Religious Practices

(Deuteronomy 12:1 - 12:32)
"These are the laws and decrees you must carefully follow when you settle in the land that Jehovah, the god of your forefathers, is giving you to possess for as long as you live.  When you expel the peoples that currently inhabit the land, you must obliterate all the places where they have worshiped their gods, whether they be on a high mountain, in the hills, or under a shade tree.  You must overturn their altars, smash their pillars, burn their Asherim poles, and chop to bits their carved idols so that the names of their gods is erased from these sites.

"You must not worship Jehovah you god in this manner.  Rather, you must go to a site that Jehovah himself has chosen to establish as his habitation, the place where his name is to be honored among the tribes of Israel.  It is there that you should go, bringing your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and sacred contributions, your votive and voluntary offerings, as well as the firstborn of your flocks and herds.  It is there before the altar of Jehovah your god that you and your families will feast and celebrate all the undertakings that Jehovah your god has blessed.

"You will abandon the current practice, with each man worshiping in the way that seems fitting in his own eyes.  You have not yet ended your wanderings and arrived at the destination where you will receive the inheritance Jehovah your god is giving you.  But after you have crossed the Jordan to settle in the land Jehovah your god is giving you as an inheritance, he will give you a respite from fighting all your enemies so that you can live in security.  Then you must bring everything I command you, your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and sacred contributions, and choice votive offerings dedicated to Jehovah to the site that Jehovah your god has established as the habitation where his name will be honored.  You must celebrate there before the altar of Jehovah your god -- you, your families and slaves, and Levites who have inherited no portion of your land, but live in your towns.  Be careful not to present your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see, but offer them in the way I will instruct you and only at the places Jehovah has chosen within the territory of each tribe.

"Even so you may butcher your livestock in any of your town and eat your fill of the meat that Jehovah your god has blessed you with.   All of you, whether ritually pure or impure, may partake freely of the meat, as you would a gazelle or a deer.  But drink not the blood; instead pour it out on the ground like water.  Within your towns you must not eat the grain, drink the new wine, or use the olive oil set aside as a tithe.  And you must not eat the firstborn of your flocks and herds, any of the votive offering you are making, or any voluntary offering or sacred contribution.  You must eat them only before the altar of Jehovah at the place that Jehovah your god has designated -- you, your families, your slaves, and the Levites who dwell in your towns.  And it is before the altar of Jehovah your god that you should celebrate all you have accomplished.  (Take care, as long as you live in the land, not to neglect the Levites!)

"When Jehovah your god has enlarged your territory as he has promised, you may exclaim, "I want meat!" because you crave it.  Well, you may eat meat whenever you wish.  If a place designated by Jehovah your god to honor his name is too far away, you may butcher any of the flocks or herds Jehovah has given you and eat the meat in your own town, as I have instructed you.  Anyone, regardless of whether they are ritually pure or not, may consume the meat, as one would that of a gazelle or deer.  But do not drink the blood, for the life force is contained in the blood and the life force must not be consumed with the meat.  Instead pour the blood onto the ground like water.  Do not consume the blood, for all will go well with you and with your children after you when you do what is pleasing in the eyes of Jehovah. 

“Take your sacred contributions and votive offerings to the place chosen by Jehovah.  You must offer the meat and the blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of Jehovah your god.  The blood must be poured out on the altar, but the meat you may eat.  Be careful to obey the regulations I am giving you; all will thus go well with you and with your children after you when you do what is good and right in the eyes of Jehovah.

"When Jehovah your god goes ahead of you and expels the nations you will displace, when you have driven them out and settled in their land, do not be tempted to inquire about their gods and ask, 'How did these nations worship their god, for I want to do the same?’  You must not worship Jehovah your god in their way, because they have done for their gods abominable things that Jehovah detests.  Why they even burn their children as sacrifices to their gods!

"All the commands I give you, you must do, neither adding anything to them nor subtracting anything from them.”

Notes
1. Moses not only orders the destruction of all holy places of foreign gods, but advocates something quite significant, the institutionalization of Jehovan worship and the regulation of religious practice.  This is an advancement of social order and national development.  But it is also a major assertion of the collective over the individual, of the ceremonial over the mystical, of the religious establishment over the individual adherent.  Laymen, private persons, will no longer have the freedom to worship Jehovah in their own way.  (They were long since denied the freedom to worship any other deity.)  Indeed, every dictate of Moses (Jehovah) results in the abrogation of personal rights.  However, it must be remembered that personal rights were scarcely thought of at this early time.  And, on the face of it, it does seem fitting that Jehovah himself should dictate the terms of his own worship!  Ancient civil governments were nearly all theocratic to some extent, but that being set up by the Israelites promises to be extremely so -- and with a degree of religious intolerance that is total.

2. Throughout history it has been very common for a new religion to appropriate and make its own the sacred sites of the religion it has displaced.  Christian churches were built on the sites of pagan shrines.  Christian churches were made over into Islamic mosques.  A holy site is a holy site.  This practice, though, is condemned by Moses, for he wants nothing pertaining to foreign religions corrupting the exclusive worship of Jehovah.

3. The Israelites who, the texts suggest, have been subsisting solely on manna for the past 40 years are about to come off their diet and eat meat again.  Whether or not their digestive systems will readily adapt to this, Jehovah sanctions it.  Now that the Israelites are no longer in the desert, meat and other types of regular food will be readily available to them.  And it would be no longer practical for Jehovah to feed his people with daily drops of manna.  He was able to do so when their population was concentrated in a single camp, but not now they are to be spread across an entire country.  That the Israelites were on a manna-only diet, though, is inconsistent with other parts of the narrative, which refer to the Israelites having vast flocks and herds.  Were they not eating their livestock?  The reference here to gazelles and deer certainly suggests that they were being hunted and eaten, but that the livestock would only now serve as food.  The inconsistencies here are considerable.

4. The annoyingly frequent references to the Levites certainly suggests what class was behind putting together the biblical narrative.  The Israelites are continually exhorted to honor the rights of the Levites, who, as a priestly caste, is more a privileged than a deprived tribe.

5. The prohibition against consuming blood is unclear.  Does it mean only the drinking of blood or does it preclude having a rare beefsteak?  It was reasonable for the ancients to conclude that blood contains the life force, since they could see that when a person loses too much blood he dies.  They could have had no true understanding of the importance and nature of blood and circulation -- and Jehovah, who has a vested interest in keeping his worshipers ignorant, did not see fit to enlighten them on the matter -- or on any other scientific or practical matter.

6. Jehovah disparages the religious practices of his fellow gods, citing the sacrifice of children.  Granted he eventually changed his mind about it, but didn't Jehovah, or some entity claiming to be Jehovah, demand that Abraham burn his son Isaac on an altar as a sacrifice to him?