(After posting this, I realize now that this might have belonged in the "Open forum" section-so sorry about that, my first post. I don't know if anyone here would have the ability to move this to the proper location or not but if the moderators feel I put this in the wrong place, if you'd be kind enough to move it to the proper setting I would appreciate that very much. I'll be sure to study the forum and its guidelines fully prior to posting again.)

Could somebody explain to me (As an amateur) some of the issues concerning OT ceremonial defilement and what the true intent/meaning was behind some of these areas? I've spent months trying to get through this part and I just can't seem to make any headway despite help from a very good friend that's a Theologian who's done a remarkable job helping me.

Here, specifically, I might address the following in Moses' law-evicting those having accidental seminal discharges, women giving birth, and Lepers.

While many articles I've found online elude to health reasons/precautions, while I don't doubt such might have been a secondary premise clearly there is more to it than that; this appears to have everything to do with teaching man about the sin nature/God's inability to allow sinners into His holiness as a basic rule, in this case, even worshipping Him.

I believe there is another account of this general ideology written later in the OT involving a scenario where individuals are told to refrain from sitting in the same chair a menstrating woman might have sat hours prior. Contact with the dead would be another, presumably here again because death itself would represent sin.

In the case of evaluating God's own decision to evict lepers from camp/ceremonial worship back in the books of Moses, however, how than does one explain why Jesus (God) was not only allowed to touch these people, the same people God Himself had essentially deemed social outcasts Himself 1000 or more years earlier, but than goes onto to discipline the Jews making the good Samaritan a positive example during such?

Without question, the Christian heart recognizes the positive compassion and love behind Christ's actions, but it makes no sense to me that God would have sent forth His only Begotten to preach in His own name a message standing in direct contrast to the original instructions given in the books of Moses.

I'm simply trying to understand what we would think of a modern day parent precisely instructing his/her child to avoid all of the sick children at school (Sue, if a child is sick at school stay 90 feet back at all times), only to at one point later after years of dictating such behavior inform the child that she is to go up and embrace sick kids at school and let them feel welcome, which in and of itself doesn't represent common sense but is stated here to make the argument for a hypothetical situation that would be right in line with this.

Now, the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this explained some of the overall premise w/ this by pointing out Biblical examples where it was always right "To take one for the team" which of course is one of the main points of the Bible and summarizes the life of Christ and many of the prophets. If memory serves, he gave me a great example at the time whereby just because God might have deemed those having attended a funeral as defiled for seven days doesn't mean He actually supported people not attending funerals. Instead here, the prescribed order would have been to attend the funeral and take the seven day defilement for the team, etc.

Personally, the issue of mass confusion for me personally continues to be why God put down such codes of defilement in the first place if He knew the people would be confused and/or unable to live up to the expectations in the first place, and concerning the matter of prohibiting people from sitting in chairs where a menstrating woman might have sat hours prior, why such a choice was made to teach the people about the contageous aspects of sin in such a way rather than teaching such lessons in the present day realities like we would find in a scenario of the modern rock star luring teenage kids into lives of sex and drugs, etc.

I realize I've asked more than my fair share of questions here and I certainly didn't intend to take advantage but the truth of the matter is that I've been dealing with such mass confusion from all of this I've considered checking myself in to a hospital for psychiatric help in all honesty-I was a complete Biblical amateur that might have made the mistake of flying into the OT in depth without involving myself in a group Bible study, and I've paid the price to some extent for having done things in this manor.

At any rate, I'm hopeful that someone will be able to help me with some of these issues. I certainly won't make it a habbit of writing any more messages to this length, promise.

Thanks so much.

Last edited by olpo25; Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:07 AM.