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Samuel was a legitimate Priest - No he wasn't!

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  • DesertBerean
    replied
    Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
    Note that "whatever touches the altar shall be holy" (Ex. 29:37), thus the act of laying hold of the horns of the altar (e.g. Joab in 1 Kings 2:28) was probably an act of desperate consecration. So this may have been part of Samuel's induction to service (cf. 1 Sam. 1:11, 28), but that need not mean that he served as a priest!

    Though Samuel did offer sacrifices (1 Sam. 7:9, 16:2), and see also 1 Sam. 13:9-13, where Saul offered the burnt offering and the peace offering, which presumably Samuel was coming to offer. Note that Abraham offered sacrifices as well (e.g. Gen. 22:13), and Elijah built an altar and prepared a bull on it (1 Kings 18:30-33), So this is not unheard of, for people other than priests to make an offering. And note the following custom in Samuel's time: "When any man was offering a sacrifice..." (1 Sam. 2:13)! Not sure what that means, or if it was sanctioned by the Lord...

    But I would say that Samuel was allowed, and specially consecrated, so he could offer burnt offerings and peace offerings, but that would not imply that he was a priest. As here, where Samuel seems to be put in a different category:

    "Moses and Aaron were among His priests,
    And Samuel was among those who called on His name..." (Ps. 99:6)

    Blessings,
    Lee
    I like.

    Leave a comment:


  • lee_merrill
    replied
    Originally posted by tabibito View Post
    On a quick read, Samuel was of Issachar (his grandfather) through Tola (his father) (1Chr 7:1-2). 1 Sam 1:1 has him as an Ephraimite true enough.
    I'm not sure that all priests were Levites though.
    Found a genealogy that matches 1 Sam 1:1, and has Samuel as a Levite, and not descended from Aaron, so not a priest:

    "These are the men who served and their sons. Of the sons of the Kohathites: Heman the singer the son of Joel, son of Samuel, son of Elkanah, son of Jeroham, son of Eliel, son of Toah, son of Zuph, son of Elkanah, son of Mahath, son of Amasai, son of Elkanah, son of Joel, son of Azariah, son of Zephaniah, son of Tahath, son of Assir, son of Ebiasaph, son of Korah, son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, son of Israel." (1 Chr. 6:33-38)

    "There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite." (1 Sam. 1:1)

    I assume Eliel is just another spelling of Elihu, and Toah another spelling of Tohu.

    So 1 Chr. 7:1-2 must refer to a different Samuel...

    Blessings,
    Lee

    Leave a comment:


  • tabibito
    replied
    On a quick read, Samuel was of Issachar (his grandfather) through Tola (his father) (1Chr 7:1-2). 1 Sam 1:1 has him as an Ephraimite true enough.
    I'm not sure that all priests were Levites though.

    Priests weren't precluded from becoming prophets, nor women either come to that (and prophets outranked priests). Zeke was a priest before he was appointed as a prophet (Ezkl 1:3) for example - as was Barnabas prior to being appointed as an apostle.

    Leave a comment:


  • Rushing Jaws
    replied
    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
    First, the Priesthood obviously was a function of men from the tribe of Levi.
    (Though Melchizedek predated the Aaronic Priesthood)
    So, the first argument is - was Samuel a Levite or not.
    Then, though his parents dedicated him to God, was he actually called by God to be a priest?

    I have Biblical scholars I trust on both sides of this issue who disagree.
    One group says, "No, he was an Ephraimite, but he was a prophet, and sometimes the prophets took upon themselves certain aspects of the priesthood".
    Another group says, "Samuel was from the tribe of Levi through his father, but was mentioned as an Ephrathite, just because of the geographical location only, and was a prophet AND a priest".
    In 1 Chronicles, Samuel is a Levite.

    In 1 Samuel, he is an Ephraimite.

    I think the solution is, in part, that the limiting of the priesthood to Levites comes from a time, in Judah, later than the beginnings of the priesthood in Israel as a whole. And that until the 7th century or so, priests might come from any tribe. I think that the Levites were originally a “guild” or suchlike body of cultic officials, of different tribal origins, and that they claimed Levi as their, or a, common ancestor, because their “trade” was his “trade”.

    So the contradiction may be purely verbal. He may have been an Ephraimite by birth, who became a member of the Levite “guild”. The contradiction, if it is one, may witness to Israelite or Jewish society at different stages.

    In 1 Samuel, he is dedicated to the local god at the local shrine, because that is how pious people often behaved.
    Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 05-22-2021, 06:53 PM.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post

    I've been thinking about your last sentence and finally pushed myself to respond.

    I've found the Bible to be a minimalist document. God only provided the information we need and not necessarily the information we want. For example, I would like to have more on Jesus's teachings between His Resurrection and His Ascension.

    So then I fall back on what is the purpose of the Bible. Mainly to my mind it is to introduce us to God and explain how we are in relationship to Him and then with each other. As we have personal experiences with God, we use the standard of the Bible to confirm that it really was of God or it was a deception. So as we read and study the Bible, we should really be increasing our knowledge of God and not so much our knowledge of the Bible.

    So to answer your question about why this is so "dad-blamed confusing?" I would say the question about is Samuel a priest is not really relevant to the purpose of the Bible. I mean how does the answer increase my knowledge of God? It really doesn't and think that's why God in writing the Bible didn't provide an answer.

    But you could argue that this makes God the author of confusion which He is not. The answer seems to be on the line of this question focuses more on Bible-knowledge and less on God-knowledge. So if your struggling with a question like this, maybe ask yourself if this is allowing you to be distracting from pursuing God? Personally on threads like this, I may state my opinion but I'm not going to get heavily involved in any discussion.

    I hope this helps.
    Well, we're closer on this than you may think. I am a strong believer in the concept that the Bible doesn't tell us everything we WANT to know, but it certainly tells us everything we NEED to know.

    God, however, created us with a sense of curiosity, and I don't see a problem exercising that, within reason. This is simply something that a 12 year old boy asked me, and I didn't want to give him a bad answer. Plus, it made me think.

    Leave a comment:


  • Thoughtful Monk
    replied
    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
    So, knowing that he was under the tutelage of Eli, and served since he was -- what, 4 years old, as an assistant -- is there any evidence that he was ever "ordained" a priest?
    And why does this have to be so dad-blamed confusing?
    I've been thinking about your last sentence and finally pushed myself to respond.

    I've found the Bible to be a minimalist document. God only provided the information we need and not necessarily the information we want. For example, I would like to have more on Jesus's teachings between His Resurrection and His Ascension.

    So then I fall back on what is the purpose of the Bible. Mainly to my mind it is to introduce us to God and explain how we are in relationship to Him and then with each other. As we have personal experiences with God, we use the standard of the Bible to confirm that it really was of God or it was a deception. So as we read and study the Bible, we should really be increasing our knowledge of God and not so much our knowledge of the Bible.

    So to answer your question about why this is so "dad-blamed confusing?" I would say the question about is Samuel a priest is not really relevant to the purpose of the Bible. I mean how does the answer increase my knowledge of God? It really doesn't and think that's why God in writing the Bible didn't provide an answer.

    But you could argue that this makes God the author of confusion which He is not. The answer seems to be on the line of this question focuses more on Bible-knowledge and less on God-knowledge. So if your struggling with a question like this, maybe ask yourself if this is allowing you to be distracting from pursuing God? Personally on threads like this, I may state my opinion but I'm not going to get heavily involved in any discussion.

    I hope this helps.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
    Note that "whatever touches the altar shall be holy" (Ex. 29:37), thus the act of laying hold of the horns of the altar (e.g. Joab in 1 Kings 2:28) was probably an act of desperate consecration. So this may have been part of Samuel's induction to service (cf. 1 Sam. 1:11, 28), but that need not mean that he served as a priest!

    Though Samuel did offer sacrifices (1 Sam. 7:9, 16:2), and see also 1 Sam. 13:9-13, where Saul offered the burnt offering and the peace offering, which presumably Samuel was coming to offer. Note that Abraham offered sacrifices as well (e.g. Gen. 22:13), and Elijah built an altar and prepared a bull on it (1 Kings 18:30-33), So this is not unheard of, for people other than priests to make an offering. And note the following custom in Samuel's time: "When any man was offering a sacrifice..." (1 Sam. 2:13)! Not sure what that means, or if it was sanctioned by the Lord...

    But I would say that Samuel was allowed, and specially consecrated, so he could offer burnt offerings and peace offerings, but that would not imply that he was a priest. As here, where Samuel seems to be put in a different category:

    "Moses and Aaron were among His priests,
    And Samuel was among those who called on His name..." (Ps. 99:6)

    Blessings,
    Lee
    Thanks, Lee

    Leave a comment:


  • lee_merrill
    replied
    Note that "whatever touches the altar shall be holy" (Ex. 29:37), thus the act of laying hold of the horns of the altar (e.g. Joab in 1 Kings 2:28) was probably an act of desperate consecration. So this may have been part of Samuel's induction to service (cf. 1 Sam. 1:11, 28), but that need not mean that he served as a priest!

    Though Samuel did offer sacrifices (1 Sam. 7:9, 16:2), and see also 1 Sam. 13:9-13, where Saul offered the burnt offering and the peace offering, which presumably Samuel was coming to offer. Note that Abraham offered sacrifices as well (e.g. Gen. 22:13), and Elijah built an altar and prepared a bull on it (1 Kings 18:30-33), So this is not unheard of, for people other than priests to make an offering. And note the following custom in Samuel's time: "When any man was offering a sacrifice..." (1 Sam. 2:13)! Not sure what that means, or if it was sanctioned by the Lord...

    But I would say that Samuel was allowed, and specially consecrated, so he could offer burnt offerings and peace offerings, but that would not imply that he was a priest. As here, where Samuel seems to be put in a different category:

    "Moses and Aaron were among His priests,
    And Samuel was among those who called on His name..." (Ps. 99:6)

    Blessings,
    Lee

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
    That's cool that an 8 year old is getting into the word like that, let alone asking questions like that.
    Yes, sir - I was pretty impressed. I found out after the fact that they had been discussing OT prophets in youth Sunday School the previous hour, and their teacher had mentioned that Samuel was both a prophet and a priest.

    Leave a comment:


  • KingsGambit
    replied
    That's cool that an 8 year old is getting into the word like that, let alone asking questions like that.

    Leave a comment:


  • NorrinRadd
    replied
    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

    Yeah, no dispute about that, just curious about the back story. AND, an 8 year old boy asked me this after church, and I kinda stumbled through the answer.
    Wait 'til he asks you to harmonize the two genealogies of Jesus, or the details of the various Crucifixion and Resurrection accounts.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    God seems to have considered him a priest which is good enough for me
    Yeah, no dispute about that, just curious about the back story. AND, an 8 year old boy asked me this after church, and I kinda stumbled through the answer.

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post
    This is one of those grey areas where people can disagree on. In this case, I'll take it that God wants us to look at what Samuel did and not the label that was assigned to him.
    God seems to have considered him a priest which is good enough for me

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by Faber View Post
    Actually, Ephrathah is not Ephraim.
    Yes, that's a point made by those...

    Rather, it is another name for Bethlehem of Judea, a few miles south of Jerusalem. Samuel was a descendant of Elkanah, son of Jehoram, son of Elihu, who was from Ramathaim-zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim according to 1 Samuel 1:1.

    The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. ... These are the ones who served with their sons: From the sons of the Kohathites were Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel, the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah, the son of Zuph.... (1 Chr 6:1, 33-34, NASB) The Kohathites were one of the four main groups of Levites.

    This is definitely the same Samuel, son of Elkanah, mentioned in 1 Samuel 1:1, "Now there was a man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite."

    Ramathaim-zophim was a town of the hill-country of Ephraim. But Elkanah was definitely not an Ephraimite. Rather, he was a Levite. one of the four main branches of the sons of Levi. Whether more specifically a descendant of Aaron, that remains to be seen. The Aaronites were a separate branch of the sons of Levi. Possibly there was some intermarrying.
    So, knowing that he was under the tutelage of Eli, and served since he was -- what, 4 years old, as an assistant -- is there any evidence that he was ever "ordained" a priest?

    And why does this have to be so dad-blamed confusing?

    Leave a comment:


  • Faber
    replied
    Actually, Ephrathah is not Ephraim. Rather, it is another name for Bethlehem of Judea, a few miles south of Jerusalem. Samuel was a descendant of Elkanah, son of Jehoram, son of Elihu, who was from Ramathaim-zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim according to 1 Samuel 1:1.

    The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. ... These are the ones who served with their sons: From the sons of the Kohathites were Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel, the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah, the son of Zuph.... (1 Chr 6:1, 33-34, NASB) The Kohathites were one of the four main groups of Levites.

    This is definitely the same Samuel, son of Elkanah, mentioned in 1 Samuel 1:1, "Now there was a man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite."

    Ramathaim-zophim was a town of the hill-country of Ephraim. But Elkanah was definitely not an Ephraimite. Rather, he was a Levite. one of the four main branches of the sons of Levi. Whether more specifically a descendant of Aaron, that remains to be seen. The Aaronites were a separate branch of the sons of Levi. Possibly there was some intermarrying.

    Heman was a musician and a singer. Also one of the Masters of the Universe.
    heman.jpg
    Last edited by Faber; 03-23-2021, 03:51 PM.

    Leave a comment:

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