Episode:Melchizedek Gospel—Response Among the Hebrews (Part 3)
The loose-knit tribes of the Hebrews almost lost sight of Moses' lofty teachings after his death. Joshua found it necessary to preach a stern gospel to his disbelieving people, who were unwilling to go forward in the religion of faith and righteousness. But the authors of the Psalms and the so-called Book of Job expressed such a wealth of devotion and inspirational ideas of God as to keep alive the light of truth among the children of Israel.
Keywords: Urantia, Melchizedek of Salem, Moses, Mesopotamia, Psalms
Summary by Kermit
We spent a few minutes clarifying the meaning of Moses’ attachment and teaching to the concept of providence. In the revelation, the authors use the term providence with lower and upper case “p”. Lower case “p” referring to the Almighty and upper case “P” referring to the Mother. When taken in both designations you have the fullness of the Supreme or supremacy. Historically the concept of providence has been associated with a more self-centered and materialistic idea of God’s favor, such as held by Moses.
We are also reminded that while Moses was a prophet, prophets are cultivated and function in the evolutionary context and constraints of their time. Many of the “gritty” behaviors and practices of the olden Hebrew prophets, we are about to encounter, would hardly be countenanced by the modern idealist. The revelation is here presenting us with previously unknown details of Hebrew history, liberating us from the reworked and tailored version constructed during their Babylonian captivity, which has come down to us as the Old Testament. Students and promoters of the revelation are advised to be mindful of the degree of attachment to the biblical stories and ideas held by prospective candidates for the revelation before dropping The Urantia Book on them. The fifth epochal revelation is for those who are no longer satisfied with the old time religion.
96:6. The God Concept After Moses’ Death
Upon Moses’ death, the common people quickly reverted to the older desert idea of Yahweh, albeit Joshua and other leaders of Israel continued to keep the Mosaic traditions of the one, all-wise, beneficent, and almighty God.
Not apparent in the reworked Old Testament version of Hebrew history is the nature of the significant cultural evolutionary changes occurring as the Hebrews transitioned from nomadic herders to more settled and sedate farmers. These social and economic changes necessitated a change in the character of their God, from the austere, exacting, and thunderous desert god to a God of love, justice, and mercy. During this transition they came near to losing all concept of monotheism, and the opportunity to serve as the conserving link of Melchizedek’s one God down to the times of Michael’s bestowal. Often times it was non-Hebrews who provided vital leadership and teaching during these dark times. These details are lost in the reworked version of their story.
As with Moses, so did Joshua tailor his teaching to the end that the tribesmen would hold the concept of a supreme Yahweh in their minds. He presented his words as Yahweh’s words, “As I was with Moses, so will I be with you” etc. Further, because of their backwardness, Joshua found it necessary to preach a stern gospel as they were unwilling to go forward in a religion of faith and righteousness.
The final paragraph of this section expresses the sweep of the story of Job using selected citations.
96:7. Psalms and the Book of Job
During these benighted times, certain surviving Salem groups maintained the Egyptian and Mesopotamian concepts which were recorded in the Psalms and so-called Book of Job, but in large part the Hebrews drifted back into more primitive beliefs, becoming idolatrous and licentious.
The Psalms are the work of twenty or more authors, many of whom were non-Hebrew (Egyptian and Mesopotamian). They represent the record of the varying concepts of God held by the believers in the Salem religion from the entire period from Amenemope to Isaiah. No other collection of sacred writings covers such an expanse of time. The Psalms contain the full spectrum of conception from tribal deity to loving ruler and merciful Father. The revelators tell us that these Psalms constitute the most valuable and helpful assortment of devotional sentiments ever assembled by man up to the times of the twentieth century. But only when consideration is given to the source and chronology of each psalm. The SoS team conjectured that with the bits of information revealed herein, it will still require considerable scholarship to unpack this wonderful collection of worshipful literature, and appreciate the evolutionary context of these works. The Hebrews during their Babylonian captivity found many of these hymns, worked them into the reconstructed Hebrew story, attributing them to Hebrew authorship. It simply wouldn’t do to recognize non-Hebrew authorship when they were trying to rekindle the ideas of the Hebrews as chosen people. So we are challenged to engage the Psalms with our individuality consciousness in addition to our spiritual consciousness to see them cosmically as valuable and helpful in our personal growth.
The Book of Job was likewise compiled from the works of more than twenty Mesopotamian teachers over a period of almost three hundred years and presents a variegated picture of Deity. Thus it is that the idea of a real God was best preserved in Ur of Chaldea during the dark days in Palestine. For it was in Ur that God’s mercy and salvation by faith were preached. What a revelatory nugget we are given to learn that Elihu (spokesperson for the highest concepts of God in the Book of Job) was not a Hebrew, but actually a prophet of Ur and priest of the Salem believers. So it was that the remnants of the Salem missionaries in Mesopotamia maintained the light of truth, through the disorganization of the Hebrews until the advent of the teachers of Israel who step by step advanced the concept of God to the realization of the ideal of the Universal Creator Father.
Paper 97. Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews
The Hebrews were able to deanthropomorphize their concept of God without stumbling into abstractions of Deity comprehensible only to philosophers, as we saw in the religions of India and East Asia. Common people were able to grasp Yahweh as a racial Father if not a personal one.
It was the personality of God in distinction to other attributes of Deity that ideationally evolved progressively and continuously from Moses to Malachi (the entire Old Testament from 1500 B.C. to 500 B.C.). And it was this concept that were leveraged and enhanced by Jesus in his teachings about the Father in heaven.
Note that the term personality here refers to the mysterious and sublime quality treated at great length in the revelation and in past SoS programs as opposed to the current day usage of the term designating temperament.
97:1. Samuel—First of the Hebrew Prophets
Hostility from the surrounding peoples forced the Hebrew tribal leaders to organize a more centralized administrative authority, making it easier for Samuel to function as a teacher and reformer. Samuel came from a long line of Salem teachers. He was virile and resolute, a rough and ready reformer, who through great devotion and extraordinary determination withstood almost universal opposition in his efforts to turn Israel back to the Yahweh of Moses’ times. Only partially successful, he won back the more intelligent half of the Hebrews to the service of the higher concepts of Yahweh.
He actually did little preaching and less teaching, but he acted, attempting to eradicate the purveyors of the false god Baal, using methods most objectionable by current day standards, those of the sword.
Samuels great contribution in the advancing concept of God was God is changeless. Thus did the onetime spirit of Horeb, tribal volcano god, mercurial and unpredictable, begin the ascent to the ideal of an all-powerful and changeless Creator and Supervisor of all creation.
