Madness and Blood in the Bible - Exodus 32.25-29

There is much in Scripture that I love, much that I find instructive, much that deserves to be read and pondered again and again.

And then, this:

²⁵When Moses saw that the people were running wild (forAaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies), ²⁶then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Who is on the LORD’S side? Come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. ²⁷He said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side, each of you! Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor.’” ²⁸The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell on that day. ²⁹Moses said, “Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day.” [Exodus 32.25-29].

What was Moses thinking?

Taking out on the people his own frustration and anger, justified as it might have been, but to raise up a priestly horde, self-ordained, with the blood of a son, a brother or a friend? Madness!

A fiendish scheme, a horrible, hideous, device by which to "prove one's loyalty to God," with a god-forsaken promise of a "blessing on yourselves."

I think of Ahab pacing the deck of the Pequod or Kurtz with his ivory, mad, obsessed, willing the death of others to satisfy some insatiable appetite for revenge, for power.

Horrible enough as it is, how is this read by evangelicals, so many of whom are beset self-righteousness, raging and bellowing against the evils of the world? ... and worse, how this is managed in the hands of self-ordained preachers, many of whom have their own love affair with violence and death?

I don't have to reject the whole of the Bible because of a passage like this, but something like this has to be rejected as an aberrant voice, one of the many voices gathered up in this anthology of faith. That some voices should perceive god like this is not surprising, but always sad ... for there's no way that this can be read with approval.

Read it for what it's worth - an ugly picture of the human reptilian brain ... a version of faith scripted in hell rather than in the saga of heaven.