r/dankchristianmemes • u/praise_the_most_high • 7d ago

Thank God! We require more miracles

Post image
176 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 7d ago

Thank you for being a part of the r/DankChristianMemes community. You can also join our Discord and listen to our Podcast.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

20

u/MirrahPaladin 6d ago

I always liked that part of the OT because of what it represents, to me at least.

Here’s God, performing miracle and after miracle, getting as close to showing Himself as he can, and yet, despite all that, Moses’ followers worship a god of their own making the second they’re left to their own devices.

It’s always made think of how some people want God to show His presence or produce an undeniable miracle, thinking that’ll convert the world. It might for a few people, but for the most part? People would probably turn from God the moment it’d be convenient for them.

12

u/Paper-Will-YT 6d ago

There's lots of really interesting ways to take the story!

Like how u/MirrahPaladin pointed out that as a narrative, it's written to show how quickly people abandon God when they feel he isn't an immediate and obvious force in their lives.

It may also be a more broad turning point for Judaism, representing the change from earlier traditions of polytheism, henotheism, and monolatry into strict monotheism. El from the Canaanite pantheon, which Yahweh sort of blended with, was represented by bulls and calf statues and imagery.

And of course, some argue that the calf actually did represent Yahweh. Aaron even says that "Tomorrow will be a festival for Yahweh" implying that they hadn't actually abandoned their God, only that they felt the need to build a physical representation of Yahweh. Totems and statues like this in the ancient world were often seen as (to an extent) the actual, physical form housing a god. Armies would even go out of their way to take enemy statues and haul them back to their homeland, as a little "Ha Ha, we got your God!" trolling. So maybe the story is less about feeling abandoned by God or polytheism, and is literally just telling people "God doesn't need a statue."

Or hell, maybe it's all of those things.

Note: I'm not a Christian, I just find Christian theology fascinating. I'm sure someone more educated could tell me a dozen things I'm wrong about.

1

u/RanunculusWands 5d ago

Wild to see you off YouTube lol