Interesting. Someone has bothered to answer the questions.
Q. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it
creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Leviticus 1:9). The problem
is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them.
Should I smite them?
A. No. You need a Israelite priest to offer the sacrifice for you
in the Temple in Jerusalem; you can't just do it yourself in your
back garden. You have a problem! The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.
But stop believing in the pleasing odour of animal sacrifices
anyway, for it is written that the blood of bulls and goats can
never take away sin (Heb 10:4). You need to believe that the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross takes away all your sin, now
and forever. As to offering violence against your neighbours, that
will have you hauled up in front of the magistrates for a breach of
the peace and actual bodily harm at a minimum under any system of
law, ancient or modern.
Q. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in
her period of uncleanliness (Leviticus 15:19-24). How do I tell? I
have tried asking but most women take offence.
A. This is to do with purity of worship in the Temple . Not just
sexual intercourse (we would all be agreed on that) but even
touching a menstruating woman made the one who touched her unclean.
It has passed. When the Temple in Jerusalem was sacked in 70 AD, as
Jesus prophesied, it was already 40 years past its use-by date. The
sacrifice of Jesus in AD 30 (+/- a year or two) had rendered the
doings of the Temple obsolete. Even the veil of the Temple (which
separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of Temple ) was torn in
two (Matt 27:51) at His death. Believe in His death and you will be
forgiven. Believe in His resurrection and you will live. If the
matter you raise still troubles you, you should avoid all contact
with women other than your own wife. And if you don't know when she
is in what you describe as her period of uncleanliness, then heaven
help you.
Q. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations
that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to
the French but not to the Scots. Can you clarify? Why can't I own
Scottish people?
A. It doesn't actually say slaves, it says 'bondmen and bondmaids'.
People who were poor bonded themselves or their children to someone
wealthy. It was a form of social security. It is also written (Exod
21:16) that anyone who steals a man to sell him shall be put to
death. So those Muslim slavers who took and sold black slaves to
the white man were flat out of order and worthy of death. Don't
forget that the man who had slavery outlawed in Britain was William
Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian. Atheists were quite happy
with slavery.
Q. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in
Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair
price for her?
A. It actually says 'maidservant' not slave. I should have thought
you were doing well enough at Capital not to have to sell your
daughter as a bonded servant. What a rotten dad you are, to want to
get rid of her even though you can afford to keep her. Daughters
are precious. So are sons, come to that. You'ld have to be in
pretty dire straights 3,000 years ago to sell your children as
servants, but I guess they would at least get fed and housed then.
Anyway, back to your daughter. I think you would do better to send
her to college and then see if she can't get a job. Mind you, most
jobs today are just wage-slavery, aren't they? We spend 45% of our
time working for the tax-man. Who can be totally free? Only those
who trust in Jesus and know the truth will be free, as it is
written, 'The truth shall make you free.' (John 8:32)
Q. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus
35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obliged
to kill him myself or may I arrange for our vicar to do it?
A. Neither. You need to remember that the ancient principle of 'due
process' still persists in our law today, despite a succession of
Home Secretaries, including dear David Blunkett, wanting to get rid
of it as a bit of an impediment to the Government just locking up
whoever they want. So you can't go around putting people to death
yourself, that is what we Christians call murder. OK, if someone
killed your son or raped your daughter, you might call it
vengeance, but you have no personal interest in what your neighbour
is doing, it just gets up your nose a bit. Report your neighbour to
the police, support your allegation with two witnesses, and see if
the police can find a law against what your neighbour is doing.
They won't. This country doesn't do a day of rest in any form any
more.
Q. Leviticus 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God
if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading
glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle
room here?
A. This applies to the High Priest of ancient Israel, who entered
into the Holy of holies once a year on the Day of Atonement. I
suppose God has a right to say who was going to approach Him in the
Holy of holies. But even if you are a cohen, (a) you won't find the
Temple still standing today and (b) all that Temple ritual is past.
Jesus has been and has offered Himself for the sins of all who will
believe in Him. Job done. Finished.
Q. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the
hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden
by Leviticus 19:27. How should they die?
A. God did not want His people looking like the pagan priests of
the nations round about with dodgy haircuts and peculiar beards.
Getting your hair cut as such isn't wrong in the eyes of God.
Exekiel the prophet (Ezek 44:20) says that the rule for the priest
is to have his hair cut neatly, not shave his head nor grow his
hair stupidly long like what the pagans do. Can't see this was a
capital offence, though, even then.
Q. I know from Leviticus 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead
pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear
gloves?
A. Clean and unclean animals are done away with by Peter's vision
in Acts 10:11-15. My advice if this really worries you is to play
as a forward or a back, and not as a midfielder, as they do most
throwing in and place-kicking, and certainly don't play in goal.
And don't handball either, as that is against the laws of the
game.
Q. A friend of mine feels that though eating shellfish is an
abomination (Leviticus 11:10) it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
A. They are different words in Hebrew, so your friend is right. But
in any case, the clean and unclean animals distinction has gone
with Peter's vision. So the New Testament abolishes the Old
Testament food laws, although there are Christians who observe the
Old Testament food laws not least for health reasons. Shellfish,
for example, don't half store up toxins But the New Testament
confirms that homosexual activity is an abomination.
Q. My friend tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really
necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town
together to stone him as commanded in Leviticus 24:10-16 ?
A. Yes, because it is all a matter of due process. You are a bit
for taking the law into your own hands, aren't you? Does your
friend actually curse the Name of God like the man in Leviticus
did? Anyway, next you must find a judge and jury who will convict
him. Unless his blasphemy really is scurrilous, abusive or
offensive to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible, and tends to vilify
the Christian religion, you are unlikely to see a conviction in our
land today. Best let your friend know how offended you are and if
he persists, get another friend. He sounds a bad sort,
anyway.
Q. My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two
different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing
garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester
blend).
A. Doesn't sound much of a farmer. How is he going to harvest it?
Mind you, he could put a fence down the middle, then he would have
two fields, and he could sow one crop on one side and the other on
the other side, I suppose. As long as his wife does not wear a
mixture of wool and linen, she should be OK to go and take part in
ancient Israelite society. Back to the future!
Q. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair
like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Leviticus
20:14)?
A. You don't half have a vicious streak. Once again, in God's
design for mankind, the State has the responsibility for the
judicial death penalty, not the family. God's law does not allow
people to put members of their own family to death. You are
thinking of Islam and Hinduism. Oh, and Britain today. When our
Parliament passed the Homicide Act 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967,
they took away the death penalty from the guilty, by the State,
where it belongs, and placed it on the innocent, within the family,
where it does not. Macabre or what?
P.S. Another silly question was added later:
Q. A reading of 2 Chronicles, 4:2 makes clear that mathematicians
have for many years been under a misconception that the number pi
(the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) was a
transcendental number which is approximately 3.1415. The true value
of pi, as the Bible makes clear in this passage, is actually 3. Am
I personally obliged to burn all maths textbooks, put to the sword
as blasphemers all who propagate the false value of pi and forbid
all false images of the true circle?
A. Do you really think the ancients didn't know the value of pi?
What we have here is something us engineers call 'rounding'. You
really must deal with your bloodthirsty nature, though. All this
taking the law (or what you think it is) into your own hands just
will not do. And nit-picking over a couple of Biblical decimal
points is not blasphemy. My, isn't there some God-hating ignorance
out there!
Click here for an in-depth article on the Value of Pi
