Did God of the Bible trick people in sacrifices to get all animal and birds?
Those sentences which are colored in orange are from Maharishi Dayananda Saraswati book Satyarth Prakash (The Light of Truth) and those which are colored in black are Jerry Thomas’s response.
"Even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered. And all the meat offering that is baken in the oven, and ll that is dressed in the frying pan and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it." (7:8, 9.)
C. ~ We were under the impression that the trickery of the priests of the temple of the goddess Bhairava – the Indian Bacchus and other temples were mighty wonderful indeed, but we find that the trickery of the Christian God and his priests is a thousand-fold greater. The Christians must have greatly enjoyed themselves and ((perhaps ever enjoy now) when they got money by selling the skin of the animals offered as sacrifice and had their flesh to eat. Now will a father kill one of his two children and offer his flesh to the other, to eat? Is such a thing ever possible? How could then God unto whom all living creatures – men, animals, birds, etc., – are like children, do such a thing? It is clear then that the Bible can never be the Word of God, nor can the God of the Bible be the true God, nor can its followers know that truth and righteousness are. This book is simply full of absurdities too numerous to mention. ________________________________________*A thousand thanks to this God who has made a covenant of accepting calves, sheep, lambs and pigeons and even flour. Very strange that he accepted pigeons whose head had been wrung off from their necks. The mention of such things in the Bible compels one to infer that among those savages there was one cleverer than the rest, he took to living on a mountain and declared himself God. Those ignorant savages accepted him as such. Through his cunning devices, he managed to get animals, birds and flour and other articles for his food on the mountain and enjoyed himself. He has touts called angels to work for him. Let the good reader compare this God of the Bible who eats calves, sheep, lambs, pigeons and fine flour with, God, of such, who is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Unborn, Formless, Omnipotent and Just and possessed of other good attributes.
Answer: Before answering the question, let me point out the cunning and deceptive way of this Vedic Maharishi. With his lying pen, he wrote about the God of the Holy Bible that: “Through his cunning devices, he managed to get animals, birds and flour and other articles for his food on the mountain and enjoyed himself.” This Maharishi cannot produce single evidence from the entire Bible to substantiate this pathetic and shameless lie. I have already shown that he misinterpreted the scriptures to maliciously charge them. Never mind- probably after being intoxicated by Soma, in a trance state of mysticism, he was bound to speak deception.
First, God of the Bible owns all the animals and birds in the world. If His intention was to get the animals and birds in the world, why would He restrain unrepentant people from bringing those? How many of the Hindu priests deny accepting gifts from the wicked? God of the Holy Bible does not accept sacrifices from the wicked though the wicked thinks that He is like them.
Psalms 50: 7-23 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you; I am God, your God! I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before Me. I will not take a bull from your house, nor goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to declare My statutes, Or take My covenant in your mouths seeing you hate instruction And cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes. "Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God."
Now, let us see the reasons as to why the priest took the sacrifices for themselves.
(a) Levities did not have an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.
Deuteronomy 18: 1-5 "The priests, the Levites–all the tribe of Levi–shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and His portion. Therefore they shall have no inheritance among their brethren; the LORD is their inheritance, as He said to them. "And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether [it is] bull or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach. The first fruits of your grain and your new wine and your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons forever.”
(b) This was the wages for their work:
1Corinthians 9:7-13– Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things as a [mere] man? Or does not the law say the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say [it] altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, [this] is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown spiritual things for you, [is it] a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of [this] right over you, [are] we not even more? Nevertheless we have not
used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat [of the things] of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of [the offerings of] the altar?
Without an inheritance, Levities had only this inheritance- the offerings and sacrifices.
Maharishi finds faults with that too. Was this Maharishi doing some job to run the Arya Samaj or was he living on the offerings of others? If he was living on the gifts and offerings of others, what right he had to speak on this?
