon to be.

[How is it possible to be omniscient yet unable to establish a conversation on a better foundation than that of lies and broken promises told and made to those one claims infallible, eternal, and boundless superiority over; as the LORD, according to the ’Holy Bible’ canon, et. al., does (while claiming to be the only God)?]

At mount Hor (in Exodus 23), while the LORD was informing Moses of a number of statutes which subsequently became a part of the canon of legal singularities referred to as “Moses' law“: the LORD informed Moses that He'd assigned an “Angel” to see the children of Israel the rest of the way to the promised land. This change- of- guard takes place in chapter 34 of Exodus (verses 6 - 8)– while the children of Israel remained at mount Hor– after Moses, desirous of seeing the LORD’s “glory” (33:18, ibid.),” is forewarned of the LORD, “thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen;” (which means, in the common vernacular: “Kiss my ass, and taste my blow- by. I’m gone.”) in the final word of chapter 33.

Meanwhile, in Exodus 23, the LORD– in setting Moses' heart at ease about His upcoming leave- taking– tells Moses: "28 I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. 29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. 30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land [Exodus 23:28 - 30]."

Notice: the LORD says “I will…” three times in the above passage from Exodus 23; “before thee” four times; and mentions “the Hivite” at the top of His list of targets assigned for harassment by the hornets He promises to chase them, the Canaanites, and the Hittites out of the land with.

In fact, the manner in which the LORD makes this particular promise to Moses is entirely reminiscent of the wonder of the “swarms” which allegedly harassed Pharaoh and the Egyptians to distraction in the earlier chapters of Exodus. At any rate, the historical record in the book of Joshua informs the discerning reader that the LORD broke His promise of Exodus 23 to drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of the promised land by harassing them with hornets.

Joshua 9 tells of the Israelites' first encounter with the Hivites (who occupied the top of the list of targets reserved for harassment by hornets) after their alleged return from Egypt. This meeting with the Hivites takes place after crossing the river Jordan and entering the land of Canaan promised to “Abraham” (Abram) by the same LORD who said to Abraham’s descendants, “ye shall know my breach of promise” (Numbers 14:34).

This encounter with the Hivites is the Israelites’ third experience with the inhabitants of the land on the west side of Jordan. According to the narrative of the book of Joshua, the Hivites sent a peace envoy to the children of Israel while the children of Israel were in Gilgal– presumably resting and recuperating in the aftermath of the destruction they visited on the cities of Bethel and Ai, in the second challenge they faced in their holy land conquest after crossing the Jordan.

The ninth chapter of Joshua says that the embassy sent by the Hivites to Joshua and the children of Israel in Gilgal was made up of a number of the inhabitants of “Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim” (verse 17). Furthermore, it is alleged that these chosen Hivites had been sent “wilily” (verse 4) to beguile a peace treaty out of their hostile new neighbors, the Israelites.

The fact that the Hivites of these four cities knew what to say and do to beguile the children of Israel could indicate the betrayal of the children of Israel by the LORD. Chapter nine of Joshua says that, in order to beguile Joshua and the Israelites, “4 [The Hivites] did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up; 5 And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.” The express intent of the Hivites' artifices in regard to their equipment, provisions, and clothing was their pretense to being distant foreigners.

According to the ninth- and- following verses of the ninth chapter of Joshua, the Hivites “said unto [Joshua], From a very far country thy servants are come because of the name of the LORD thy God: for we have heard the fame of him… 11 Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spake to us, saying, Take victuals with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say unto them, We are your servants: therefore now make ye a league with us. 12 This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go unto you; but now, behold, it is dry, and it is mouldy: 13 And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.”

Ultimately, the children of Israel are beguiled by the wiles of the Hivites which the LORD promised they wouldn't have to contend in battle with: perhaps mostly by this word from them, “We are your servants.” They therefore accept the peace- and- protection compact proposed by the ambassadors of the four cities of the Hivites.

Subsequently, the next military contest Joshua and the children of Israel have to peel themselves away from Gilgal (yes, they keep retarding to Gilgal) to march off to is in protection of their recently- acquired servants in the Hivite cities of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim against “Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem... Piram king of Jarmuth... Japhia king of Lachish, and… Debir king of Eglon [Joshua 10:1]” who have entered into a destruction compact against the Hivites in response to their making peace with the children of Israel.

A couple of things are noteworthy, here. The promise made by the LORD to drive the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from the land He promised to “Abraham” was made forty years before the Israelites crossed the river Jordan. While the promise was made under the condition that “[the LORD] will not drive [the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites] out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee [Exodus 23:29]”: the LORD had forty years from the time the promise was made to “By little and little drive them out from before [the children of Israel], until [they were] increased, and [inherited] the land [Exodus 23:30].”

Likewise noteworthy is the fact that Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem, Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish, and Debir king of Eglon– the kings the children of Israel were compelled to protect the Hivites of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim from– were, like the Hivites themselves, on the list of targets the LORD promised to harass out of the promised land with swarms of hornets. Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem, Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish, and Debir king of Eglon were, each of them, Canaanite kings. The Canaanites were the second target on the hornets hit- list from Exodus 23.

It could be the children of Israel lasted longer in the promised land than the LORD supposed they could or would. At any rate, the really ironical thing in the tale of this ‘Lie’ is a thing Joshua said in his farewell- to- public- service address, in the final chapter of the book which bears his name.

At his retirement party in Shechem, Joshua speaking for the LORD, says: “And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow [Joshua 24:12].” However, nowhere does the LORD mention the Amorites in His promise to harass the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites out of the promised land with hornets.

Likewise, nowhere does Moses mention being helped by hornets in his war against the kingdoms of Og and Sihon (the “two kings of the Amorites” cited by Joshua, above) on the other side of the Jordan. The only mention of Amorites in Exodus 23 has nothing to do with hornets, and even if it did: the promise made in verse 28 of Exodus 23 would still be a lie in respect of the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites.

Inerrant Lie #27

Another lie from "God's ineffable, inerrant word":

How many times have you heard someone say, "Jesus of Nazareth was either God- in- the- flesh or a raging lunatic!"? This ultimatum, whether it applies to Jesus of Nazareth or not, applies more acutely (and appropriately) to Moses. Jesus of Nazareth commanded the spirits and apostles that worshipped him as “the Holy One of God” (and other appellations of such like) to observe silence. The number of times Moses says, “I am the LORD,” on the other hand, is staggering.

Back in the early nineties, when the alphabet- soup of federal agencies surrounded the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX: CNN had an analyst [or maybe it was Janet Reno herself] on- air talking about David Koresh (the pastor of the Branch Davidians). They played audio of Koresh reading a passage of Moses as proof of how evil Koresh was, saying he clearly had a messiah complex and might be the Antichrist. They represented the audio they played as Koresh's own words, which they clearly were not; but what does this say about Moses, whose words they actually were?

One such passage is to be found in Deuteronomy 11. Beginning in verse 13, Moses says: "And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day… 14 That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season… 15 And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full." This is a staggering claim for a man to have made so many thousands of years ago.

These days, the U.S. Air Force has Operational Weather Squadrons which manipulate weather conditions in the theater of conflict to assure maximum advantage to U.S. troops in- theater. Nonetheless, even now, preachers insist, “Only God can control the weather.” Why do they believe Moses, when they revile and scorn as lunatic any contemporary who speaks as Moses did?

Back in the fall of 2015, I attended church on a Saturday evening at a church in Santa Clarita, CA, which is in Los Angeles County. California had suffered from drought for seven years or so, at this time; and, for some reason, the head pastor of the church I visited that Saturday evening chose that moment to lead his congregation in a prayer service begging God to bring relief from the persistent drought– before he commenced the message he delivered that evening.

The substance of that particular pastor's prayer that evening about the drought concentrated on his adamant, repetitive assertion that only God could do anything about the weather. I used to live in Sclarita (as Santa Clarita is referred to by the “locals”) in the 1990’s, and even then it was obvious someone was engaged in weather modification exercises to anyone who chanced to look up at the sky over that valley on any given day. Chemtrails abounded with regularity. Everyone noticed and commented on them in conversation about town. It was no secret.

At any rate, when the aforementioned head pastor was done laying on the floor wriggling like a worm and pleading to be heard and obeyed by God concerning the drought, there was a moment taken for “prophetic testimony,” in which the congregation was encouraged to share anything they felt the LORD was impressing upon their hearts regarding the subject of the drought. We waited for an uncomfortably long time, until one old man finally made his way up front to the microphone to say, “God will provide a solution to this problem.”

I suspect churches all over the L.A. Basin were exercising their prayer- prerogative in precisely this same manner, that particular weekend. On the following Monday morning, one of the things which caught the eye of many of those who perused the L.A. Times newspaper was a public notice announcing that NOAA had filed for and received permits to engage in weather modification exercises in the skies over L.A. County over the course of the winter immediately following. That may be the first year (2015) in which meteorologists assigned names to particularly dangerous winter storms.

One of my acquaintances in Santa Clarita was killed by “Lucifer,” that winter. I think it's all- but certain that, that Saturday and Sunday, all the pastors in the L.A. metropolis were doing the same thing that pastor did that Saturday evening when I visited his church: praying God end the drought; and praying so exactly as that pastor had done: forcefully and repetitively declaring only God could do anything about the weather. I think the pastors of L.A. already had the scoop on NOAA’s plans for weather modification before that weekend began. Perhaps they didn't know NOAA would obtain permits, that year. They had never bothered with permits in previous years. Moses would have been proud.

At any rate, whether or not Moses could make it rain, and even whether Moses is the LORD is beside the point. The point is that weather modification was not a science, much less a given, in Moses' day; and Moses most likely lied every time he said “I am the LORD,” regardless of whether he did so at the LORD’s behest. Either that, or the scribe who wrote, “[the LORD] buried [Moses] in a valley in the land of Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day [Deuteronomy 34:6]” lied. No man can literally bury himself; and if Moses were the LORD: why would he?