Noahic Covenant, Noah the patriarch, Laws of Sacrifice, Gospel Principles, Wait Upon the Lord, Dead Sea Scrolls, Lifting Hands in prayer, Restitution, Jewish Mashiach, savour of salt, Tower of Babel, pix of Dead Sea Scrolls
Unconditional Noahic (Hebrew: נוֹחַ) Covenant, (Gen 8:20-22), in addition to the fact that it is still in force today, also provides us with a pattern for all of the other biblical covenants. Noah’s first duty, after the general disembarkation from the Deluge, was to erect an altar to God, whereon he offered one of every species of clean animal as a sacrifice. In this promise Heavenly Father made to Noah:
1) Man’s responsibility to populate the earth is reaffirmed (Gen 9:1, 7).
2) The subjection of the animal kingdom to man is reaffirmed, but now the animal kingdom would fear man and be dominated by him (Gen 9:2).
3) Man is permitted to eat the flesh of every “moving creature” – not human flesh – but may not eat any living flesh.
4) The sacredness of human life is established.
5) Whatever sheds man’s blood, whether man or beast, must be put to death. This is seen as the institution of human self-government (Gen 9:6).
6) The covenant is confirmed with Noah, his sons, their descendants, all the animals on the ark and their descendants (Gen 9:8-10).
7) The earth will never again be destroyed by a universal flood (Gen 9:11).
8) The next time God destroys the earth, the means will be fire (2 Peter 3:10). 9) The rainbow is established as a sign of the covenant.
10) Christ will return to earth with his chosen to be with Zion on the earth: Moses 7:62-64, JST Gen 11:5-6).
The Prophet Joseph recorded in his Teachings that he received revelation: In any year the rainbow is seen the Lord will not come but there will be seed and harvest. When the bow is not seen, famine, pestilence, great distress among nations. P. 340-41. These laws are binding on all non-Jews, as well.
Noah was a tenant farmer – of low station – a winemaker who was sometimes drunk. He was not well thought of by his neighbors for this. He warned them often about the fear of flood during years of unusually high rainfall but they ignored him. The event that no one really knows about comes from Genesis 9. Jewish rabbinical scholars think that Noah’s son, Ham, castrated Noah while he was sleeping. I think, based on the following, that Noah was simply viewed by Ham while sleeping naked. That would be lack of filial respect, immodesty and Ham’s failure to protect his father. We will never know. The KJV and other versions have a meager acct of the ministry of Noah. You will find much more in the Inspired Version of Genesis 7:49-50,52, 57-8, 8:4-4-8, 11-13, 23, and chapter 9.
Noah was the tenth and last of pre-flood patriarchs. His father was Lamech. When 500, (Gen 5:32), Noah begat Shem (born without foreskin (Rabbinic). Shem was father of Semitic people), Ham (father of Hamitic race – Cush, Mizraim-peopled Africa, parts of Asia) and Japeth (father of Europeans – Hamitic race). The Flood story is a type and shadow of family genealogy, of gathering our loved ones to safety. The entire human race is supposed to be descended from these three sons, who alone survived the Flood.
Law of God given to Adam: Firstlings of Flock, First fruits, broken heart, contrite spirit. – Preparatory and full Gospel
Law of Moses: Cattle, goats grains, birds, oil, wine, bread, tithes, offerings – religious laws, preparatory Gospel
Law of Christ today: tithes, offerings, broken heart, contrite spirit, consecration- spiritual laws – original Gospel restored
Gospel principles revealed anciently:
Gospel preached from beginning (Moses 5:58). God will send His Son in meridian of time (Moses 6:57)
Man would be redeemed from the Fall (Moses 5:9). Son of God will give his life’s blood (Moses 6:62)
Prophets taught God’s ways (Moses 6:47, 7:1). Conflict between good,evil (Moses 6:49)
Man is living in sin (Moses 6;55). Man needs to repent (Moses 6:52) Man needs baptism (Moses 6:53)
The Holy Ghost is bestowed (Moses 6;52, 59). Man needs to live righteously (Moses 6:57)
Man can be born again and become the son of God (Moses 6:65, 68, 7:1)
What, then, does it mean to wait upon the Lord? In the scriptures, the word wait means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust. To hope and trust in the Lord requires faith, patience, humility, meekness, long-suffering, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end.
To wait upon the Lord means planting the seed of faith and nourishing it “with great diligence, and … patience.”17
It means praying as the Savior did—to God, our Heavenly Father—saying: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” It is a prayer we offer with our whole souls in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Waiting upon the Lord means pondering in our hearts and “receiv[ing] the Holy Ghost” so that we can know “all things what [we] should do.”
As we follow the promptings of the Spirit, we discover that “tribulation worketh patience” and we learn to “continue in patience until [we] are perfected. (Hales, GC Oct 2011)
Claims of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The people who wrote the scrolls were a chosen and a covenant people
God would send them a Messiah, a Redeemer who would suffer for their sins
The Son of God would be put to death. The people had prophets who taught God’s ways
They had the true priesthood and had all things in common.
There is conflict between good and evil and men are living in a state of sin. Repentance is necessary for remission
A person must be baptized and live a life of righteousness.
Many of these doctrines and others parallel New Testament teachings. Some critics said the Christians would have to hide the scrolls because they reveal that Jesus brought nothing new to the world – most of his teachings were from a group (maybe Essenes from 1st century b.c. We know that all dispensations have had the Gospel of Christ.
What few know is that the kingdom of the Jewish Messiah also comes to prepare a world for the Almighty’s kingdom, in this world.
Since the 2nd century books of the Apocrypha tell us the Kingdom of Heaven of the Jewish Messiah is not only within the soul (spiritual), but also upon the earth (terrestrial). This dualism does not carry spiritualism to extremes: The Jewish people do not separate faith from social life. Hence Israel was not able to imagine a man who had attained a completely divine stage…its Messiah (Mashiach) was spiritual and political at the same time.
The ancient Israelite gesture of raising both hands in praise or supplication is mention3ed in 24 scriptural passages, 22 from O.T. This was gesture was found in Mesopotamian art.
“Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto Thee, when I life up my hands toward thy holy oracle. (Psalms 28:2)
“Lift your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. (Psalm 134:2)
“Let my prayer be set before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. (Psalm 141:2)
“And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord ;in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven…” (1Kgs 8:22,54).
This practice was not unique to Israelite scripture but part of a cultural heritage that was shared by Israel and surrounding peoples. These examples help us appreciate how the Israelites understood prayer. Different from Latter-day Saints, such as folding the arms across the body or before the face, and may express concepts of prayer: God’s holiness, his knowledge of our moral state and our private thoughts, submission to His will, desire to approach and commune with Him in “an attitude of prayer” (LDS Bible Dictionary)
Restitution – Hashava. Hebrew השׁבה The principle of restitution is an integral part of repentance. I look to God ( YHVH – Yahveh) for an example of this. The judgments extended in the Torah represent the full penalty that may be delivered should someone break the laws. In order to render righteous judgment it is necessary to balance the scales of justice and mercy. If the death penalty were exacted on every crime, the House of Israel would not even exist.
YHVH is a righteous judge and must take the certitude of the law into consideration even as much as the circumstances and intent of the person. The idolatry in the wilderness is just such an example. If God exacted the full penalty of Law then all Israel who participated in the idolatry of the Golden Calf should have been put to death. As a judge and because of the mediation of Moshe, the House of Israel was spared. They did get a penalty–the people as a body were cut off from the Mishkan, the dwelling place- the portable tabernacle. They had to drink the gold (Drinking gold causes profuse vomiting and diarrhea).
So as a Judge, God is able to take all things into consideration, render righteous judgment by balancing the scales of justice and mercy. The scene is also a type and shadow of the Messiah interceding for those under the penalty of a broken covenant.
If the salt have lost his savour: In addition to its uses in flavoring and preserving food, salt was added to sacrificial offerings under the law of Moses. Thus salt was associated with joy, permanence, and covenant making. When Jesus admonished disciples to be the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13), part of the meaning was that their lives should reflect their covenants with the Lord and serve as a preservative for the world in general. Salt loses its savor by contamination. We keep our “savor” by avoiding spiritual contamination.
Tower of Babel (Hebrew בַּעַל, balal). Confusion. After the biblical Flood of Genesis 7–8 and 11:9, Noah and his family came out of the Ark in the mountains of Ararat to start new lives in a strange world. Genesis 11:2 says that they eventually settled in a plain in Shinar; according to the Jewish historian, Josephus (1736a) (Antiquities 1:4:1), this was the first place where the multiplying group of people lived after leaving the mountains. In Shinar they rebelled against God and set out to build a city and tower to make a name for themselves and keep from scattering (Genesis 11:4). They built a tower that was to reach to heaven and make them equal to God, who divided them into seventy different nations, each with a separate language.
The word that is translated “Shinar” in our Scripture is often assumed to be the Hebrew form of this place name, but this is not necessarily the case, since Shinar was not a land where Hebrew was the local language. The language spoken in Shinar was one of the rather large family of related Semitic languages, of which Hebrew is a member, all with their own slightly different spelling variations of words. Ancient languages such as Akkadian and Chaldean were Semitic; Assyrian, Aramaic, and Arabic are included in this group as well.
By Marlena Tanya Muchnick-Baker: [email protected] 206-335-9339 Renton Stake, WA. May Creek ward.
Please visit my blogs: http://judaicaworld.wordpress.com, http://mormonsandjews.net, http://judaicaworld.blogspot.com for more posts and articles.