HWA adopted certain Jewish festivals mentioned in Leviticus 23 as part of his doctrines. He was imitating a Church of God (Seventh Day) pastor named G. G. Rupert who taught similar things. But HWA was not Jewish so there were many things about these festivals that he was completely oblivious about.
For instance many of these festivals are celebrated for two days, not just one as HWA assumed.
Aside from the high holidays, which ended last weekend, there are three main Jewish holidays ... Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. In the Bible, Passover and Sukkot are seven days and Shavuot is one day. In America, for Orthodox Jews, the number of days goes up by one for each. ...
The upshot, however, is an extra day of prayer (and no work) for Jews who celebrate the holiday in places like America, Argentina, England, even South Africa. The only place the extra days aren’t observed is Israel. (Slate, September 18, 2013.)The dates for the months of the years was determined in the Holy Land. Consequently it took time for Jewish communities elsewhere to learn when the dates of the months was set by the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem so the annual Sabbaths were celebrated for two days outside of the Holy Land.
... everyone who lived outside of Israel started doubling up on their holidays—observing two days instead of one, just in case. This way, at least one of the days was correct. (Slate, September 18, 2013.)Armstrongism says the Feast of Tabernacles looks symbolizes the Millennium. But Jews do not view it that way. To them it symbolizes the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness.
One Jewish tradition connected with the Feast of Tabernacles is to wave the four species. But HWA did not know about that so it was never a part of Armstrongism.
What folly it was for HWA to ignorantly take these festivals which are precious to the Jewish people and crudely exploit these festivals to prop up his own organization of followers. What HWA did to these Jewish festivals was wrong.
Herbert Armstrong's appropriation of the Feasts and their meanings was a rather direct plagiarism from Greenberry George Rupert (1847-1922) was more than just a simple adoption: Armstrong took Rupert's booklet about the Law of God almost verbatim and produced God's Holydays or Pagan holidays, Which? with the one exception of The Last Great Day which Rupert didn't have a clue how to interpret. Since Herb didn't have even a full high school education and his knowledge of the Church of God Seventh Day was rather superficial, his inept adoption of Rupert's rituals was at best amateur. As my friend, Alan Knight, has said, support for keeping the Feasts in the New Testament is weak.
ReplyDeleteYet Herbert Armstrong had a singular talent for taking a few raw materials and expanding them to be full blown by just making stuff up to fill in the blanks. If you have read his early articles during the 1930s in the Bible Advocate, you realize that he had a bad case of 'prediction addiction'. He was so convinced that his half baked prognostications were doctrine, when, in fact, over the term, the CoG7D has resoundingly debunked the necessity of keeping the Feasts. Part of the problem is that in the Old Testament, animal sacrifices were required as part of the Feast keeping. Given that there is no 'Jewish Temple' and no Levite priests, this becomes more than somewhat problematic. In fact, it's downright ludicrous.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the Jews had no place to go, so there was a transmogrification to the practices we see today. Yes, there have been 'Feasts of Tabernacles' in Jerusalem, but they are a far cry from the Fortune 500 corporate conventions that Herbert Armstrong created, but then, he didn't know any better -- and didn't know anything else except for a rather bowdlerized venue of conducting corporation business. That's all he knew and he didn't actually know that in much depth -- he did what he always did: Create the details by just making them up from the thin air of his oxygen starved brain at high altitude.
Black Ops is rather accurate in a way. Just a small amendment to the original statement. You seem to connect Armstrongism to post-70ad hellenistic-romanized judaism in the diaspora. Of course Armstrongism seeks a connection to the ancient (supposingly inspired) Israelite practices some 1500 years before that.
ReplyDeleteIn typical nckian way I might add that by a wide margin connections can be established between Eschatological Essene teaching and Armstrongism. Both eschatological systems promising a deliverer to a "world in danger" arose in similar social conditions. The Jews facing the Hellenistic (Herodian) opressors and later the Romans and the USA facing the threat of world disappearance by thousands of hydrogine bombs.
But I will not add to Black Opps analysis.
nck
HWA taught that the Levitical sacrifices were not required today because Jesus Christ became the supreme sacrifice, fulfilling them once for all times. He also taught that the Levites' work went into hiatus with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. He then rewrote the meanings for the festivals based on intuitions that his followers accepted wholesale because they believed that HWA was God's "apostle" (no other proof offered or required). And, of course, guess who got to be the spiritual Levites, with the privilege to receive all of the tithes and offerings! The Jews, of course, since there were no temple or Levites, went over to doing good works through charity, and the early Christians went to freewill offerings from the heart.
ReplyDeleteCorrect doctrines were said to produce a trustworthiness with God so that He would share with the obedient ones the proper understanding of end time prophecy. But, these two processes proved to be the unravelling of one another unless one accepts the notion of delay. But, the statute of limitations on delay is the lifespan of Baby Boomers. If the rebirth of Israel as a nation is the trigger for the end times, the end must happen before the majority of the people born in 1948 die off. HWA had originally set this time to pace the passing of his own generation, which is partially why 1972-75 was used. And, that's been reset several times since the disappointment of 1975.
BB
Well written BB and interesting how you tie tithing into the subject.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of tithing perhaps the early church gave freewill offering from the heart but subsequent developing institutions certainly made it obligatory up to this day.
Not promoting the tithe in anyway but I read an interesting article the other day on how American businessmen like Rockefeller tithed from freewill but it was a conscientieously calculated tithe anyway.
What would the Assyrians do?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11380968/Compulsory-income-tax-on-Christians-drives-Germans-away-from-Protestant-and-Catholic-churches.html
nck
Herbert Armstrong was a very stupid fat rotund grossly obese boozing alcoholic who had nothing but contempt for higher education: He figured that he could figure out anything really important on his own without using any tools or principles of academic research and what he did was plagiarize all his belief system without attribution primarily from G. G. Rupert. His only expertise (if any) was business advertising. He never graduated from high school and had nothing but contempt for academics. He would never be able to understand anything in higher education and would have had no patience putting in the work to acquire a University degree -- he didn't even finish high school. In other words, he was stupid, but pretended to be much more than he could ever be and sold his product.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, he wasn't really a business man. He may have met CEOs and directors of major corporations, but he did not have the skills to put together anything viable of any scale. That is why he had Stanley Raider do it for him -- he was incapable of doing it himself, being that he was a 'fly by the seat of his pants' sort of guy.
For these reasons (and many others), Herbert Armstrong did not have any real sense of history and would not have really comprehended any in depth discussions of post-70ad hellenistic-romanized judaism in the diaspora.
It's simple. He had a format and eschalogical structure from G. G. Rupert and sold it without ever understanding the precepts behind it. He made money off of it and used the money to bolster his own ego.
In the end, the only thing that really existed for Herbert Armstrong and the only thing that was really important to him was his narcissism.
Any other discussions will lend themselves to irrelevance in connection to him.
I can just imagine what Aaron might say to the followers of HWA If there is a Feast of Tabernacles in the Kingdom: "Wow, man! You guys get buzzed on the Holy Days???"
ReplyDeleteBB
Or... more likely Aaron might be asking, "Who was that short fat guy that was just thrown into the Lake of Fire?"
DeleteHerbert Armstrong was what George Soros is today. Destructive. And what follows is that the acogs emulate this decrepit old bastard in everything they do. They shall perish. To the lake of fire for all his followers.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking up George Soros (the liberal version of the Koch Brothers), I see what you mean.
DeleteOne little nit though: George Soros sees himself as some sort of Messiah.
Herbert Armstrong saw himself as God as God is God, making himself so much more than a mere Messiah....
The way HWA told it, he knew more about the Holy Days than the Jews. Since he had no understanding the framework, his jigsaw puzzle analogy was correct, but it was because he created it. If the Systematic Theology Program had gone to completion, it would have shown that nothing really fit together. Every little problem was fixed by telling the reader to send for another booklet or reprint, until you’re referred to the article with the original problem.
ReplyDelete“Spiritual Levites” – one minister said most of the ministers were probably Levites, as they mixed amongst the other tribes, so they must have been called to minister. In the misunderstanding of the Book of Hebrews, we’re told the mythical true church is under the Melchizedek priesthood, so tithes don’t go to the Levites, they go to the church. But – tithes to Melchizedek were a voluntary 10%. Well, that’s explained in another booklet…
Hoss, there may be a real 'spiritual' application to be had here: ACoG ministers as spiritual Pharisees.
DeleteMore like 'spiritual Qumran' who carried poop shovels...
DeleteJoe Tkatch Sr showed that 'spiritual tithing' didn't work.
Yes Hoss,
ReplyDeleteI heard that too from the pulpit. That some ministers were litteral Levites sifted through the tribes as Manassah had sifted to the tribes of ancient Europe.
It was more than spiritualising. Wrong of course since I believe the Cohn's/Kuhn's or Cohanim are the true descendents of the Levites.
Hmmm what am I saying. One of the most influential persons in the world (according to chinese state media) a levite???? associated with wcg and creator of aicf?
nck