Abandoned Altars

An Israeli scholar says that Moses either saw a “cosmic event” or was high on a psychedelic, probably acacia, which he claims is similar to ayahuasca. Says he himself tried the latter, didn’t say if he saw God, though.

So is that a rational explanation? What were the rest of the Israelites on then when God landed on Mt. Sinai? Curious, I checked out the actual verses (King James version) and to me, it really does sound instead an awful lot like a rocket landing:

16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.

17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

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If Jesus was alive on Planet Earth today doing the same mission as two thousand years ago, what do you think would happen?

I’d bet he’d be in jail, languishing in some godawful hellhole like Guantanamo, or already dead again just like the last time around. Only his fate might come quicker in this even more dangerous age. He would be a marked man, hated and mistrusted on all sides for speaking up for the victims of violence and injustice.

Because from what we can tell, the historical Jesus was a real troublemaker. Think of it from the authorities’ point of view. There’s Jesus, going around casting out evil spirits in his own name, violating the rules of the Sabbath, entering the city like a king, causing a riot in the Temple, and letting people get all worked up thinking he was the Messiah who would kick the Romans out. No wonder the Sanhedrin and Pilate kept a suspicious eye on him.

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