Balaam's Sin

We posted at the same time :-) When I pressed the publish part, the post that showed was your post on Balaam with the post I had just finished writing right under it. Wonder how often that happens. With all the Christmas interruptions that post took me a long time to write.

Okay, with regards to Balaam. Dr. McGee must have gotten that idea from somewhere but I'm afraid you will have to show me where since I can't find any reference to the sin of Balaam having anything to do with encouraging the Moabities to intermarry with the Israelites. There's no reference to it at all that I can find in Numbers 22 through 24, which contains the story of Balaam. There is a reference to the children of Israel sinning and being led astray in Numbers 25, but there is no direct correlation to Balaam although since I suppose some might make a connection since the two stories are in the same book between Balaam and the sinning of the children of Israel with the local people. Since I can find no specific mention of there being a direct connection anywhere else in the OT and NT, I don't know how valid it is.

The children of Israel did of course sin with local women. Even today, Jews marry non-Jews although we hesitate to call it sinning now. I am not sure if that is because that is no longer sinning or if it is because it wouldn't be politically correct. One way or the other, I would think that the Israelites engaging in relations with non-Israelites, regardless of what Balaam may or may not have told his people, the onus of the sin would be on the Israelites since they had free will in addition to God having specifically told them to avoid 'strange' women. They were not as naive as Adam and Eve before the Fall so I don't see that it would be explicitly and specifically Balaam's sin. In considering at all the possibility of cursing Israel and taking money for it, that was specifically his sin and not Israel's.

There is a commentary on Numbers 25 available, which states in part that the Israel's sin with the daughters of the pagan peoples around them did what Balaam could not do, w hich is to bring the wrath of God down upon them in the form of a plague.

The commentary on the blessings of Balaam contained in the previous chapters can be started here.

However in the previously mentioned verse in Peter, he speaks of fornication as well in the context of Balaam. But I don't see how it is singled out as the sin that Balaam is known for. Balaam is best known for being offered money to curse Israel and for a donkey rebuking him.

What we do have mentioned specifically with regards to Balaam's sin, is that he was tempted by money.

Ah ha. I found where Dr. McGhee must have found it. In the Pseudo-Philo, an early non-canonical Jewish writing with extra-Biblical writings on books in the Bible. Here is a link to a book detailing exactly what the Pseudo-Philo has to say about Balaam. I won't quote from it for fear of violating copyright.

I don't dismiss it just because it isn't in the Bible. The Bible does not contain everything that ever happened. So it could have happened that Balaam did advise the people of the land to lead Israel astray but I think, based on what I already wrote above, that the specific sin is the sin of abusing God's gift. What I think about the Pseudo-Philo story is that according to the link, it was written around 70AD, a long time after the happenings in Numbers and people have a way of mythologizing and rationalizing their own sins, so that after a while, it isn't really their sin anymore, but someone else's sin. That could also have happened. I am ambivalent.

Layla