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Building altars
We have recently published two articles: Dispelling spiritual darkness, which is about prayer altars and A spiritual priesthood about how wrong it is when we, as believers, call ourselves priests. These studies prompted a few the questions: how do we reconcile the building of altars and sacrificing by people who are not of the Levitical line? We may need to challenge our understanding about altars and the premise that only priests were allowed to offer sacrifices. In this study, we will do that. We will first define what the word altar means in the context of scripture. We will also search out the instructions regarding the building of an altar and investigate who built altars and why.
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Joshua’s Altar has been found on Mount Ebal
During our latest trip to Israel for the feast of Sukkot, we had the wonderful opportunity to visit Mount Ebal. This is normally impossible as this is part of the “occupied territories” also better known as Samaria (Shomron in Hebrew). Before I continue, let us back up a little. During one of our previous trips, we made another visit to the Shomrom, we visited Elon Moreh on Mount Kabir. In the Bible, Elon Moreh is where YHVH told Abraham, “To your descendants will I give this land†(Genesis 12:6). When we did the view from Mount Kabir to look at Shechem, the tour guide also made a comment regarding the altar of Joshua being found on Mount Ebal. Little did we know then, that exactly a year later we would have the privilege to stand on the other side and look back at Mount Kabir! What made the trip even more special is that we were in the wonderful position to hear it first hand! With this article, I will attempt to give you a brief summary of what I have learned and seen when visiting the site.
