Quotes of the day

Akzed on September 3, 2010 at 8:51 AM

ShyGuy forgot about the Temple Wall surrounding the temple grounds where the required “offerings” were being sold to the faithful to offer unto the priests to make their blood sacrifice for them because only priests were allowed within the temple proper.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 8:55 AM

Akzed on September 3, 2010 at 8:56 AM

Non-Jews could enter the outer court of the temple grounds to worship if they were accompanying a Jew, but not to challenge the Jewish traditional rituals being observed. Paul’s converts later provided such an example.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 9:03 AM

Akzed on September 3, 2010 at 9:05 AM

You’d likely know more of it than I.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 9:06 AM

Grace @ 9:04

faith in quantum physics

Don’t tell me you’ve earned your degrees in physics.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 9:08 AM

Mount Moriah, site of the First and Second Temples: At the center and beginning of it all, this 60′ x 40′ piece of Rock is where, according to the Bible, Abraham was instructed by God to sacrifice his son. The Rock was later enshrined by David’s son, King Solomon, and became the site of the First Temple.

The Western Wall: Dating from roughly 2,000 years ago, King Herod the Great, ruler of Jerusalem, built vast retaining walls around Mount Moriah where the Second Temple stood. Virtually all was destroyed when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 C.E., but the Wall remains and is considered the holiest site in the world for the Jewish people.

And from FrontLine
Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

Paula Fredriksen:
William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture, Boston University

TEMPLE CULTURE

Could people who weren’t Jewish go to the Temple?

Most temples in antiquity encouraged the respect and patronage of as many people as possible. It’s simply good business. And again, in this respect, the Temple in Jerusalem was no different. Gentiles had an area within which they could penetrate the sacred precincts of the Temple. They were certainly permitted to give offerings…. The Temple was organized in terms of degrees of sacred space, and the most sacred space was occupied only by the Priest. But the gentiles, who could bring offerings, would pass it over so that eventually the offering would be offered by the Priest on behalf of the gentile who was making the offering.

THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM AND ITS CULTURE

built up by Herod the Great on a monumental scale, filling up, I think something like ten football fields…. So we have then a very large, very conspicuous, grandiose, grand… structure in the center of Jerusalem which attracted pilgrims from near and far, both Jews and gentile….

In the Temple itself, we have priests, all descending from Aaron, the High Priest, back in time, brother of Moses – the tribe of priests who officiated at the altar. They slaughtered animals, they took the animal carcasses on the altar, roasted the animals, spattered the blood on the corners of the altar, dispensed the meat, and the bones and the blood and so on, and performed other similar tasks inside the Temple. Only the priests were actually able to penetrate the innermost areas of the Temple. Even full blooded religious pious Jews could only go near, just get to the outskirts of the Temple. Further back, even gentiles could attend….

Even though the actual religious rituals of the Temple were solely in the hands of the priests, that is, if you brought your sacrifice to the Temple because say, your wife had a baby, say a child recovered from illness, or say you’re at a pilgrimage festival and you’re celebrating at the pilgrimage. So, you bring your animal offering to the Temple, the priest takes it away from you and brings it back, brings you back roast beef or roast lamb in a little while where you and your family sit and eat. So, even though the actual doing, the actual performing [of rituals] were in the hands of the priests, nonetheless, the Temple played a large role in a collective religious mentality and a collective religion of the people, as a whole. Everybody realized that this was the one most sacred place on earth, the one place on earth where somehow heaven and earth meet, where somehow there is a telephone connection, perhaps we would say, between heaven and earth, where the earth rises up and heavens somehow descend just enough, that they just touch…. So, even though it was a small institution, entirely run by a small caste of people and even though most people can never ever get in, get inside the innermost precincts, nonetheless, the Temple as a whole, the institution, the values and the structure played a very important role in the society at large.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 9:19 AM

SauerKraut537 on September 3, 2010 at 9:42 AM

Religion would be a cultural experience with “God”, a reflection from the culture as to what it deifies or respects.

Whatever the Roman Empire and other cultures made of Jesus, his thoughts remain the point for respectful reflection.

At least Jesus’ life story was written sooner to the event than the oral traditions of the creation were finally written and organized only a few centuries B.C.

People’s experiences make good stories.

Western Civilization reached a progression of points tolerating many differences until violently attacked.

I wonder how people rationally define themselves having dissected their existence from successive points of their own origin, expecting others to see only what they allow themselves to see. Revisionism may be convenient propaganda, but false science.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 9:59 AM

Akzed on September 3, 2010 at 9:50 AM

I’ve heard from a moral person, “Why do you need God to be good?” Being young, I was shocked. But I’m not young any longer. Even given the vast array of the One God sold at places of worship, I’ve realized that not everyone does need any of those versions of God in order to choose good over evil.

I believe in God, and I adore Jesus. But I’m not about to build a fence around whatever God is, as if God could be confined to an expression, be it a Word, a place, a story. Jesus and prophets of other religions taught people to look within to find the Spirit, God, even Truth and Love.

Some people are comfortable with materialism, and uncomfortable with the “inner man”. Free will. Of those, some feel “good” being moral and teach their children right from wrong.

How does it do anyone’s spirit “good” to antagonize or damn another for being contrary?

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 10:17 AM

Science examines facts and attempts to formulate explanatory theories. That is not faith which is belief without factual evidence being a requirement.

Annar on September 3, 2010 at 10:05 AM

Au contraire, mon frère.

Idea itself is a metaphysical entity. And the experimental procedures of examination certainly express the scientist’ faith in his idea.

Nothing is “fact” until proven.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 10:21 AM

JakeRightThought on September 3, 2010 at 10:20 AM

Myths are public dreams.
Dreams are private myths.

Joseph Campbell -To find your own way is to follow your bless.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 10:26 AM

Carl Jung believed in God as a youth.
In old age he knew God exists.

maverick muse on September 3, 2010 at 10:38 AM