(February 8, 2014 at 6:06 pm)Chad32 Wrote: On the one hand, lying is against the ten commandments. On the other hand, so is murder, but look what Yahweh commanded Moses to do when he got down from the mountain. 3000 people died because some of them wanted to make a golden calf after wandering the desert for 40 years. Note that everyone was a polygamist. Even Moses was a polygamist back then. He just wrote down the rule against serving other gods. Granted this bunch of people were quick to complain tthat they weren't immediately taken to a land of milk and honey that they wouldn't have to fight for, but sending Moses to kill people right after saying killing is wrong seems a bit hypocritical.
The moral of the story being that if it benefits Yahweh, it isn't wrong. Even when he says not to do something.
That Moses episode might well have been the Persian Emperor Darius suppressing a revolt in Egypt. The story about the golden calf could have been his son Xerxes melting down the Babylonian golden statute of Bel. At that time Xerxes assumed the title "King of Persia and Media, Great King, King of Kings (Shahanshah) and King of Nations (i.e. of the world)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I IOW, Xerxes became the God character and was worshiped as God. That's why the God character did human things. He was just a man who happened to have ruled all of the land from western India to Libya.
