'Steady the Ark' = Blind Obedience?

[CA Steve]

I have always been under the impression that the story about Uzzah in the Bible when he steadied  the ark was a lesson intended to teach that we should not criticize or correct our leaders. It turns out it may  be teaching exactly the opposite lesson, one about not blindly following them. That would be an ironic turn of events since those who had been using it to chastise others for their criticism may be actually guilty of what the story actually illustrated.

Here is an interesting short blog about how Uzzah was actually punished for blindly following King David.

Uzzah Killed For Blind Obedience

 

The author concludes with:

Quote

But, my point is that the story of Uzzah cannot and should not be used to justify a stance of discouragement of feedback and questions or offers of assistance from the lay membership; a true reading of the story strongly suggests just the opposite.

Enjoy.

[bluebell]

24 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

I have always been under the impression that the story about Uzzah in the Bible when he steadied  the ark was a lesson intended to teach that we should not criticize or correct our leaders. It turns out it may  be teaching exactly the opposite lesson, one about not blindly following them. That would be an ironic turn of events since those who had been using it to chastise others for their criticism may be actually guilty of what the story actually illustrated.

Here is an interesting short blog about how Uzzah was actually punished for blindly following King David.

Uzzah Killed For Blind Obedience

 

The author concludes with:

Enjoy.

I've never thought of the story of Uzziah teaching that it's wrong to criticized church leaders.  For some reason I've only ever seen it as teaching that we aren't to second guess God.   I'm open to the enterpretation that the story is about Uzziah being killed because he didn't correct his leaders, but I struggle with the idea that God killed Uzziah to teach David to obey better.  That seems odd.

[smac97]

I've always thought that the story of Uzzah is fairly susceptible to misinterpretation.  This article does a fair job of addressing and contextualizing it: The Death of Uzzah.

Thanks,

-Smac

[stemelbow]

God killing someone is the silliness of the story.  Uzzah tried to help or do what he thought was right and God murdered him.  The stories a silly hoax.  

[JAHS]

Quote

 

The author concludes with:

  Quote
But, my point is that the story of Uzzah cannot and should not be used to justify a stance of discouragement of feedback and questions or offers of assistance from the lay membership; a true reading of the story strongly suggests just the opposite.

 

That's why Church Presidents and Bishops have counselors and councils.

Edited January 24, 2020 by JAHS

[CA Steve]

JAHS,

 

Thanks.

Edited January 25, 2020 by CA Steve

[Duncan]

I remember Cinepro had a great take on this from some years ago, I copied it due to it being really good, i'll see if I can find it again

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I've always thought that the story of Uzzah is fairly susceptible to misinterpretation.  This article does a fair job of addressing and contextualizing it: The Death of Uzzah.

Thanks,

-Smac

Thanks for that article Smac, it was very enlightening.

[JAHS]

54 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

JAHS,

 

To be clear, that is not my quote rather that is a quote from the author of the article itself.

Yes. You made that clear in your post. 

[katherine the great]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

I've never thought of the story of Uzziah teaching that it's wrong to criticized church leaders.  For some reason I've only ever seen it as teaching that we aren't to second guess God.   I'm open to the enterpretation that the story is about Uzziah being killed because he didn't correct his leaders, but I struggle with the idea that God killed Uzziah to teach David to obey better.  That seems odd.

I have the same problem with Job’s children being killed to test Job’s faith. 😡

[CA Steve]

17 hours ago, JAHS said:

Yes. You made that clear in your post. 

Thanks

Edited January 25, 2020 by CA Steve

[JAHS]

9 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Your first post in this thread makes it appear I said something when I was actually quoting it. Do you see the difference? That was not "my point" as the quote makes it look in your post.

Please change it.

Got it. Change made. 

[Duncan]

2 hours ago, katherine the great said:

I have the same problem with Job’s children being killed to test Job’s faith. 😡

They should get TV's Jo, the "Supernanny" she'll figure it out!

[echelon]

I have yet to come to terms with God killing people just to teach someone else a lesson.  (Uzzah, the Israelite soldiers Moses had to hold up his hands for, and Job's children as mentioned earlier, and maybe even the couple who didn't pay a full tithe)

Without any more information I'm unable to differentiate an attempt by a superstitious group of people to explain what appears to be an accidental death from what should be a direct revelation from God explaining to David (if it was for his benefit) why it was done.  But we don't have a record of that revelation and so as such, I can only take it as a story of an unfortunate event that happened with no purpose behind it.

[The Nehor]

I suspect a lot of Old Testament writers were dead wrong when they tried to attribute many events to God.

As written God in the Old Testament God is a jerk a lot of the time and throws his vengeance on secondary characters to punish the offender. Parents sin, the child dies. King sins, his people die. Job doesn't sin and most of his family dies because God and Satan made what amounts to a bar bet. If you want to see them as historical there is a way. The death of Uzzah does not speak to his eternal standing before God. Maybe he was spared any potential disobedience and was welcomed to glory. I think it was Skousen who theorized that Uzzah died not for a sin but for an object lesson and was blessed for it. Death is not always a punishment. It is an evil that should never have had to be but the atonement turns it into deliverance.

The Old Testament has even more creepy stuff. The Levite is travelling home with his runaway concubine and goes to stay in a house when a mob from the tribe of Benjamin decide to sodomize him. In parallel to the story of Lot he chivalrously gives them his concubine and the host gives up his daughter who is then raped all night and left her there at dawn. The Levite comes out and finds her dead. The Levite does the rational thing and chops her up and sends the pieces out to incite outrage and as a call for vengeance. When the tribe as a whole refuses to give up the criminals the tribe is all but wiped out with only 600 adult men surviving. Then the sequel where the rash oath that was made that no Israelite would marry into the tribe of Benjamin was grieved over because the extinction of a tribe would be be wrong. So they went with the logical solution and found an Israelite city where no one made the oath and massacred everyone there except the young women so they could claim them as wives. When there were not enough some women were sent out to dance with those involved collaborating with the rest of the unmarried men in the abduction. I do not expect that if this happens that God was impressed with their "cross their fingers behind their backs" rationalizing. I suspect the whole episode is a rationalization for an atrocity that some later writer wanted to give divine sanction. Also the writer of Judges seems to be for monarchies so it might have been spin to show that Israel before the kings was a colossal mess of lawlessness.

[Tacenda]

23 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I suspect a lot of Old Testament writers were dead wrong when they tried to attribute many events to God.

As written God in the Old Testament God is a jerk a lot of the time and throws his vengeance on secondary characters to punish the offender. Parents sin, the child dies. King sins, his people die. Job doesn't sin and most of his family dies because God and Satan made what amounts to a bar bet. If you want to see them as historical there is a way. The death of Uzzah does not speak to his eternal standing before God. Maybe he was spared any potential disobedience and was welcomed to glory. I think it was Skousen who theorized that Uzzah died not for a sin but for an object lesson and was blessed for it. Death is not always a punishment. It is an evil that should never have had to be but the atonement turns it into deliverance.

The Old Testament has even more creepy stuff. The Levite is travelling home with his runaway concubine and goes to stay in a house when a mob from the tribe of Benjamin decide to sodomize him. In parallel to the story of Lot he chivalrously gives them his concubine and the host gives up his daughter who is then raped all night and left her there at dawn. The Levite comes out and finds her dead. The Levite does the rational thing and chops her up and sends the pieces out to incite outrage and as a call for vengeance. When the tribe as a whole refuses to give up the criminals the tribe is all but wiped out with only 600 adult men surviving. Then the sequel where the rash oath that was made that no Israelite would marry into the tribe of Benjamin was grieved over because the extinction of a tribe would be be wrong. So they went with the logical solution and found an Israelite city where no one made the oath and massacred everyone there except the young women so they could claim them as wives. When there were not enough some women were sent out to dance with those involved collaborating with the rest of the unmarried men in the abduction. I do not expect that if this happens that God was impressed with their "cross their fingers behind their backs" rationalizing. I suspect the whole episode is a rationalization for an atrocity that some later writer wanted to give divine sanction. Also the writer of Judges seems to be for monarchies so it might have been spin to show that Israel before the kings was a colossal mess of lawlessness.

Yup, that's why I won't ever attend a Bible church that thinks it's inerrant.

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, CA Steve said:

.................................................

Here is an interesting short blog about how Uzzah was actually punished for blindly following King David.

Uzzah Killed For Blind Obedience.......................

Very nice.  Good to see that somebody actually reads Scripture and learns something from it.  Too bad the manual writer(s) can't get it right.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, stemelbow said:

God killing someone is the silliness of the story.  Uzzah tried to help or do what he thought was right and God murdered him.  The stories a silly hoax.  

"Murder" is the unlawful taking of human life.  The Giver of Life may persumably take life when and how He sees fit, without it being murder.

[stemelbow]

35 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

"Murder" is the unlawful taking of human life.  The Giver of Life may persumably take life when and how He sees fit, without it being murder.

I disagree.   

[rodheadlee]

30 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I disagree.   

Is it hard?

[Robert F. Smith]

29 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I disagree.   

When I was a young man, I recall visiting a distant relative (Rev Frank Herron Smith) at Pilgrim Haven in Palo Alto.  He was an old Methodist minister in his 90s, blind and with a broken hip, but he willingly conversed with me.  Among other things, he told me how much he disliked the Old Testament, and loved the New.  The God of the OT was not a nice God like Jesus, and the message of the OT was not a nice message.  He and you would likely see eye to eye on some of that.  Not too much longer after that, I attended his Methodist funeral in Berkeley.  He was much loved, and it was well attended, particularly by the many ministers whom he had mentored.

He was a good-hearted man, and very frank, but I don't think he really understood the nature of God or of the OT.

Humans are by nature and nurture simply highly developed mammals -- for whom evil is their natural state.  Because evil is banal and normal, not at all extraordinary.  We like to look at others (including God) and to pass judgment.  We imagine ourselves to be highly cultured and civilized beings incapable of genocide or evil, but we merely lie to ourselves, for such horrific behavior is in our genes and in our socialization.  It takes very little, so little to bring out the worst in us.  And then we blame God.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

When I was a young man, I recall visiting a distant relative (Rev Frank Herron Smith) at Pilgrim Haven in Palo Alto.  He was an old Methodist minister in his 90s, blind and with a broken hip, but he willingly conversed with me.  Among other things, he told me how much he disliked the Old Testament, and loved the New.  The God of the OT was not a nice God like Jesus, and the message of the OT was not a nice message.  He and you would likely see eye to eye on some of that.  Not too much longer after that, I attended his Methodist funeral in Berkeley.  He was much loved, and it was well attended, particularly by the many ministers whom he had mentored.

He was a good-hearted man, and very frank, but I don't think he really understood the nature of God or of the OT.

Humans are by nature and nurture simply highly developed mammals -- for whom evil is their natural state.  Because evil is banal and normal, not at all extraordinary.  We like to look at others (including God) and to pass judgment.  We imagine ourselves to be highly cultured and civilized beings incapable of genocide or evil, but we merely lie to ourselves, for such horrific behavior is in our genes and in our socialization.  It takes very little, so little to bring out the worst in us.  And then we blame God.

I do not think you understand. I am highly civilized and beyond all that violence. It incenses me that people think I am capable of such atrocities and I will END ANYONE who says otherwise!

[sunstoned]

10 hours ago, stemelbow said:

God killing someone is the silliness of the story.  Uzzah tried to help or do what he thought was right and God murdered him.  The stories a silly hoax.  

I agree.  It seems the Old Testament scribes were a violent group.  They were always having god killing people for silly reasons.  In the story of Job, god makes a bet with the devil (really?) and end up murdering Jobs wife and children.  The story of Noah's flood is really a sad tale.  God basically commits genocide, killing everyone, including little children, and all the animals.  In my opinion, the violence and murder in these types of stories far out weighs any lesson they try to convey.

[Meerkat]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Humans are by nature and nurture simply highly developed mammals -- for whom evil is their natural state.  Because evil is banal and normal, not at all extraordinary.  We like to look at others (including God) and to pass judgment.  We imagine ourselves to be highly cultured and civilized beings incapable of genocide or evil, but we merely lie to ourselves, for such horrific behavior is in our genes and in our socialization.  It takes very little, so little to bring out the worst in us.  And then we blame God.

I think each, or many of us, go through an Old Testament phase when we have wrapped our world into a meet little package.  We feel qualified to judge others, and justified in our strident opinions.  Then, when one of our children go astray, we go through a New Testament phase of mercy and compassion.  If we are lucky, we go through a Mosiah chapter 4 experience, and try to remember what we learned.

I still have a challenge with King David losing his salvation over Uriah, particularly in view his humble penance in Psalm 51.

[Teancum]

18 hours ago, stemelbow said:

God killing someone is the silliness of the story.  Uzzah tried to help or do what he thought was right and God murdered him.  The stories a silly hoax.  

Since I cannot like your posts here is my like.😁