Inerrancy and mass slaughter

Faith & Science Conversation
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I agree that once orders have been given that is relevant aspect, and this would be a relevant observation if it were entirely true. Even so, as you pointed out, then, if angels were authorized but we were not, then such human killings would not be a violation of an eternal or absolute moral law, rather the violation of a specific and limited ordinance given to a specific people for a specific purpose.

But it should be noted that nearly every modern translation (including the hardly evangelical NRSV) translates Ex 20 as “You shall not murder,” (or footnotes it to that effect) and with good reason. Like English, there are various words for “kill” in Hebrew, with different nuance, and the more proper translation is “murder,” not “kill,” for numerous reasons. Same is true as I can tell in the Greek Septuagint as well.

Otherwise it would be quite odd, since the very next chapter after the commandments are given details the various violations that result in capital punishment. I think it safe to say that there is no doubt in scholarship of any kind, evangelical, critical, Jewish, or the like that the command is “You shall not murder,” not “you shall not kill.”

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We might disagree over whether a parable can make important points about Jesus’ kingship and rule without equating the nobleman with Jesus. Luke seems to have a penchant for using flawed human characters to show us something about God. A chapter earlier, he shares the story of the unjust judge. By listening to the unjust judge, we learn something about God (Luke 18:6–7). Now, two stories later, Luke gives us a portrait of a nobleman blatantly conformed to the mold of Archelaus. Archelaus was not Jesus and wasn’t easily mistaken for Jesus. It appears he was as nasty as Luke’s portrait let on – just as far from Jesus as that judge was from God. But still, the known consequences of crossing Archelaus before he got a firm grasp on power can reveal something true about Jesus:

This is primarily a parable about the need to decide in favor of or against a king whose authority has not been confirmed. It is a parable about the ultimate risk of discipleship, which is based on the conviction that this one whom the disciples serve is indeed king—a point that will become very much an issue in the rest of the Gospel. It is a parable about being faithful to an absent king whose power is opposed by many in his own land, and who can give his servants no more than a paltry pound or mina.

Ultimately, stewardship itself is a political issue. Would-be disciples have to choose between the present order and the order of the king whose kingdom has not yet been revealed. That king does not give his disciples large sums of money, nor power, nor influence. But what they have, they must use in expectation of the coming kingdom.

—Justo L. González, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 224.

If allegience matters with a pretender like Archelaus, how much more so with the true King! That said, I don’t fully know what Luke is getting at with this parable, or at least with the changes that take it beyond its purpose in Matthew. Luke’s distinctives make it far more complicated to understand, and I’m less familiar with Luke’s gospel than Matthew’s anyway.

Even if I did think Luke wanted us to view Jesus as a “harsh man” opportunistically seeking power before enjoying the sight of his enemies getting cut down, I wouldn’t simply adopt that view. Too many passages that are easier to understand and more directly about Jesus contradict that portrait! I don’t give every passage an equal vote in forming my image of Jesus.

We have texts written by inspired humans for the use of other humans in which humans of one nation are commanded by God to indescriminantly kill other populations of humans. All four “humans” in that statement are important. Hopefully it is self-evident why changing only one or two of them to “angels” doesn’t lead to an equivalent scenario. Even if the angelic nature were identical to human nature (which of course it is not), the texts about angels killing humans or where humans are told what angels will someday do don’t raise as clearly the hardest issues prompted by the Bible’s conquest texts.

The texts with angelic violence still raise issues, but the angelic dimension makes them that much more mysterious and complex. Given what little we know of angels compared to humans, I don’t see texts about angels as being all that helpful in understanding texts about humans.

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I wouldn’t risk going that far. The word is more limited than “kill,” especially in only having a human victim. But while “murder” is a good shorthand that sometimes gets very close to the meaning, the word also seems to include manslaughter and, in one case, execution. That case is Numbers 35:30 where the noun and verb forms are used together to say the killer shall be killed. Now, I realize it may seem inconsistent that one verse says not to kill while another verse commands a killer to be killed. If words were algebraic parameters that would be problematic. But this is language, and blurred edges are to be expected.

There’s also a chicken-and-egg situation since murder means unlawful killing, and this word is used somewhat to define what killing counts as unlawful. (Saying “You shall not murder” is, in a legislative context, no more meaningful than a law saying “Don’t do anything illegal.”) Probably a good way to read the Decalogue commandment against killing is that it summarizes other instruction against killing. On its own, it doesn’t mean much.

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Quite correct, language is more fluid, even in English, than can be captured with any such “algebraic” formulations, and num 35 is a good example. We can also in English use hyperbole, poetic expressions, figures of speech, idioms, etc., that all modify the nuance and meanings, and all words have a scope of meaning, not one and only one specific dictionary definition. It is wise to refrain from any certainty about any nuance or meaning of a word in any particular case simply because that particular word was used.

And yes, both preponderance of usage and context certainly give that the commandment itself is far closer to that of “do not murder” (unlawful killing) than a blanket and absolute “do not kill” (anyone, ever, under any circumstances), else Moses was quite out of his gourd to record a blanket command against all killing whatsoever, then in the very next chapter delineate regulations for capital punishment, and later give guidance for proper conduct of warfare. Sounds like we essentially agree here.

But I’d still stand by my basic observations that rtsch generally carries the implication or nuance of murder (or what we call manslaughter), while there are other words more generally used for other lawful or unspecified killings, and that all modern scholarship I’m aware of across all theological spectrums certainly seems to see “do not murder” as a far better translation of Ex 20, reflecting its intent and meaning, than “do not kill.”

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And I think this is the crux of our disagreement. As mentioned earlier (and I think you would agree?) you need to reject huge sections of the Bible, and a very pervasive theme that runs throughout, to maintain this position.

“The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.”

“behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.”

“Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine.”

“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

“And these will go away into everlasting punishment…”

And I could of course go on and on. Point is this is not just a one-time event or perspective we can ignore as the overzealous hostility of a single Bible author, some minor aspect that we can take or leave from Scripture without it affecting much else… this theme is pervasive from Genesis to Revelation, including from Christ, that the God described therein is a God who brings punishment.

Much more I could say, but two quick observations, and please correct me if I misunderstand or if I am misrepresenting you. These are my impressions, but I don’t want to misspeak about your position. But my impression is as follows…

Firstly, It seems to me, respectfully, that your understanding of God is not in any sense derived from the Bible. You seem to have an idea of who God is or must be, what a “just” God must be like, that you have derived from other sources, from which to reject large and significant swaths of scripture as erroneous. But the picture of God that you have, if I understand it, is not one that came from Scripture. At best, your perspective, derived from elsewhere, may be reinforced by selecting some Scriptures that resonate with your perspective, while rejecting others that do not so resonate. It sounds very much like Lewis’s description… “the doctrines which one finds easy are the doctrines which give Christian sanction to truths you already knew.”

Secondly, my bottom line is simply to ask, if the Bible is so corrupted as to be so full, pervasively, of these erroneous teachings of God as exacting violent, being angry, and punishing, then it what sense can we call it inspired in any sense whatsoever? Why should we trust as authoritative anything it says about God, if you are ready to reject nearly half of what it says about God? On what basis do you believe the other half to be relevatory?

The same Scripture that we turn to to find that God is loving, compassionate, forgiving, merciful, and lavish in kindness is the same that says he punishes. And it isn’t like it is two separate easily divisive sections, but they are enmeshed and intertwined. “abounding in love, but does not leave the guilty unpunished.” “These will go to everlasting punishment, but these to everlasting life,” “They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, , then the righteous will shine like the sun.” It isn’t a matter of throwing bath water out but keeping the baby, it is more like trying to remove a pound of flesh but not spilling a drop of blood.

To paraphrase what I’m hearing you saying, what I’m hearing is essentially…

“The Scripture is absolutely true, and reveals absolute , inspired, revelatory truth about God as he revealed specifically about himself about his very nature… except for all those vast and numerous parts that I disagree with…?”

I don’t mean to sound accusatory or antagonistic, but unless I misunderstand, this seems to be essentially what you are saying? Please help me if I misunderstand?

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@Daniel_Fisher Mr Fisher, thanks for your considered discussion. I do think that God is bigger than the Bible; I also would like to perhaps give you a more positive response rather than a negative “God didn’t do evil.”

My schedule may clear up a bit toward the weekend, but it’s very tight this week, unfortunately. I think that Greg Boyd’s “Cross Vision” was helpful in my experience, with his “Benefit of the Doubt.” Home | Anabaptist World

Also, re punishing: George Macdonald’s impression of corrective punishment is perhaps more severe; I have listened again to “Great Divorce” in which Lewis incorporates this view strongly, and am nearly ready to post on it; it’s very deep, however, and would like to do that in installments, perhaps.

God bless.

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Hi All,
Does anyone know where I can get a comprehensive summary of all the biblical source material for each book of the Bible? Something showing the earliest fragment that exists for each phrase?

Thanks Shawn

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“Evidence That Demands a Verdict” by McDowell and son is actually a fairly exhaustive source as I recall. It probably is not detailed at all like the one below.

I would admit it’s not about every phrase, but it would give you a direction about which sources are available, from a conservative standpoint. I do think it’s a good book.

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Very interesting question.

For the Greek NT this site has several links to information, but probably not in the format you requested.
http://www.viceregency.com/TextCrit.htm

The field of textural criticism for the OT and NT is probably too large to be reduced to a simple list.

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I like how one commentator, I have forgotten who, put it. He said it was to show that the Kingdom is an “inaugurated but still contested” kingdom. That’s a nice twist on “already but not yet” and perfectly captures our pre-Eschaton reality.

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I’d perhaps consider that the violence demonstrated in this parable was a one off, contradicted by the rest of the gospels, if it weren’t for the numerous other parables (and plain statements) that end with something similar. This one is perhaps the most striking, but so many other statements and parables end with something similar (“bind him hand and feet and cast him into the darkness…” “depart from me into the everlasting fire…”) that i simply can’t see this one as being “outside the pattern.”

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Randy, thanks for sharing that summary. I spent much of one semester researching this topic, and like you I found no shortage of unsatisfying solutions. Those who seem to fully recognize the problem (and don’t just view it as a gotcha raised by New Atheists or weak Christians) tend to have fewer suggested solutions.

Conservative scholars are in a tough place, since they’ve been drawn into fighting this battle on two fronts. They have long upheld Joshua as straightforward eyewitness testimony of historical events. A lot of energy has gone into contradicting the scholarly consensus that archaeology invalidates a face-value reading and that Joshua was compiled several centuries after the period in which its stories are set. In the last few decades, they have started fighting on another front to reject claims that God acts badly in these texts. The problem is that most progress on the second front is a retreat on the first front – and vice versa.

Anyway, that semester of research led to a paper (“When God Sees Red”) that attempted to offer a positive way forward instead of just critiquing other views. It’s been linked here before and is easily googlable. My general conclusion: Israel emerged in Canaan without a violent conquest. Exiled Israelites later compiled books like Deuteronomy and Joshua to speak prophetically to their own situation, not give history lessons about details they didn’t know.

I’m thankful my other class that semester was on Matthew (I was a part-time student with only two classes). Without Matthew’s creative approach to Scripture, I doubt I would have seen a way forward. The conquest accounts challenged how I approached Scripture more than anything I had faced from creation topics.

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I know this was addressed to Randy, but I can’t help but interject.

I would put it rather that…

“God is absolutely true and just and loving.”

And that the greater violence is done to the sacred writ by departing from that … ( the situation with Job’s friends notwithstanding) … And from that latter afterthought we see that even this view is not left undisturbed by all the narratives.

We can talk all day about the bleak, apparent endings (for some) at the end of Jesus’ parables, but at the end of the day, we’re left looking at what he actually did.

[…and lived. He reached out to the worst. And told the elites that the prostitutes and tax collectors are entering the kingdom of God ahead of them. The last shall be first and the first shall … (never get in at all? …ever?!) … Jesus didn’t quite teach it that way as I recall, though there are those who would prefer his words that way, I guess.]

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Thank you. I appreciate having someone else post who has struggled through this more thoroughly than I.

I think I even saw part of your paper posted somewhere. It was very good.

I am intrigued by your mention of the creative approach of Matthew. I never thought of it that way. Till now, it’s been one of my biggest discouragements–to see how the NT uses the OT unfaithfully (as Enns says, we would get a bad grade if we twisted meanings out of the text like the Second Temple folks did; though he speaks approvingly of it).

It seems to me that it’s an evidence of the NT authors’ lack of honesty; and also, weakly, would imply that they were not confident enough in what they saw (though as Enns says, it was the way of explaining things that was typical of the time; so it was relevant to the NT crowd). My own responsse, as a 21st century Christian, is that I accept the story; don’t rest it on a false leg that gives way when I rest on it. However, can you clarify how you found Matthew helpful?

Thanks.

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Why would you take such ambitious appropriations of Old Testament passages as discouraging? I’m pretty sure Enns’ point wasn’t to lambast New Testament authors for getting things wrong, but to show us instead how they were free to wrestle with and co-opt the living scriptures that they had. He (Enns) is asking us why we let that go? Why is it now that we deem ourselves to be the authorities who get to establish once and for all the one and only right way a prophet’s words can be used for all time? That is a particular conceit that scriptural “decoders” today have bestowed on themselves that it all now needs to be nailed down on their own modern terms. In short, they haven’t honored or venerated scriptures (despite their protestations to the contrary). They have honored and venerated themselves and their own traditions and era as the measuring stick for all time.

I may have put a lot of words in Enns’ mouth there, but I’ll venture that he probably wrote, if not that, then something nearly like it.

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Well, he sort of did–but I don’t really get the point; frequently we were told (as in McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict"; inasmuch as his listing of the old papyri was good, this part was a bit concerning) that the burden of proof from prophecies was so great that the chances of all of them coming to fruition in someone other than Jesus, or it not being Jesus they talked about, would be greater than searching all over Texas for a single silver dollar in a pile of them a foot deep–or something like that. To use the figure types in the OT as prophecies is not a true proof, and that somewhat discouraging to find out that Isaiah didn’t really write about Christ–he was writing about someone that they would all recognize as a king, not a son of God; and that the lamb to the slaughter was Israel. It’s frustrating to be asked to accept a story based on inaccurate proof.

Enns said it was OK to do that; and in his most recent book, he said that like Second Temple Judaism, we are always using the Bible as a book that was written for us, but not to us–to adapt it to our own needs.

We have to be careful not to use it disingenuously; I’m concerned that my own tradition, which does typically rely on it as proof, sets us up for disappointment.

I do accept Christ and the resurrection; I don’t think that the vehicles of his announcement were perfect. :slight_smile:

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Indeed. And if Enns was asking anybody to do that, then I guess I part company with him (or with that particular thought anyway). I’m reading through Isaiah right now, and yes - it is amazing how well much of it fits a Christocentric reading - but not perfectly so. I can’t site the verses right now, but there are some that struck me as not fitting with Christ as we meet him in the gospels - at least not without interpretive gymnastics (which are never in short supply it seems). So these retro-fitted “probability games” are (I suggest) a weak apologetic. They may get somebody to consider things more deeply in an early season of their faith, but that stepping stone is hardly an adequate foundation on which to build a faith, and they had best get transplanted onto a more substantial foundation if they wish to grow … like maybe …Christ? Just sayin.

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I’m so sorry–no, Enns was actually much more truthful in his books (The Bible Tells Me So, etc) in showing that it’s based on imagination; he observes that the Second Temple folks used the adaptation that way, but doesn’t say it’s accurate. Rather, McDowell did; and some in my own Baptist tradition have done so, as well. I’m just afraid that my own kids could wind up mistaking things that way and then be disappointed.

I do agree with some previous posts that I think you (and Enns) have written-that the Bible is a place where men wrestle with God. We ask him why things happen; that’s why Ecclesiastes has become one of Enns’ (and my) favorite books (though I recall how much I disliked and wondered at it as a teen) My father told me it was a normal struggle that we go through in learning about the world–how true that turns out to be!

So, Enns was very truthful; I think that he is actually one of those who helps young folks lay down a more firm foundation by allowing the doubt to be dealt with honestly. Thanks.

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In the course of my referring back to Isaiah in the last few minutes to see if I could easily lay eyes on a passage or two that were on the edge of memory … I was reminded of this familiar passage from Isaiah 53: " … upon him was the punishment that made us whole, … and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. … By a perversion of justice he was taken away. … Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain."

I wonder what Macdonald’s response was to passages like those? He certainly saw the “perversion of justice” part - but the bald attribution of it all to God was a kind of chutzpah that, since old testament times or since Christ himself, we haven’t seem much exhibited among ourselves today. If I was @Daniel_Fisher, that sure is the kind of stuff I would be throwing in my face (not that you are lacking for material or needing any help in that regard, Daniel). Just being honest that I have my own hangups and unresolved views (and perhaps some scriptural gymnastics) that I seem obliged to do. Better go stretch out.

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Enns would say (and if you go to Aish.com, a Hebrew site, they do too) that this was all about Israel’s experience as a suffering servant, and coming to terms with their treatment; and had nothing to do with the Messiah. --so that “he” and “him” was Israel, as I recall (Inspiration and Incarnation, I believe, is the book). You probably know more about that than I; but good discussion!

I’m off to bed; thank you for your insight! I do want to know what George Macdonald would do :).

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