Moses was a Warlord: Part One

Let's start with the tribe Moses and Aaron came from; The Levites. In Genesis(NIV) 49:5-7, Jacob, also named Israel, condemns both Simeon, and Levi. He states in verse six: "Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger..."

So, why is it then in the next four chapters in the bible, that the Levites are seen as the great priests and dispensers of justice? Simply due to nepotism. Why do you think they got all those cool priestly vestments? Ephods unlike you've ever seen! And great care is taken to describe how good and damage absorbing these are. Of course, the rest of the tribes of Israel can pretty much just fend for themselves as far as armour goes in battle. And of course, Moses probably never went to battle as he never deems battle to be worthy of description in his precious four book ode to himself and a few asides to his brother Aaron and the holy rocking priesthood that is the Levi tribe of Israel, ironically cursed by Israel himself. I think ole Jacob/Israel had something there.

Among the many things described in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy is about the ark, the priests garments, strange rituals the priests have to perform (Exodus 30: the whole chapter and I'm sure repeated ad-nauseaum in the other three books as well), in minutiae details of animal sacrifices, the tabernacle, etc.

I'm getting more general now.

You can tell Moses wrote the four books after Genesis because he cannot shut up about how great he is and how much the Israelites he 'lead' or 'caused to leave' Egypt complain. "Oh, we don't have water, oh, we don't have anything to eat." Whiners! No food and water, pah! God will smite all our enemies. All of them! And you dare to complain about lacking the basic needs of humanity?! I daresay, you lot should be grateful, for the Lord (or really, Moses) has lead you out of Egypt. Into the desert. To schlep across the desert, smiting cities and peoples that were never your enemy and that never did anything to you.

This truly is an awesome God. I mean Moses is awesome.

Old Testament God, that Moses seems to know, doesn't jibe with New Testament God that Jesus describes. Though, after the Torah, (the first five) you will eventually come across Psalms mostly written, supposedly, by David. For David, unlike Moses, truly believed in God. He didn't want to be the war monger for a war mongering God, he wanted a peaceful, a merciful God. You know, one that didn't want to wipe out civilizations because they annoyed him. But all David got from anybody as far as advice goes was "go make war, do stupid shit because our teachings say we are chosen and special and the rest of the world can fuck off and die at our hands."

Jesus, on the other hand, was a man of peace when all around him was violence and death and conquering. He truly was a revolutionary leader unlike Moses who seemed to like ordering death and destruction to those who happen to be in the vicinity.

I'll get back to more Moses, the Warlord in Part Two of this indeterminate amount of Parts Series.