Did God show his face to Moses?

[stephan happy huller]

But unfortunately white people it's not that simple. You don't see that you are living within a world of your own creation. Was the text ever meant to be read outside of a pre-existent exegesis - i.e. an oral tradition? This is the problem white people have. They have always been in control of the world (at least as long as history was 'history') and so they imagine that books were written like white people write books even when white people aren't writing the books. So it was that the fact that the fact that the Pentateuch was written under foreign rule (probably Persian) the text was written 'straight ahead' meaning that Ezra or whomever else we imagine wrote the book, did so with plain meaning and open heart. I don't see this in the text.

Why do rappers and other 'urban poets' need to create their own language? Answer - because the oppressed necessarily veil what they say from the ruling class. The entire hip hop genre (at least in its inception) developed from the idea of a set of code words which were imperceptible to the 'man.' The same thing is true with the Pentateuch.

Do we agree that there are numerological codes in the Pentateuch? Yes many.

Do we agree that there are many names for god? Yes many.

Do we agree that key theological concepts don't appear anywhere in the Pentateuch? Yes - the messiah, the resurrection of the dead and others.

The idea that 'what you see is what you get is all there ever was' is stupid and could only be perpetuated by the 'man' - i.e. white people. The reason the concept of the messiah doesn't appear in the Pentateuch explicitly is because 'the man' wouldn't like it so it is veiled in the text through gematria (Shilo = 345 = Moses and the concept of the one like Moses). The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is similarly veiled.

The idea that the Jews didn't believe in these things because we can't see them explicitly mentioned is just stupid. Only a white person could be this stupid to think that the oppressed would have the same value system as he does. Why does the white person think this? Because he's a fucking narcissist and can't imagine that he and his kind were originally meant to be excluded from the experience of the salvation.

So to recap. Yes there is a second, third and fourth god in the Pentateuch. Why do you think there are all these different names of gods? Oh yeah 'the different writers' 'Yahwehist' etc. Fucking nonsense. There are different names of gods in the Pentateuch because there was more than divine power. Period.

Exodus 24:1 "And to Moses he said "Come up to the LORD ...'" Who said this?

[ficino]

I was hoping to learn something. I am not going to read your stuff full of yelling about "white people." This from someone who posted a thread and then posted over twenty responses to his own thread.

[beowulf]

The explanation of the Ex, 33:20 and 33:11 is quite simple when you remember the Triune Godhead: The father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

In 33:11 Moses was talking to Jesus literally face to face as the friendly God he is, and in 33:20 to the grumpy Father

Ex 33:11
11Thus the LORD [JESUS] used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.


Ex 33:20
20But’, he [the Father] said, ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.

[stephan happy huller]

But 'white people' are the problem. They're projecting a white way of reading the Pentateuch on to the reading of the Pentateuch - i.e. it's just the word on the page, no accompanying oral tradition - and its fucking annoying. It really bothers me. When white people read the Pentateuch in a language other than Hebrew there is this inner voice which wells up - but 'it's our fucking book, our fucking tradition so STF up.' That's the first thing they ask you in Israel when you start talking about the Bible. Do you read Hebrew? Where did you study? And the answer to both is no there is this other voice that comes up - 'STF up.'

It's like the Chris Rock joke about the white guy listening to the rap song and awkwardly coming across the n-word in the song. In the same way the n-word is a barrier to the white person's experience of black culture, the intended oral tradition accompaniment to the Pentateuch is the barrier for the white person reading the Pentateuch. Meaning only black people can say the n-word, only people who share the traditional Jewish ontic 'pre-suppositions' can partake in the real meaning of the Pentateuch. At least you have to acknowledge the fact that (a) the Pentateuch was written with an occupying power ruling over the Jews and (b) the Jews might have encoded some messages which those ruling powers/all ruling powers might not have taken a fancy to. As I said you have to at least acknowledge it.

At the very least you have be aware of your white pre-suppositions when listening to rap (at least traditionally) and reading the Pentateuch. Both art forms belong to foreign cultures who didn't or don't share your presuppositions about the existing 'everything thing is awesome, everything is cool when you're part of the team' mentality (a Lego movie reference for those without kids). It's been your world after all for the last two thousand years. No wonder you don't need to have secret sayings and meanings. Of course you naturally suppose that 'people' just 'write books' with plain meaning. But that's not the experience of marginalized people.

I remember when I was a virgin and I used to hear about all the calories you could burn during sex and I'd be like 'how is that possible? Sex is like sitting on a sofa watching TV.' But that's because sex for me at the time was like sitting on a sofa watching TV. I imagine blind people must hear about paintings and how wonderful they are and they are like 'but a painting is flat and oil on a canvas is like oil on a canvas. How amazing can that be?'

Read Irenaeus and see that this idea of an accompanying 'oral tradition' was even there at the beginning of Christianity with respect to the gospel and then the white people took over and made it illegal.

Where is the evidence that the Jews, the Samaritans and the earliest Christians were wrong and the white people right with regards to no oral traditional was intended to accompany the reading of the Pentateuch? It's ridiculous. But that's what gets perpetrated in the universities. White culture imposing itself on the actual reality of the traditional exegesis of the Pentateuch. And how do they get away with it - cultural hegemony. In other words, keeping things the way they were in the good old days.

[Andrew]

Your racism is uncalled for, Stephan, as is your generalization. It isn't "white people" that are the problem, it is people who don't speak Hebrew, if I understand you correctly. Some white people can speak Hebrew and many black, yellow, and brown people can't. Maybe you instead mean "Christians" or "Christians who don't speak Hebrew", but saying that "white people are the problem" is certainly incorrect and blatantly racist.

[beowulf]

Is anyone going to criticise my groundbreaking explanation?

[stephan happy huller]

Of course white people are the problem. I don't understand why this is controversial. The white people think that you can just take 'the Bible' stripped from the culture from which it was created and in which it is maintained through an oral tradition and take 'the book' read it as words on a page and make up a whole new exegesis based merely on the words on the page and this isn't projecting new values into the study of the Bible.

Ignoring the cultural tradition which is tied to the Pentateuch is like tearing the embryo from the placenta. It is an imposition of a cultural presupposition whether you recognize it or not. It is projectionism. You are projecting the idea that a holy text was intended to stand on its own. Neither the Jews, the Samaritans nor the early Christians acknowledged this. They all knew that the Pentateuch was one part of a greater whole, that it was intended to be read with a 'secret component' deliberately not written down. The Targumim hint at the existence of the other. The gospel is nothing more than the making explicit of the secret meaning of the Torah.

The proper exegesis of the Pentateuch assumes as its starting point that there is more left unsaid by the narrator of the Pentateuch. Any exegesis which doesn't assume this as its starting point is foreign to the original literary purpose of the text.

Now the question is of course how did this assumption become the dominant starting point to reading the text? Cultural hegemony - i.e. one culture dominating another (which just so happens to have been the culture that wrote the text and for whom the text was written). Now you used the word 'race.' Fine I will go with it for the sake of taking on your assertions.

IMO the real 'racism' is in the 'replacement exegesis' not my calling out for what it is - i.e. a product of the cultural hegemony which existed for the last two thousand years. In the same way rap is about the black experience in America, the Pentateuch is about the Hebrew experience in the world. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. White people can listen to rap and pretend that this is their culture. But it's not. In the same way, white people can pretend to be a part of the Pentateuch but it wasn't written for them, nor was it written by them.

I am baffled by the claim that my claim that a Hebrew text written for Hebrews can only be read alongside a pre-existent oral tradition is 'racist.' I think its 'racist' to impose a universal (= Catholic) interpretation on a Jewish text in order to usurp ownership of the text. Why? Because the text belongs to us. You don't have the authority to take a way a Hebrew text from the Hebrews. Why do you think you do? Because white think they are better and have a right to 'correct' the original established understanding established by the owners of the property.

Imagine you as a white person went into a Latino house and started telling them how to live, how to speak English etc. Would people think that was racist? But when you do it with respect to the Bible it's just 'science.' '

[beowulf]

Fine, I will argue the point with myself.


Question: How do you know Jesus is His Son?
Answer: It is clearly stated to be so in Mark1;9-11

“Mark 1
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;* with you I am well pleased.’ “

[stephan happy huller]

Let me try this again using less 'charged' language.

To the Jew and the Samaritan and the earliest Christians the text wasn't just 'describing' an event. Whether it be the Exodus or the Passion the words on the page are part of the holiness. Do you understand? So it's not like an episode of Charlie's Angels or Breaking Bad. The holiness of Exodus or the Passion isn't found in 'history' as much as the words on the page. The words as they appear on the page are the part of the holiness. In fact they are the holiness because the event has long since past and there is no way to get it.

Right? Ok? With me so far.

But this other culture just reads the words in another language usually and treats it like another story - like Charlie's Angels or Breaking Bad - except, according to this other culture, the 'guy' or the 'guys' in the story are amazingly holy. Moses - holy. Jesus - holy. So you just read about this 'episode' about holy people and that's the holiness.

But this isn't the way it was intended. It is wrong. It is not the way it was intended by the author of the text.

The holiness is in the words on the page and the proper understanding of this is by traditional exegesis which is passed by word of mouth.

The original way is right. The other culture's way is wrong.

So when we tackle the question of Moses seeing God face to face and the apparent contradiction with the idea that God can't be seen the answer is to be found in a secret divinity that helps the Israelites and isn't explicitly mentioned in the text. Why? Because what is secret is also sacred.

[Andrew]

That's a better way of putting it. "White people" is not a culture, it is a race/colour of people. The way you lumped all white people together and excluded everyone else made you sound/look racist/colourist. It is also not white people in general who caused this problem, but rather Christian leaders and authorities. The general Christian populace is only following along, they aren't the problem. The people who try to impose the incorrect interpretations of the texts are the problem. They're the ones who mislead everyone else and if the Catholic Church changes their interpretation, most Catholics will follow along blindly.