@BCiF
You said Israelites were forbidden. How did I misunderstand? You mentioned prophets or rulers, not being racist. I don't even know what that means because races did not exist at the time. Europeans invented it. Most likely, when an Israelite encountered white skin they probably thought the person was a leper (no offense). Next you said "you would be forbidden"... is that referring to Israelites in general or prophets and rulers? It would be easier/better if you provided scripture references similar to the way that I provide them for you so that we can see where you're coming from.
If you're saying that foreign tribes practiced sodomy (not sodom, sodom was a city) you don't know that. No one can know that. When Abraham was bargaining for Sodom itself he was asking what if you find x number of people who are righteous, because he, being human, had compassion, and didn't agree with destroying a whole city and all those people because of their personal choices. But the reality is, unless you could somehow perform a test or public poll, you're not going to know who is or isn't practicing sodomy. That's something private that people do. However, if there is a shortage of women... an environment similar to prison, then of course a certain percentage of the population is going to have gay sex. I guarantee you there were Hebrews who were LGBTQ. Why? Because they had laws against it. They only had laws against things that they themselves were found to do. So to say it was only foreign nations... no. Foreign nations did the same things but not every nation tried to police sexuality and so they didn't all have to be in the closet about it. This is naturally disgusting to heterosexual men and therefore heterosexual men are much more likely to make laws against it. A much larger portion of the female population appears to be non-heterosexual and it seems much more natural for them than for us. Even though a lot of women have bisexual tendencies the law is remarkably quiet on the idea of two women sleeping together. The prohibition against men is thought to be inclusive but... who knows. The law was clearly written by men. But the point is that sodomy was everywhere.
And honestly? So was witchcraft.
When you read the story of the witch of Endor... do you get the impression that this was just so foreign that no Hebrew had any concept of what was going on? The scripture was written for other Hebrews to read so does it talk to you like you are completely ignorant? No. Like in every society you had legitimate business that was legal and public. But every society has a black market of goods and services that weren't legal and were done in secret. Hebrews had prostitutes and to my memory there was no exact law against it, beyond fornication and adultery. But when a woman wore a veil Hebrews knew what time it was. We see this in the story of Onan. Every nation had "Seers". The Israelite version of this were prophets just like the Israelite version of "magic" was called "miracles". But just because you use a different word doesn't make the action different. Israelites were practicing magic rituals. That's why the man sacrificed his daughter because she was the first one to come meet him when he arrived home. The only difference between that and regular witchcraft is that you're using Jah's name. But it's the same sh*t.
So the point is that you should never use the law to image that Hebrews simply weren't doing something. The law is simply the law. People broke the law all the time. They simply tried not to get caught. But if you're living in the country and your nearest neighbor is a mile away you could do all kinds of things without getting caught and who were the police that would catch you? Who were the sin police? There was no one riding around on a horse calling out sinners. The Israelites were extremely sinful and broke their laws all the time. That's why the prophets railed against them and called them stiff necked and that was just because of the sins they knew people were doing. Some things they specifically learned from interacting with other cultures. But a lot of things they did were simply to fulfill their own desires.
The Midianites were an Ethiopian tribe. If you study Moses and Jethro closely you may discover that Jah started out with influence from Ethiopia that was simply adopted as Hebrew because neither Moshe nor his people actually knew anything about Jah from their previous ancestors. They didn't even know his name. And they likely had multiple gods in the beginning but then consolidated into one because that makes the priest/spokesman of the one the most powerful. If they had many gods than each god or goddess could have their own priesthood and thus balance the political power of the nation. But Moshe understood this, being raised in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh. So he would have understood the balance (or the checks and balances) that existed between the king and the priesthood. So Moshe, did away with the notion of king and made himself THE priest and that's how he ruled the people. But Ethiopia was like Kemet.
They had Al-maqah and Sams and Waaq and the original religion of the main Axumite class was Astar, Beher, Meder, and Mahrem. The royals professed to be the children of Mahrem, the God of War. It was common for ruling families to claim to be the children of the gods. If you are descended from the God of war then you would be thought to be a good warrior and therefore a good king since the king's primary duty was to protect his people. This is why the idea of Yeshua being the "son of God" wasn't new to people. It was common. Every culture had practically the same idea. And they traded ideas just like they traded goods... and women.
So it wasn't that Ethiopia had a religion that was compatible with the Israelites and that's why they were allowed to marry Ethiopians. It's more like Ethiopians weren't hostile towards them and their own lineage was influenced a lot by Ethiopia. When Ethiopia went Christian that didn't mean all the previous ideas went away. They were simply integrated.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/church-unearthed-ethiopia-rewrites-history-christianity-africa-180973740/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1580916?read-now=1&seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents
As the above article points out, even if the ruling class adopts a new religion that doesn't mean that it perfectly filters down to everyone else. And if this is regulated by force then the previous religions will find ways to express themselves inside of the forced religion. Many African people used the veneration of "the saints", as a means of protecting their beliefs from the often forced conversion to Christianity.
It wasn't necessarily about places where righteousness prevailed but rather places which could be controlled and dominated or become political allies. But if you look at the life of people like Samson (a mass murderer) you can see that the Hebrews put their own exploits on a pedestal and justified them as righteous as much as possible while demonizing other nations. Not every Israelites was running around robbing people for their clothes and not everyone in Endor was a witch. So even though you can't call anyone in this time period racist you can say there was xenophobia and deep seated prejudice. But the Israelites were just as bad.
Consider this:
If you go back to Abraham, it is reported that he had 500 servants. Therefore he had the wealth of a small nation. But you would only consider his personal actions for righteousness. When Abraham lied to pharaoh we over look that; even though the bible calls lying lips and abomination to Jah which is the same choice of words given to homosexuality. When Israel was only 1 man, his story began with the very unrighteous deception of his brother and father on his deathbed. When Israel was 12 brothers it was 10 selling 1 into slavery. That's unrighteous. The more the Israelites reproduced the more unrighteousness there was to police. There are simply no bible stories to tell all the stories of their unrighteous deeds. Especially when part of the goal is to justify them being "the chosen people".
This is why I say it's not about blood. Blood, even if it were true, is not something to brag about. White people have history books too where they justified their actions too. But what they thought was good was evil to the people who were negatively impacted by it. And now in our modern world we don't just deal with biblical morality but ethics. They thought it was biblical to enslave and oppress us. And if you go strictly by that their argument has some validity. They could say they were grafted in through Yeshua. And they could say they are allowed to beat their slaves because that's what Moshe said. And they could say they're allowed to buy slaves and take slaves from conquest. As long as they could get away with it... and as long as they claimed Jah was their God, then why is it not okay? Because they didn't let us go after 50 years? That's someone's entire lifetime!
Man, I just don't want you to think that the Israelites were somehow superior in some way. And therefore, if you are a descendant than you are somehow superior in some way. No one is superior. This whole chosen people blood line concept is a failed concept. You want the truth? Read 1 John 3.
The Israelites could only be seduced into worshiping other gods if their own minds were not convinced that their own God was real. They had a choice, whether to believe or not. You can't force people to believe. The genocide of Moshe against his own people was not enough to control their minds. We're simply assuming that they were wrong for being open minded because we chose to take Moshe's side, believing him. But perhaps they didn't believe him because he brutally killed his own people to gain their obedience. And that authoritarian strong man tactic may work for a time, but eventually the people will rebel, choosing freedom.
No one should ever tell you what you must believe because of where you were born or else you are to be executed. That's not righteous. That's just murder. It's not wrong to disagree. It's not wrong to be wrong if you are wrong about something. It's wrong to force your beliefs onto others. You felt some type of way even when I wasn't trying to push my ideas on you. Imagine if I said you must believe what I tell you or die. Imagine that. How unfair would that be? How much would you hate me then? Love requires freedom, not obligation and force. The strategy of control against the Hebrews simply did not work. They kept trying even up to the time of Yeshua. And the more they created laws the more people gave up and said to hell with it all. This is why Yeshua accused them of blocking the way to heaven and not going in themselves. And this is why he broke everything down and simplified it into love.
If you want to be righteous that is noble. But for you to be righteous your righteousness has to exceed that of the Israelites and especially the Jews who were the leaders of their religion. Yeshua says this.
Matthew 5:20
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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