of Altar for the Third Temple By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz November 29, 2018 , 4:07 pm
The nascent Sanhedrin released a declaration to the 70 nations for Hanukkah to be read at a ceremony in Jerusalem on the last day of the holiday. The ceremony will include the consecration of a stone altar prepared for use in the Third Temple. The declaration is intended as an invitation to the nations to participate in the Temple and to receive its blessings.
The altar is currently in the form of loose stone blocks ready to be transported to the Temple Mount and stored in a manner that will enable them to be transported and assembled at a moment’s notice. When complete, the altar will be a square nine feet on each side and five feet tall, and includes a ramp for the priests to ascend. The decision to prepare the blocks and all the details of their composition is the result of a long study performed by the members of the Sanhedrin in conjunction with the Temple Institute. The stones are made of aerated concrete and are fit for use in the Temple. There are plans underway to prepare a new set made of actual stones which are considered the ideal material from which to build the altar.
God’s call to return his people to his land will show that the belief of some nations that Israel was in exile as a punishment was a mistaken belief.
...denying their own texts.
Just because YHWH used the discipline to simultaneously glorify Himself and reach the gentiles doesn't mean it wasn't a punishment on His set-apart nation.
2 Kings 17:22-23 (NIV)
22 The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them 23 until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.
Daniel 9:1-7 (NIV)
In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes[a] (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian[b] kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed:
“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.
7 “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you.
Footnotes: a. Daniel 9:1 Hebrew Ahasuerus b. Daniel 9:1 Or Chaldean
Both the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles were punishment due to their sins according to what is written. It's not a belief of the nations; it's in the Hebrew Bible itself.
emotion_facepalm
Furthermore, a stone altar for tabernacle/temple worship is not the Command. The altars were of acacia wood, two of them: the one overlaid with bronze (bronze altar where sacrifices are cooked/offered with its grain offering and drink offering) and the one overlaid by gold (golden altar of incense where incense is burned inside). That's all there obediently was in the temple according to the Law of Moses.
Exodus 27:1-8 (NIV)
27 “Build an altar of acacia wood, three cubits[a] high; it is to be square, five cubits long and five cubits wide.[b] 2 Make a horn at each of the four corners, so that the horns and the altar are of one piece, and overlay the altar with bronze. 3 Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots to remove the ashes, and its shovels, sprinkling bowls, meat forks and firepans. 4 Make a grating for it, a bronze network, and make a bronze ring at each of the four corners of the network. 5 Put it under the ledge of the altar so that it is halfway up the altar. 6 Make poles of acacia wood for the altar and overlay them with bronze. 7 The poles are to be inserted into the rings so they will be on two sides of the altar when it is carried. 8 Make the altar hollow, out of boards. It is to be made just as you were shown on the mountain.
Footnotes: a. Exodus 27:1 That is, about 4 1/2 feet or about 1.4 meters b. Exodus 27:1 That is, about 7 1/2 feet or about 2.3 meters long and wide
Exodus 30:1-7 (NIV)
30 “Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense. 2 It is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high[a]—its horns of one piece with it. 3 Overlay the top and all the sides and the horns with pure gold, and make a gold molding around it. 4 Make two gold rings for the altar below the molding—two on each of the opposite sides—to hold the poles used to carry it. 5 Make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 6 Put the altar in front of the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law—before the atonement cover that is over the tablets of the covenant law—where I will meet with you.
7 “Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. 8 He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for the generations to come. 9 Do not offer on this altar any other incense or any burnt offering or grain offering, and do not pour a drink offering on it.
Footnotes:
a. Exodus 30:2 That is, about 1 1/2 feet long and wide and 3 feet high or about 45 centimeters long and wide and 90 centimeters high
Where is the stone altar in the above...?
And when they returned from exile in Ezra's generation, nothing changed:
Ezra 3:2 (NIV)
2 Then Joshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
On what authority are they changing YHWH's Laws?
Daniel 7:25 (NIV)
25 He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time.[a]
Footnotes:
a. Daniel 7:25 Or for a year, two years and half a year
Dragon in sheep's clothing?
Quote:
The ceremony will also be part of the Sanhedrin’s ongoing effort to establish a Bible-based international organization to replace the United Nations.
Revelation 13:11 (NIV)
11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.
Noahide-schmoahide. It's just the Law of Moses, not a different standard. Even Gentiles are prophesied to learn the Law of Moses—
Isaiah 56:6 (NIV)
6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—
Their made-up interpretation of “Noahide” laws doesn't mention to keep the Sabbath. Yet Gentiles are keeping the Sabbath. That's the Law of Moses (a.k.a. the Law of YHWH, the Creator, who revealed His Law to Moses).
Luke 2:22-23 (NIV)
22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”[a]),
Footnotes:
a. Luke 2:23 Exodus 13:2,12
Acts 15:21 (NIV)
21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
Luke 16:31 (NIV)
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Acts 3:26 (NIV)
26 When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”
Nehemiah 1:7 (NIV)
7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.
This right here is troubling:
Quote:
These are the seven messages of the Creator of the world to humanity known as the Seven Noahide Laws:
[...]
Blessing Hashem (God, literally ‘the name’): Respecting the Creator and the sages who are familiar with His Torah, and respecting the places of worship where the Torah is learned and prayers are recited to him. It is forbidden, God forbid, to speak harshly against them or to curse them.
...depending on what they mean, the addition of that detail would condemn Jeremiah (and those like him) for preaching a message of doom/calamity (literally adeaththreat from God)—even if temple worship is (and its worshippers are) deviant from what's written and rightfully being condemned. I pray this doesn't repeat...
Jeremiah 20:1-2 (NIV)
20 When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, 2 he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin at the Lord’s temple.
Jeremiah 26:7-19 (NIV)
7 The priests, the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the Lord. 8 But as soon as Jeremiah finished telling all the people everything the Lord had commanded him to say, the priests, the prophets and all the people seized him and said, “You must die! 9 Why do you prophesy in the Lord’s name that this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted?” And all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.
10 When the officials of Judah heard about these things, they went up from the royal palace to the house of the Lord and took their places at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house. 11 Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and all the people, “This man should be sentenced to death because he has prophesied against this city. You have heard it with your own ears!”
12 Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and all the people: “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the things you have heard. 13 Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you. 14 As for me, I am in your hands; do with me whatever you think is good and right. 15 Be assured, however, that if you put me to death, you will bring the guilt of innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live in it, for in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing.”
16 Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man should not be sentenced to death! He has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”
17 Some of the elders of the land stepped forward and said to the entire assembly of people, 18 “Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says:
“‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.’[a]
19 “Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone else in Judah put him to death? Did not Hezekiah fear the Lord and seek his favor? And did not the Lord relent, so that he did not bring the disaster he pronounced against them? We are about to bring a terrible disaster on ourselves!”
Footnotes:
a. Jeremiah 26:18 Micah 3:12
May YHWH preserve a remnant in authority to prevent unjust condemnations like Jeremiah's.
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