Shulem I understand your view about prophets. We may have difficulty bridging difference still I feel at least to think further about our subject matter. You are correct I do not like animal sacrifice. Well I can bring my mind to understand a limited amount as a statement of thanksgiving. I can understand special time establishing what is understood as covenant making. Leviticus proportions strike me as bizarre. I have already mentioned that the numbers seem to me as likely as that Nephi temple we discussed for similar reasons.Shulem wrote: ↑Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:01 pmI was somewhat intrigued that you found it bizarre that I don’t believe Isaiah was a prophet and was only interested in what Moses had to say with reference to animal sacrifice in the Old Testament. I don’t believe Moses was a prophet either but I find his writings in the Old Testament to be a standard and they are generally accepted as authoritative in representing the religion of the Jews. Isaiah was just another want-to-be prophet who came along much later and doesn’t compare at all with Moses. Isaiah’s writings are blah, blah, blah -- nobody before his time had to listen to him. But everybody from Moses on knew about Moses!
It is of some importance to me that the Old Testament , is of some 1,163 English pages. There are perhaps 40 pages talking about all those sacrifices. The historical books,(Judges through Chronicles) hardly mention these sacrifices untill Hezekiah and Josiah. There is at that time a law book found that the King was shocked by. A big purification with lots of burnt offerings is undertaken. It is a real puzzle to see what importance Moses had before then. I suppose there were some stories but I see no indication that anybody is listening to his words. It is clear that by the time of Herod and Jesus the Jewish religion understood to be Moses first. Seen in a larger picture it is a whole lot of voices and concerns of whom Isaiah and Jeremiah are important.
Josiah undertakes this large and violent campaign to purify the people to a Jehovah alone religion. The big sacrifice undertaking expressed the size of the commitment the king wanted. The flow of the Old Testament narrative wants to see this as a good thing. In ways that may make sense but in important ways it fails. Josiah is killed in a vain military undertaking and Judah stumbles quickly backwards and towards its demise. Jeremiah is not so enthusiastic about the accomplishments and looks for some future solution. centuries later the second temple is undertaking that massive sacrifice program. Jesus is so impressed he takes a whip to the impresarios.
It would be fascinating to find an 8th century bc library under the temple mount. One could find out what was actually going on, being said what was believed to be important. My mind has found it increasing apparent the limitations of our knowledge of those earlier times. I am sure there were some sacrifices. Sacrifices were culture wide (Canaanite and beyond)for a long long time.I suspect as an hypothesis that the instructions and volumes of sacrifices proposed in Leviticus originate from the time of Hezekiah and Josiah. They are an experimental and temporary addition to the religion.