Welcome to the Book of Numbers site!

This page is focused primarily on the Book of Numbers. I hope to use this page to compose my thoughts concerning the book of Numbers in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Almost all Christians and Jews are somewhat familiar with the first five books of the old testament, supposedly written by Moses, and containing the Hebrew account of world history from a Jewish perspective.

My point of view concerning this book and the Bible in general is that I do not consider them necessarily factual. The Torah or Pentatuech especially are derived from the oral tradition of a barbaric peoples. These ancient stories do however form the basis for at least 3 of the worlds major religions today. I have provided for comments at the end of the article.

NUMBERS

This book has been called Numbers from its containing an account of the numbering and marshaling the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness, or desert of Arabia, to the "promised land". It comprehends the history of between thirty-eight and thirty-nine years; i. e., from 1490 B. C. to 1451 B. C., and gives a distinct account of the several stages of the Israelites' journey; the various occurrences in the way; their trials, rebellions, punishments, deliverances, conquests, i.e., with the several laws and ordinances not mentioned in the preceding books; together with a repetition and explanation of several others which had been previously mentioned. The whole forming a most interesting history of the justice, mercy, an providence of God, or the lack thereof. As usual in human history 'promised land' means territorial invasion and 'conquest' means holocaust, genocide, slaughter.

None of this would have much meaning as history is full of such atrocities. What makes this story interesting is that it was ordered by the same god that much of the civilized world now holds to be 'THE GOD'. The one that superpowers base their foreign polocy on. YES....THAT GOD!!! The one who is referred to as The First Cause in physics, philosophy, theology discussions.

How This Story Affects My Reality ( and yours)

I hope to show on this website how this event of 3500 years ago, recounted in Numbers, affects my reality (and yours) today....even if you don't know about it or would'nt believe it if you did know about it. I hope to show that it is as pervasive in the reality of our world as time and space. Thats pretty pervasive of course...can you imagine life without time ... or space?

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The Hebrew War God - Jehovah

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It has always struck me as peculiar that the war god of a minor, barbaric, nomadic tribe would be projected from some 3000-5000 years ago onto a significant percentage of the modern worlds population as a Creator of the known Universe, the First Cause of all that is. There is a very big difference between what is meant by a God of Creation and a petty, tribal, war-god.

Who can read the following from the Bible and accept this obvious war-god as the God of All Creation.

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Numbers 31

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. ( this is a blasphemous lie )

3 And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian.

4 Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war.

5 So there were delivered out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.

6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand.

7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.

8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.

9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.

10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.

11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.

12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho. ( Jerico is next )

13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.

14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.

15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. ( plague was sexually transmitted disease )

17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. ( crime against humanity )

18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. ( how can any civilization with a shred of decency claim this )

19 And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.

20 And purify all your raiment, and all that is made of skins, and all work of goats’ hair, and all things made of wood.

21 And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of war which went to the battle, This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD commanded Moses;

22 Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,

23 Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water.

24 And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp.

25 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

26 Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation:

27 And divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation:

28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:

29 Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, for an heave offering of the LORD.

30 And of the children of Israel’s half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them unto the Levites, which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD.

31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.

32 And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep,

33 And threescore and twelve thousand beeves,

34 And threescore and one thousand asses,

35 And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.

36 And the half, which was the portion of them that went out to war, was in number three hundred thousand and seven and thirty thousand and five hundred sheep:

37 And the LORD’S tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and fifteen.

38 And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD’S tribute was threescore and twelve.

39 And the asses were thirty thousand and five hundred; of which the LORD’S tribute was threescore and one.

40 And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD’S tribute was thirty and two persons.

41 And Moses gave the tribute, which was the LORD’S heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the LORD commanded Moses.

42 And of the children of Israel’s half, which Moses divided from the men that warred,

43 (Now the half that pertained unto the congregation was three hundred thousand and thirty thousand and seven thousand and five hundred sheep,

44 And thirty and six thousand beeves,

45 And thirty thousand asses and five hundred,

46 And sixteen thousand persons;)

47 Even of the children of Israel’s half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites, which kept the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.

48 And the officers which were over thousands of the host, the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, came near unto Moses:

49 And they said unto Moses, Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of war which are under our charge, and there lacketh not one man of us.

50 We have therefore brought an oblation for the LORD, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the LORD.

51 And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of them, even all wrought jewels.

52 And all the gold of the offering that they offered up to the LORD, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels. ( about $2,000,000 )

53 (For the men of war had taken spoil, every man for himself.)

54 And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD.

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If Moses and Eleazar the priest were here today they would certainly be facing a trial for crimes against humanity for this genocidal holocaust against the inhabitants of this land they are invading under a blasphemous pretext of being ordered by a petty war-god. Everyone I have talked to about this incident and this god is very queasy about the subject and would rather move on to the story of the baby Jesus (who this war-god will later incarnate himself into). Most excuse this robbery, rape, pedophilia and murder on the grounds that the Midianites were "heathens" and that "the creator" has the right to pilage, rob, rape, molest children and commit wholesale murder if he is angry.

I would like to speak up for these "heathen" Midianites against this monstrous "god" of the invading, barbaric, Hebrew tribes. In the first place everyone on the earth, then and now, was "heathen" according to this primitive, ignorant, vicious, nomadic tribe. There is no thought here of converting or "saving" the souls of these "heathen" who had the misfortune of having lived for centuries on land that had been "promised" to this ignorant band of nomads by their war-god.

The book is called Numbers because the 12 tribes had to be counted so that an equitable split could be made of the booty from the pillage and sacking of this communiity. If we read the whole book of Numbers we can see that the Children of Israel came out of the desert and camped near the Midianites with over 2,000,000 people. The Bible does not say how many people of the area was slaughtered, except to say that all were slaughtered except for the young virgins, and Num. 31-35 says there was "thirty and two thousand persons in all, of the women that had not known man by lying with him." A conservative extimate then would be (32,000 virgin children X 2 parents X 1 brother X 1 grandparent) (5x32,000) = 160,000 Midianites. How frightening that must have been for the Midianites with their families and all their possessions surrounded by a warlike people of 2 million and no one to call on for help. As we read the Bible some of us are surprised to learn that the offense for which they must be punished is that a considerable number of the Hebrews had been coming into the towns and consorting with prostitutes and had apparently contracted sexually transmitted diseases. The story is made the more repugnunt to civilized sensibilities in that the Midianite's were not able to defend thenselves in any way as the boastful text proudly proclaims that the Hebrews did not lose a single man in the slaughter. What a shameful disgrace!

I invited some Jehovah's Witness's who came calling into my home a few weeks ago. I started the conversation off by reading Numbers 31 out loud and then asked for comments and thoughts. I was disappointed that they felt compelled (sheepishly) to defend such outrageous conduct and such a pitiful, petty war-god three thousand five hundred years after the event. They both became visibly nervous and decided that they needed to get back to Kingdom Hall. I invited them to come back as often as they wished for as long as they wanted, but I think we all knew they would never come back.

In addition to my usual bible studies I have been reading "The Fabric of the Cosmos (Space, Time and the Texture of Reality)" by Brian Greene and some of the explanations of quantum mechanics have led me to wonder how such fanciful perceptions of a god could be projected across millenia to continue to affect the reality of people...even those who don't believe it. I mean that literally! This myth which was a part of the Hebrew Oral Tradition until it was written down probably about 700 years after the event still effects my reality as pervasively as time and space even though it is the same kind of barbarism practiced by Attilla the Hun and countless others which affect me not a whit. What would my reality be like now if this war-god had been dropped into histories dumpster like the thousands and thousands of other similar gods from every nationality and corner of the globe. How many genocides, holocausts, crusades, inquisitions, and witch hunts could have been avoided? Is it because people like me do not speak out? Is it because we do not ask our leaders specifically to take a position on the genocide of the Medianites and the rape of their children? When our politicians proclaim their faith ... is this the god they worship? Is this the American god?

I have started this page in the hope of calling attention to this book in the Bible which I suspect is something of an embarrassment to Jews and Christians alike. It is after all a blatant confession of barbarous, blood-thirsty, criminal atrocities to rival anything to come later in man's history. The atrocities described in the Old Testament are generally quickly glossed over as "conquests" in the history of the children of Israel. If it was possible I feel sure that the record of this sorry chapter in the history of man would have long ago been expunged. If I can cause people to see this story for what it really is then maybe Christians and Jews everywhere will renounce this evil war-god and construct a memorial to the Midianites in the Holocaust Museum with the sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels (about $2,000,000) taken as booty from the slaughter. After all, if Jesus was able to project such a tremendous change in human reality across the millenia with just 12 disciples, I may be able bring back his original message, the one he was crucified for. People don't get crucified for teaching "Love thy neighbor as thyself", but they DO get crucified for teaching that everyman is born a sovereign entity, or as John says in Revelation, " He has made Priests and Kings of us all."