I’ve heard many people before claim that the Old Testament condones atrocities such as Murder, Rape, Slavery, Genocide, etc. I’ve struggled with understanding whether the OT really Condones it or not. People here seem to have more knowledge than me about the bible, so I’m bringing my question here. Does the Bible really condone all sorts of vile atrocious stuff like I mentioned above?
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You know it does Rave. Nobody can know that it doesn’t. You’re just being polite because you know that most people here justify the God of that OT and, being a decent, humble, civilized person, you think you must be missing something. That anyone here knows something you don’t. They don’t. Many know less. It’s what you know in your moral development. Your heart Rave. You know at least as much as anybody here. So don’t be afraid to use your head. It’s what God wants.
The bible neither condones nor condemns, it simply reports it and claims either blessings or curses from God. The bible is also ambiguous inasmuch as it assigns actions to God on one hand and then God is seen to condemn similar actions elsewhere.
Thou shalt not kill…
except in war? justice? criminality? touching the Ark of the covenant? (even if the intentions were honourable), because the Pharoah refuses to let Israel go free? (innocents?)
We are broaching on judging God and/or the bible. Biblical ethics is a very complex discipline, and not one that can easily be explained or justified in a few pages let alone a few words.
Perhaps if you give a few examples we might be able to discuss particulars?
Richard
Sometimes God actually orders the atrocious behavior.
In the OT the rapist is condemned to death, but then so was adultery. The difficulty with rape has always been proof. How do you know it was rape rather than adultery? And the means used in the OT for determining this is rather primitive. If they were in the city where people could hear the woman cry out then it was considered adultery but if it was out in open country with nobody to hear her cry out then it was considered rape.
You have a passage in the Bible where God commanded rape?
Does the bible say “God said…” or, “God commanded…” or does the bible just attribute the action to following God?
The only words in the bible that are God’s specifically are the ones that state they are His through a prophet (or Jesus) The words in Genesis 3-4, for instance are given to God, not from God. (I hope you understand the difference)
And which exact actions are you judging as atrocious? as opposed to justifiable or responsive?
Please forgive any hint of aggression or assertion.
Richard
No, and I never said such a passage exists. You’re imagining things
Did God give the Law to Moses?
Tremper Longman handles this subject about as well as I’ve seen any Christian do.
Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions about Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence Amazon.com
See chapter 3 on divine violence.
There’s also this lecture he gave on God as a warrior, which is where I first got introduced to him, and it got me to buy the book.
That is actually a good question. The time period involved would imply that Moses had enough time to chisel the tablets himself.(Making him the finger of God) How God communicated with him is not admitted but the luminescence of his face implies some sort of supernatural encounter.
The expansion of the law in Leviticus, and numbers is clearly Pharisaic in nature. Again, how much is actually direct from God is unclear. Deuteronomy is traditionally the scroll “Found” by Josiah. (probably written in private by scribes)
Does it matter to you?
Richard
Let’s try again. Is the law of Moses (aka the Torah) part of the Hebrew Scriptures and do you accept them as the inspired word of God?
I never said you said such a thing. You’re imagining things.
I tried hunting for such a passage and couldn’t find one so with what you said I thought I would ask if you had one. So… I cannot know for sure yet, but perhaps there is no such passage in the Bible.
With what I found in Deuteronomy, I am not seeing any condoning of rape in the Bible. There is just the long standing difficulties with defining it and proving it.
That’s a God who at least keeps his word lol. He says hes fine with these attrocities and won’t do anything about it so he let’s the people commit them. Fair enough if you ask me.
He is also just though so don’t look at only his “bad” attributes. Eye for an eye remember?
In a sense God says "Well I won’t do nothing to prevent you from doing this. But if you go ahead and do it well I’ll allow retaliation which is fair to m
At least that version of God actually keeps true to
his word. Unlike you know the “turn the other cheek” pacifist “don’t seek revenge” bs.
Are you an agnostic anti-theist Jew and descendant of the Jews who received the Torah at Sinai? or perhaps you’re an agnostic anti-theist former convert to Judaism? or are you just a confused agnostic anti-theistic ex-christian who never got your theology and the scripture straight to begin with?
@Ravetastic, at least, says he gets his strange ideas about what the Old Testament condones from many confused anti-theists and claims to have “struggled with understanding whether the Old Testament condones atrocities”; which I seriously doubt. I’ve never seen you claiming that you got your anti-theistic opinions from the claims of many other people. You make them up yourself.
People who “really struggle” with the Old Testament struggle to find its relevance in their lives; like the Jews who were carried off into captivity or concentration camps or the early Christians who were physically persecuted by non-Christians.
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Just what atrocious behavior do you believe He has ordered you to commit?
God is not a warrior. That is us projecting our Bronze Age morality on Him.
God is a social justice warrior, a peace warrior and we are His arms.
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Please make it stop. You are kidding right?
I really have no idea what you are driving at. Are you accusing me of ignoring all Scripture that does not match my beliefs?
Of course the Law of Moses is part of the Torah!
Now we are getting somewhere. What is your definition of
Inspired Word of God?
Do you think “inspired” makes it something more accurate or infallible?
Inspired means encouraged. it does not mean dictated.
Furthermore, not all Scripture carries the same theological weight. Some of it is poetry hymnody and (human) wisdom.(Inspired probably) The history is redacted and theologically guided. Epistles are letters written by a human with all his personal beliefs intact.
Unless it is preceded by “this is what the Lord your God says” or something similar, they are not dictated by God.
Richard
PS you’ll get more converts starting from where people are than by forcing them to believe what you do.
We are kings of projection, ie. the historical Jesus. And when pressed we will not settle the question of whether God is, is not, or is yet to be.
That’s not the real question here. I’m assuming that you’re a Christian(forgive me if I’m wrong) therefore what you’re really want to know is how come can we claim Christianity as Religion of Love with all the bad stuff in the Bible? How can we claim God to be good? Are anti theists right in using biblical atrocities as their arguments? Did Bible cause slavery and is it upholding racism(this one seems to be popular on social media)?
I don’t claim to have answer to any of these questions, but IMO that’s what we should be concentrating on, rather than trying to make out the bad stuff isn’t really there.
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