God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

  This post is an update from April 23, 2010. Bible links are from biblegateway.com .  When the Israelites marched out of Egypt into the desert, they were unaccustomed to desert living, so of course they were terrified and angry when in the first month of their escape, they arrived at a location called Kadesh in the Negev. The wells they expected to find there did not materialize and the whole community thought they might die a slow and horrible death without water. They did what people do--they forgot all the miracles of the past and griped that Moses brought them there to die. God commanded Moses to speak to a rock, and the rock would bring forth water, but instead of speaking, a very annoyed Moses struck it twice in anger. As a result, both Moses and Aaron were banned from entering the Promised Land. ( Numbers 20:2-13 ) So the Israelites trudged on from Kadesh and came to another dry place, but this time they didn't panic. The leaders got busy and dug a well right where the...

When we modern day Christians read about the rebellion and lack of faith of the Hebrews in the Wilderness of Sinai, we often shake our heads in judgment. Yahweh changed Jacob's name to Israel, meaning "Prince of God." He made promises of inheritance to their forefathers. He sent Moses who turned his own staff into a serpent and who opened the waters of the sea as a way of escape. Pharaoh's horses and chariots drowned before their eyes. At their complaint, water came gushing from a rock, and pigeons flew in by the millions and landed in the desert, too exhausted to escape the hungry mob. How then could they be so adversarial with the deity?  There are several reasons that we could call forth to explain their ingratitude and unbelief.  One: they are making a huge paradigmatic leap from polytheism to monotheism, a stretch so challenging that they struggled for hundreds of years with the concept.  Two: day by day the whole community stood at risk of dying from hunger or t...