Template:Redheifer

If the sacrifice of the red heifer was an allegory about securing allies through faith and charity, what were the Altars of Clay and Stone?

Red Heifer or Red Herring

The Bible tells the people of Israel in Numbers 19:2 “This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke:”

This "red heifer" sacrifice is unique, being mentioned only once in the Old Testament. Dispatched and consumed with flames outside the camp, the ashes from this slaughtered animal are taken to a clean place and mixed with the water to be used on the third and seventh day of a seven day purification process required whenever someone is considered unclean, having come in contact with the dead.

We are to believe that somehow God wanted the people to kill a heifer and burn it up outside the camp -- and that it was important that the heifer was red. They also had to gather the ashes and sprinkle blood in a special way. If they did all this bizarre “rituals and ceremonies”, their nation would be blessed by God and the ashes of the sacrifice would protect them from coming into contact with the dead.

Are we missing something?

Is the Bible translated correctly?

The Pharisees all read the Torah, but somehow they seemed to have got it wrong.

One of the most popular religious groups at the time thought that many of the rituals performed by the Pharisees, especially animal sacrifices, were the result of not understanding the Hebrew text.

While they believed in Moses and Abraham and the sacred text, they did not participate in the daily blood sacrifice. They sacrificed, but they were also one of the most charitable religious groups of the time. They read the Torah too, but they understood it differently.

Were these bloody, bizarre, even macabre “rituals and ceremonies” the real directives in the Old Testament?

Or were they really meant to be practical instructions to a nation that was to be a priest to all nations?

Pharisees were trying to do all that modern Christians think these verses say, but Jesus said they did not even know Moses or they would have known him. Jesus did not do these things, and for the most part, neither did some other religious groups who were using the same instruction book, the Torah.

So what did they get wrong?

RED

The truth is the Hebrew word "red" found in this verse is the same word for "Adam" and also for the word we see as “man”.

HEIFER

The word for "heifer" is parah(פָרָה‎)‎ and not the word reanslated heifer in Genesis 15:9 "Take me an heifer" which is ‎ ‘eglah (עֶגְלָה) [AyinGimelLamedHey]. The Hebrew word we see in Numbers 19:2 is parah(פָרָה‎)‎ which is identical to the Hebrew word numbered 06509 parah (פָרָה)‎‎ which as a verb would mean to bear fruit or to make fruitful.

In Matthew 21:43 we see Christ is going to take the kingdom from men because they were not bearing fruit.

How are these bizarre “rituals and ceremonies” of killing a heifer and burning it up on piles of wood "bearing fruit"?

The gullible and superstitious have been led to believe that they are to kill some young red female cow and set it on fire.

Are they unmooring the pomp and ritual in practice from the intended meaning and purpose of Moses?

Did the Pharisees mistranslate their own Torah?

If so, have modern Christians also fallen into this trap with many of their rituals and ceremonies?

Foreign aid

What if there was a practical purpose in the words of Numbers 19 that was not describing a bizarre bloody observance with real dire and ashes?

What if it was a detailed instruction about charity outside the nation, outside a nation operating by a national network of charity and freewill offerings that bound the hearts and minds of the people in social bonds of righteousness?

What if it was explained to you that the sacrifice of the red heifer was nothing more than the description of how the “Church in the wilderness” as a government of the people, was to distribute foreign aid to the needy people of other nations creating similar social bonds on a national level?

If they were really speaking of foreign aid, how would we follow those instructions today?

The early Church

The early Church was appointed a kingdom, and with its daily ministration, it provided all the social welfare for the followers of Christ who were doers of the word. All those who followed The Way of Christ were able to forgo the free bread of the Roman welfare state which had been a snare.

The "union and discipline" of a vast network of Christians organized in the ancient pattern of tens according to the perfect law of liberty became a viable body of influence in the heart of the Roman world. They also were able to aid and assist others because of their common sacrifice during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, winning the hearts and minds of many, and warranting the grace of God in their recompense.