Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 20-21 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 67-68

Leviticus 20 – Penalties for sins: If you offer your children as a sacrifice to Molech – death.

Consulting fortune-tellers – this is called “spiritual prostitution” and is punished by cutting them off from the community.

 If you “act as mediums or . . . consult the spirits of the dead” (20:27), then you must die by stoning.

Dishonoring father or mother – death.

Adultery – death for both.

Homosexual sex – death. Carnal relations with an animal – death.

Forbidden sex – varied, mostly cut off from the community or fined, etc.

Leviticus 21 – This chapter is dedicated to instructions for priests. Priests shall not prepare corpses for burial and thus incur pollution, except for his closest relatives.  The highest priest shall not even do that (21:11).

They shall not do things the Canaanites do to mourn, like bare the crown of their heads, shave the edges of their beard, lacerate their bodies; they have to remain holy, sacred because it is their job to “offer up food to your God” (21:8)—that’s an interesting thought. 

They shall not marry women who have been prostitutes, or who are divorced or dishonored.  The must marry a virgin. A priest’s daughter who brings dishonor shall be burned. 

“No one who has a defect qualifies, whether he is blind, lame, disfigured, deformed, or has a broken foot or arm, or is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or has a defective eye, or skin sores or scabs, or damaged testicles” (21:17-20).

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

Weekly Worship of the Christians

67 – He continues describing the life of the Christian community. The wealthy in the church help the needy; they are united in all things. On the day we call Sunday, “all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.”

The they rise and pray together and when that is ended, they bring bread and wine and water, “and the president . . . offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen, and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks has been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.”

A collection is made and people give what they can to the president, who cares for the orphans and widows and those who are sick or in need in some way. They also care for strangers sojourning with them.

Sunday is the day for their common gathering “because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”

Conclusion

68 – Justin Martyr’s goal throughout this treatise has been to be “reasonable” and committed to telling the emperor and his officials the truth of Christianity. But he says, if the things he’s said, sound like “nonsense” to them they are still not worthy of a decree of death. Christians have done no wrong to anyone in the Empire.

“[W]e forewarn you, that you shall not escape the coming judgment of God, if you continue in your injustice; and we ourselves will invite you to do that which is pleasing to God.”

He makes reference to a letter by Emperor Hadrian, father of the present emperor, that seems to have specified that only Christians in violation of some law could be persecuted, and he attaches a copy of that letter to the treatise.

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 17 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 59-60

Leviticus 17  – Every sheep, goat or ox must be presented as an offering to the Lord in front of the Dwelling before it can be slaughtered for food.  The blood needs to be splashed on the altar and the fat burned. 

Offerings previously were made to “satyrs” [goat-demons] but this shall be no more (17:7).

This differs from Deut.12 where slaughter is permitted as long as the blood is poured out—scholars disagree which practice came first, Schocken says.  What is not disputed is the importance of “the blood.”  It effects a type of “ransom” or redemption—the blood of the animal substituting for that of the sacrificer.

“And if anyone, whether of the house of Israel or of the aliens residing among them, partakes of any blood, I will set myself against that one who partakes of blood and will cut him off from among his people.  Since the life of a living body is in its blood, I have made you put it on the altar, so that atonement may thereby be made for your own lives, because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement” (17:10-12)

See reference to this in Hebrews 9 and 10.

“He has passed through the greater, the more perfect tent, which is better than the one made by men’s hands because it is not of this created order” (9:11).  He has “entered the sanctuary once and for all” (9:12), taking not the blood of a sacrificial animal but his own blood and has “won an eternal redemption for us” (9:12). He “offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit , . . [to] purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God” (9:14).

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

Plato’s Obligation to Moses

59 – Plato is very respected and Justin Martyr absolutely believes that Plato’s ideas were borrowed from the Jewish prophets.

“Plato borrowed his [the prophet’s] statement, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world, hear the very words spoken through Moses, who, as above shown, was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity than the Greek writers; and through whom the Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what materials God at first formed the world, spake thus: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and it was so.’ So that both Plato and they who agree with him, and we ourselves, have learned and you also can be convince, that by the word of God the whole world was made out of the substance spoken of before by Moses, and that which the poets call Erebus, we know was spoken of formerly by Moses.”

Erebus was a primordial deity in Greek mythology representing the darkness.

Plato’s Doctrine of the Cross

60 – The Platonic thinker and philosopher in Justin Martyr is very present in this section. And the work of Plato he discusses here is one that sounds very interesting from what I can gather from “google-ing” it, but I myself am unfamiliar with the work.

He basically believes that Plato was using the “Son of God” in his work, Timaeus, “where he says of the primordial deity, “’He placed him crosswise in the universe,’” {in the form of the letter X to represent the “soul of the universe”). He believes Plato got the X idea from Moses, who creates a cross-like figure – the bronze snake attached to a pole in Numbers 21:8 – to provide protection for his people in the desert.

“Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And as to his speaking of a third [person/image of God??], he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, ‘that the Spirit of God moved over the waters.’ For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water. . . “

The lesson the writer thinks we should take from this is NOT that different people come in different ways to Truth, something most modern believers would feel comfortable with; he believes all the thinkers who have come to even remotely similar truths have come to them because they have all been influenced by Moses.

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 9-10 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 44-46

Leviticus 9 - On the eighth day, Aaron is to address the people, offering up a calf (hattat-sin) and a ram (holocaust–offering up) and encouraging the people also to offer up like offerings (he-goat sin offering, calf yearling and lamb yearling holocaust, an ox and ram for peace, and cereal offerings) “for today, YHWH will make-himself-seen by you!” (9:4)

When Moses and Aaron come out of the meeting tent at the end, “then the glory of the Lord was revealed to all the people.  Fire came forth from the Lord’s presence and consumed the holocaust and the remnants of the fat on the altar.  Seeing this, all the people cried out and fell prostrate” (9:23-24).

Leviticus 10 – We return to the narrative—to the realm of human fallibility and failure according to Schocken (546). 

Two of Aaron’s sons, the oldest, are somehow disobedient with respect to the priestly observances they are in charge of; and the Lord flames out at them, killing them both. 

They are removed from the camp and two other sons—Eleazar and Ithamar—are told not to participate in the grieving process or leave their posts. Schocken says this is part of the general prohibition against priests being in contact with the dead (548).  The Lord also reveals to Aaron that from now on the priests are all to abstain from wine or strong drink (maybe the sons infraction came about as a result of that vice).  

        

Moses goes over with them what they may eat of the offerings given and where they may eat of it.  Eating a portion of the sin-offering (the goat) was necessary to relieve the community of its corporate guilt.  Moses gets angry when they do not eat of it (10:17). Aaron argues that were not sufficiently “pure” or sanctified to eat of it—especially in light of the punishment inflicted on their brothers.  Moses settles for this argument.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

Not Nullified by Prophecy

44 – We see this element of freedom in the earliest stories of the Bible and we hear many encouragements in the Scriptures to choose what is good: “’Behold, before thy face are good and evil: choose the good’” (Deut. 30:15).

Plato too said similar words: “’The blame is his who chooses, and God is blameless.’” And Justin Martyr believes Plato took this idea from the Jewish prophets. “[H]ence there seem to be seeds of truth among all men; but they are charged with not accurately understanding [the truth] . . .”

When we say that the prophets have predicted what was to happen, we are not saying that “it [will] come about by a fatal necessity.” It is a revelation of God’s foreknowledge of what men will choose.

Christ’s Session in Heaven Foretold

45 – The writer says that “God the Father of all [brought] Christ to heaven after He had raised Him from the dead, and would keep Him there until He has subdued His enemies the devils, and until the number of those who are foreknown by Him as good and virtuous is complete, on whose account He has still delayed the consummation . . .”

“That which he says, ‘He shall send to Thee the rod of power out of Jerusalem,’ is predictive of the mighty word, which His apostles, going forth from Jerusalem, preached everywhere; and though death [by the powers of the state] is decreed against those who teach or at all confess the name of Christ, we everywhere both embrace and teach it. And if you also read these words in a hostile spirit, ye can do no more, as I said before, than kill us; which indeed does no harm to us, but to you and all who unjustly hate us, and do not repent, brings eternal punishment by fire.”

The Word in the World Before Christ

46 – What of all the people who lived before Christ’s incarnation 150 years ago?

“We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians [?] Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious.” That is quite a statement – those who lived [in the past, before Christ] “reasonably” ARE Christians, even though they have been thought to be atheists!!

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 39-40 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 26-28

Exodus 39 – The vestments made and the work presented to Moses for his blessing are here described. The colors of everything are specified including even the color of the thread to be used (gold).

The names of the twelve tribes are engraved on a dark reddish gem mounted into gold. All the various garments  are described in great detail and all are decorated with gems and gold. “The Israelites did all the work just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Moses examined everything and saw that they had made it all just as the Lord had commanded. So Moses blessed them” (39:43). The Schocken editors point out the extent to which the completion of the work is marked by terms that equate it with God’s completion of the work of creation in Genesis.

Exodus 40 – Everything is ready to be assembled (40:18) and anointed by Moses.  Aaron and his sons are anointed.  “Then the cloud covered the meeting tent, and the glory of the Lord filled the Dwelling.  Moses could not enter the meeting tent, because the cloud settled down upon it and the glory of the Lord filled the Dwelling.  Whenever the cloud rose from the Dwelling, the Israelites would set out on their journey. 

But if the cloud did not lift, they would not go forward; only when it lifted did they go forward.  In the daytime the cloud of the Lord was seen over the Dwelling; whereas at night, fire was seen in the cloud by the whole house of Israel in all the stages of their journey” (40:34-38).

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

26 – After “Christ’s ascension into heaven the devils put forward certain men who said that they themselves were gods; and they were not only not persecuted by you, but even deemed worthy of honors.” And here he is speaking of Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24), whom I had no idea was so well-known in Roman circles.

He claims that the Romans esteemed Simon for the acts of magic he performed. Justin Martyr thinks this “magic” was “the art of the devils operating in him” but he notes that the Romans “considered him a god” and had a statue erected in his honor on the Tiber and had it inscribed with the words, “Simoni Deo Sancto” [To Simon the holy God]. It’s possible Justin Martyr was misinformed in this. In the 16^th century, a statue was unearthed in this location which was inscribed to “Semo Sancus” – a Sabine deity, not the Simon referred to in Acts.

He also implies that Marcion of Pontus – still living at this time – was influenced by Simon Magus. He says he is “teaching his disciples to believe in some other god greater than the Creator. And he, by the aid of the devils, has caused many of every nation to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is the maker of this universe, and to assert that some other being, greater than He, has done greater works.” He and his followers may be CALLED Christians, but they are not. They are heretics.

Marcion was the son of a bishop in the early church – in Sinope in the province of Pontus. He may also have been appointed an assistant to his father but his father excommunicated him when he rejected the God of the Jewish Scriptures as the God Christians worshipped [Wikipedia]. It’s easy to see that a man like Justin Martyr, who found the Jewish Scriptures and particularly the Jewish prophets as his road to Christ, would denounce such a belief. Marcionism was declared a 4^th century heresy.

27 – Bucking the culture of the time, Justin Martyr writes that “we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men.” We are taught to do no one injury. And those who are “so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are often brought up to prostitution.

Those who are in government – like the men for whom he is writing this apology – “receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them [those who profit from their prostitution, I think], whom you ought to exterminate from your realm.”

“And anyone who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and impure intercourse, may possibly be having intercourse with his own child, or relative, or brother.”

28 – Among Christians, “the prince of the wicked spirits is called the serpent, and Satan, and the devil . . . “Christ foretells that he and those who follow him will be punished for all eternity, and God has delayed this end-of=time scenario out of “His regard for the human race.”

“He foreknows that some are to be saved by repentance, some even that are not yet born. In the beginning He made the human race with the power of thought and of choosing the truth and doing right, so that all men are without excuse before God; for they have been born rational and contemplative.”

Some then – even as today – insinuate that God does not exist or if He does exist, He “exists like a stone, and that neither virtue nor vice are anything, but only in the opinion of men these things are reckoned good or evil. [But] this is the greatest profanity and wickedness.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 37-38 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 23-25

Exodus 37 – The ark or “covenant box” is to be made out of acacia wood and the dimensions are to be 45” by 27” by 27.”

It is to be covered with gold inside and out and carried with poles of gold-covered acacia wood that are slipped through rings along the sides of the box. The top of the case is covered with a lid with hammered golden winged creatures facing each other and protecting the contents.

The table for the offered bread is made with similar precision and then the lamp stand and altar of incense. Everything is beautifully decorated.

Exodus 38 – The altar of holocausts or “burnt offerings” is described in great detail along with all the tools necessary. The bronze basin and enclosure needed for the Tent of the Lord’s Presence is also described. The gold and silver dedicated to the Temple is based on the census done.

The Jerusalem Bible note at the beginning of chapter 35 says that “35-40 is almost a word for word repetition of 25-31; there the orders were given; here they are carried out” (123).

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

23 – Here Justin Martyr claims that the prophets who foretold Christ are really older than “all the writers” who have set these stories before the Roman world and that they said not “fabricated” things but true things..

This is interesting. I had to check on the timeframe for the emergence of all the myths that were part of Greek and Roman culture dated from 900-800 BC. So, it’s hard to say now if the Hebrew stories were older but Justin Martyr seems to be saying they were, and not only older but truer as well.

 

24 – It is ludicrous that Christians are “hated on account of the name of Christ . . . and put to death as sinners” when we do nothing wrong. And others are “in other places worshipping trees and rivers, and mice and cats and crocodiles, and many irrational animals.”

25 – We too used to worship these gods, he says – Bacchus and Apollo, Proserpine and Venus and Aesculapius – but we “have now, through Jesus Christ, learned to despise these, though we be threatened with death for it, and have dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and impossible God; of whom we are persuaded that never was he goaded by lust of Antiope, or such other women, or of Ganymede, nor was rescued by the hundred-handed giant whose aid was obtained through Thetis . . . Those who believe these things we pity, and those who invented them we know to be devils.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 34-36 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 20-22

Exodus 34 - The Lord tells Moses to bring Him two new stones on which to re-write the “words” He gave him.  Moses climbs the mountain again alone, and the Lord passes before him, crying out, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for their fathers’ wickedness!” (34:6-7) The two attributes—the Lord’s kindness and His justice—are the two things we can know about Him, the two things we must know about Him.

Moses, in response, renews his request to have the Lord accompany them on their journey. The Lord promises to work marvels (34:10) among the people; but in return they must “keep the commandments I am giving you today” (34:11). 

This list of commandments, the post-apostacy set—called The Ten but clearly a different set from what Moses received in Exodus 20--is framed not by a reminder of the salvation from Egypt, but by a prospective view of the victories and challenges their entry into the Promised Land will bring.  Perhaps this story entered into the text after the Israelites had been a people in the Promised Land for a while, and had been unfaithful AGAIN—worshipping the golden calves of the Canaanite religion--and needed this particular temptation to be added to the Exodus story.

Preface - The Lord will drive out the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites; but the Israelites must tear down the altars and smash their sacred pillars and poles. 

1. They are to make no covenant (nor enter into marriages) with these people or the Israelites will end up ensnared in their forms of worship.
2. No molten images are to be made.
3. They shall keep the Passover.
4. They shall dedicate to God all first-born.
5. They shall keep the Sabbath.
6. They shall keep the feast of Weeks and the feast of the Fruit Harvest
7. Three times a year all the men shall come to worship the Lord
8. They shall not offer the blood of sacrifice with leavened bread.
9. They shall bring to the House of the Lord the first grains that are harvested

    10.  They hall not boil a young sheep or goat in its mother’s milk (34:14-26).

      

Moses stays another 40 days and nights; when he comes down “he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant (karan) while he conversed with the Lord. Later, in the Latin translation, the word ‘karan’ was rendered as ‘horned’—hence Michelangelo’s horned statue of Moses at the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli.

This first “transfiguration” – Moses’ -- is certainly the backdrop against which Jesus’ is to be interpreted in Mark 9:2-3; Mt 17:2 and Luke 9:29. This radiance terrifies Aaron and others.  He puts a veil over his face, and thereafter takes it off only when he enters the Tent of Meeting to “converse” with the Lord (34:34).

Paul refers to this in 2 Corinthians 17 when he interprets the veil as something that prevents the Jews from seeing in Christ a fulfillment of the Mosaic ‘ministration’ as Fox would call it.

Exodus 35 – Sabbath regulations: penalty for violation is death.  No work is to be done. “You shall not even light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day” (35:3).

Then the chapter turns to collection of materials again, and the call for artisans and contributions for everyone “all as their heart prompted” (35:22).  The particular God-given “skills,” “understandings,” and “abilities” of individuals are recognized.

Exodus 36 – The work proceeds communally according to how people’s hearts are moved to make them come and take part in the work (36:2). More is contributed than is needed, so people are told to stop making contributions.

The most skilled men work on the “Tent of the Lord’s presence” (36:8). It is to be made of “ten pieces of fine linen woven [14 yards by 2 yards] with blue, purple, and red wool and embroidered with figures of winged creatures” (36:9).  Directions and descriptions follow for all the parts that make up the Tent or “Dwelling” follow.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

20 – Many of the things we Christians affirm have been affirmed by other “pagan” religions and philosophers – the Sibyl [the prophetess], the Stoics, Plato, Menander and others. They all seem to teach that things of this world are corruptible and that all things will end in fire. But while there are similarities between the beliefs of these more respected [at that time] sources, we believe our teaching is “on other points . . . fuller and more divine.”

“For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics; and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, we say the very things which have been said by the comic poet Menander, and other similar writers, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work.”

He seems to be arguing that so many of the things Christians believe are not really NEW, it is hard to understand why they should be so singled out for persecution.

21 – Even the core belief is not new to the Romans. “And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.” He is referring here to the various events surrounding the “sons of Jupiter” – Mercury, Aesculapius, Bacchus, Hercules, Perseus, and Bellerophon.

And even some of the emperors in the past have been declared “worthy of deification” and the reason all of these “people” are written about and celebrated is because they feel it is good to encourage “youthful scholars” to “imitate the gods.” But the truth is that many of the stories of these people contain things that are good at all, things that have been perpetrated by “wicked devils.”

22 – The writer continues his argument that nothing in the Jesus story is all that unusual. The Romans have sons of gods too, even suffering sons. But Jesus was superior to them – and this was shown in “His actions.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 33 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 18-19

Exodus 33 – The Lord promises to send the people into the land He swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and He will send His angel before them.  But He says He will not accompany them Himself because they “are a stiff-necked people; [and He] might exterminate [them] on the way” (33:4). In repentance, the Israelites lay aside their ornaments (33:6).

The Meeting Tent or “Tent of the Lord’s Presence,” is pitched outside of camp “at some distance.” When Moses entered the Tent, the people saw a column of cloud outside the entrance “while the Lord spoke with Moses” (33:9).  This was a cue for everyone to worship at the entrances to their own tents.  Joshua would stay in the Tent of Meeting even when Moses returned from it.

Moses convinces God that He really must come along with them, that He must accept them as His people: “For how can it be known that we, your people and I, have found favor with you, except by your going with us?” (33:16) The Lord tells Moses “I myself  [note indicates the word literally is ‘my face,’ that is ‘my presence’] will go along, to give you rest.” This passage precedes Moses’ argument to God, but it seems to me to be a response.  Schocken’s translation is better, I think, making it a question: “If my presence were to go (with you), would I cause you to rest easy? (33:14).  Moses then tells YHWH if He will not come, then He should not bring them up from here; for only through that presence that they can become a distinct people at all.

Moses asks to see the Lord’s “glory” and God assures Moses He will permit him to see His “beauty,” but the Lord’s “face” he cannot see “for no man sees me and still lives” (33:20).  He places Moses “in the cleft of the rock” and screens his vision until He passes, but He permits Moses to see His “back” (33:23). The note suggests that God’s “back” is also reflected in the creation.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

Immortality and Resurrection

18 – If we reflect on those kings and other rulers just talked about, we know they all die “the death common to all.” If death resulted in “insensibility” [the death of all that comprises who they are], then that would be a blessing to those who are wicked. But we believe “sensation remains to all who have ever lived, and eternal punishment is laid up . . . for the wicked.”

It is not only to the traditional Christian view of man’s eternal nature that Justin Martyr appeals. He is surrounded by necromancers, diviners and “dream-senders” who also believe in a spiritual realm not visible to the human senses. They all believe that “the spirits of the dead, whom all call daemoniacs or madmen” can reach into our lives. And he points out that all the great thinkers of their day – and earlier – ascribed to a belief in the afterlife – Empedocles, Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Homer.

19 – He gives an amazing argument in favor of the possibility of “resurrection” – bodily resurrection.  He starts by observing the miracle of life coming from the “human seed” that is the start of every life. No one would ever look at that drop of seed and imagine that a man or woman would arise from it.

“In the same way, then, you are now incredulous because you have never seen a dead man rise again. But as at first you would not have believed it possible that such persons could be produced from the small drop, and yet now you see them thus produced, so also judge ye that it is not impossible that the bodies of men, after they have been dissolved, and like seeds resolved into earth, should in God’s appointed time rise again and put on incorruption [incorruptibility].”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 32 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 15-17

Exodus 32 – Moses takes a long time conferring with God on the mountain (40 days), and the people become restless and anxious.  Throughout the wilderness journey, they express the same anxieties. 

Back on earth, down the mountain, life is full of human frailty. So the people go to Aaron and ask him to “make us a god who will be our leader” (32:1). One of the commandments – the FIRST one by the Catholic count, is specifically NOT to make any such representation.  The Lord, seeing what is going on, tells Moses “Go down at once to your people, [not his any more, note] for they have become depraved” (32:7).

God threatens to “consume them” but Moses pleads with Him on their behalf—this is his other “hat” a prophet wears—the role of being a pleader for his people. The prophet not only represents God’s voice to the people.  He represents the people’s voice to God.  He is a two way intermediary.  Moses reasons with God as he might have with some proud potentate and tries to get Him to see how the fate of His people ultimately reflects on Him.  He reminds God of the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and exhorts Him to the faithfulness He swore to them on more than one occasion. I guess we all need to be reminded once and a while.

Moses meets up again with Joshua and returns to the camp with the tablets, but when he sees himself what they have done, his anger flares up so much [he does have a temper---remember 11:8] he throws the tablets down and breaks them.  He takes the golden calf, melts it down, grinds up the gold, throws it on the water and makes the people drink it.  Then he turns to Aaron, appropriately enough, and asks him an unexpected question—not what have you done? Or even what have my people done? but “What did this people ever do to you that you should lead them into so grave a sin?” (32:21)

Aaron, of course, blames the people—he was just their pawn or he just did what he did to keep them from doing something even worse.  “I told them, ‘Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off,’ They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out.” [Is this supposed to be funny??] 

Moses, seeing what he is confronted with, takes charge.  He has those who are “for the Lord” come to him.  Only the Levites rally to him, and he instructs them to slay their kinsmen—about 3000 [a stylized number often used in the Bible] are slain. And this becomes the basis for their being seen as dedicated to the Lord in a special way!!

The next day, Moses leaves them again and returns to the mountain to “make atonement” for them (32:30). Only when he is there do we see him as a pleader for his people once again.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

What Christ Himself Taught

15 – Concerning Chastity: Jesus said such things as this – “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart before God.” If you marry a woman who is divorced from another, this is also adultery.

Many believers who have been “Christ’s disciples from childhood” remain pure for their whole lived. And it isn’t just a few who can live by this standard. “Christ called not only the just and the chaste to repentance, but the ungodly, and the licentious and the unjust.” Our heavenly Father would rather have the repentance of the sinner, not his punishment.

Christians love all people. “He taught. . .’if ye love them that love you, what new thing do ye?’” “Pray for you enemies and love them that hate you.”

“Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth. . . but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.” Be kind and merciful; take no thought what you shall eat or put on.

16 – Concerning Patience and Swearing: “[C]oncerning our being patient of injuries, and ready to serve all, . . . free from anger, this is what He said: ‘To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak or coat, forbid not. And whosoever shall be angry is in danger of the fire . . .”

“’And let your good works shine before men, that they, seeing them, may glorify your Father which is in heaven.’” He comments that he’s seen many times people won over to the gospel by the witness of Christians’ lives.

As to not swearing and always speaking the truth, he quotes Jesus: “’Swear not at all; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.’”

Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only with all your heart.

“[L]et those who are not found living as [Jesus] taught, be understood to be no Christians, even though they profess with the lip the precepts of Christ; for not those who make profession, but those who do the works, shall be saved, according to His word.”

17 – Concerning Civil Obedience: He notes that Jesus taught his followers to pay whatever taxes were owed to those in civil authority over them. While God alone is whom we worship, “in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging . . .kings and rulers of men” and we pray that “with your kingly power you [also] be found to possess sound judgment.”

Everyone will be judged by God in the end anyway.

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 31 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 12-14

Exodus 31 – Artisans are chosen to make everything, artisans “filled . . . with a divine spirit—or breath--of skill and understanding and knowledge in [their] craft[s]” (31:3).  And then they are admonished to keep the Sabbath sacred “as a token” of the covenant between God and his people. Schocken’s translation “for in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day he ceased and paused-for-breath” (31:17) is good, especially when we remember breath and spirit are the same.  The anthropomorphism of the image is appealing – to me at least.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

12 – As for promoting peace, no one want to be a stronger helper and ally than Christians. We know that nobody escapes the notice of God and it is impossible “for the wicked, the covetous, the conspirator, [or] the virtuous” to escape the consequences of their deeds. And the consequences may be either “everlasting punishment or salvation” depending on what they did in life. 

If people KNEW this, then they would not CHOOSE wickedness or even “intend” it, for even the intention to do bad things does not escape God’s radar [my modern paraphrase].

He addresses his emperor with the assumption that he is a man who has a “reputation for piety and philosophy.”

Justin Martyr believes that all of what Jesus was and did was foretold by the prophets; and it is this amazing fulfillment of their words that provides Christianity with its convincing power.

13 – No “sober-minded man” could ever think that Christians are “atheists.” We worship “the Maker of this universe, and [declare] that He has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense.”

It would not be right for us to use “what He has brought into being for our sustenance” as burnt offerings; these things should be used by us and others who are in need “with gratitude to Him.”

“Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius  Caesar; and we reasonable worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and hold Him in the second place, and the Prophetic Spirit in the third. . .”

People do not understand how we could believe that a “crucified man” could be “second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein . . ..”

14 – Justin Martyr points to the role of what he calls “demons” in deceiving authorities about what Christians are about. These demons “strive to hold you their slaves and servants.” Through dreams and sometimes “magical impositions” they convince those who do not resist them.

We, however, “stand aloof from them and follow the only unbegotten God through His Son.” We used to be like those who resist this truth. We too used to delight in fornication, used magical arts and valued material wealth above all things. We too used to hate and destroy one another because of “their different manners” – “men of a different tribe”; but “now, since the coming of Christ” we live with them in peace; we pray for our enemies and try to persuade those who “hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.”

Christ was no sophist. To prove this, Justin says that he will review some of what Christ taught.

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Exodus 30 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 9-11

Exodus 30 – The incense altar (not previously mentioned—possibly an addition) is 18” long and 18” wide and 36” high (using the Today’s English Version so as to get away from cubits). It has “projections,” rings and poles to make it moveable.  And it is placed “outside the curtain which hangs in front of the Covenant Box” (30:6).

There shall be incense burned morning and evening for all time to come.  No holocausts or cereal offerings or libations shall be made on it, but once a year Aaron shall perform the “atonement rite” on its horns (30:10).  This “altar is most sacred to the Lord.”

When they have a census (seen here as in other places as threatening.  Schocken says, that it seemed people thought if you could be counted, you could be controlled—an early argument against government interference in people’s lives), each Israelite (age 20+ which was the age for military service) shall give the Lord “a forfeit for his life, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered” (30:12), It is a half-shekel offering. This tax shall go to keeping up the meeting tent “that there it may be the Israelites’ reminder before the Lord, of the forfeit paid for their lives” (30:16).

A wash-bowl is to be placed between the meeting tent and the altar for the priests to wash their hands and feet whenever they enter or approach the altar to offer an oblation.

Anointing oil shall be made of the finest spices—myrrh, cinnamon, cane, cassia—and oil. Everything shall be anointed with it and the priests as well.  There are directions for the incense as well.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

9 – Justin says that Christians do not “honor with many sacrifices and garlands of flowers such deities as men have formed and set in shrines and called gods since we see that these are soulless and dead . . ..”

10 – “[W]e have received by tradition that God does not need the material offerings which men can give, seeing, indeed, that He Himself is the provider of all things. And we have been taught, and are convinced, and do believe, that He accepts those only who imitate the excellences which reside in Him, temperance, and justice, and philanthropy, and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name.”

“For as in the beginning He created us when we were not, so do we consider that, in like manner, those who choose what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of fellowship with Him.”

Justin Martyr is unique among the early Christians that I have read. He is clearly a man of philosophical leanings, a kind of very early “enlightenment” type. He speaks often of “choices” we make and “deeds” we shall be judged by. He also esteems the “rational faculties”; it is these faculties that lead us to the door beyond which the realm of the spirit lies. These faculties can lead us there but they cannot lead us passed the door/gate. There we need faith and trust and hope and spiritual eyes.

11 – “[W]hen you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom.” This is just ONE of the things people HEARD about Christians that caused them to freak out. Constant talk of “brothers and sisters” all over the place and “eating the body of Christ” led some to think this was a cult full of incestuous cannibals and people who threatened to undermine traditional Roman family values.

The kingdom Christians speak of, however, is not of this world. The kingdom we believe in is “with God, . . . if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, . . . But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all event be paid.”