It's Iimi!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article V): God and His Law

Preliminary Notes

[Profanity, Blasphemy and personal attacks will get the poster banned without warning. If you wish to disagree with the article, please be civil and respectful in doing so.]

[This article, at 7630 words is far longer than I prefer, but I decided to wrap it up here lest someone think I was seeking to avoid the accusations of genocide and slavery by continually pushing them back. I don’t guarantee this article will answer all objections, but I do hope it will demonstrate that some accusations against Christians will be shown to be missing the point.]

Introduction

There is an article which circulates around the email pages which mocks Dr. Laura (though it had gone through a redraft as a letter to President Bush to attack Christians) and her call for Biblical values. Snopes, in a rather partisan and personal attack, describes it as: “Letter to Dr. Laura highlights fallacy in a particular anti-homosexual argument.” There are many fallacies… but from Snopes. There are Ad hominems about past indiscretions (what she did in the past has no bearing on whether what she says is true), the fallacy of equivocation over what is meant by the term “Biblical values”, and the straw man fallacy about what Dr. Laura was intending to say, false dilemma and so on. The author really ought to have been embarrassed to put her name on this.

So, what is the point of this mentioning of an e-mail spam and commentary? Ultimately, the error Snopes makes is similar to one which many fundamentalists and many atheists make about the Law in the Bible: That the Bible is to be interpreted in a literalistic sense in English and through modern standards by the reader without consideration of the original language or culture or theology. It concludes that just as people do not follow certain dietary laws today, they ought not to follow the moral law either.

The problem is: it makes no sense whatsoever to interpret personally by today’s standards a work which was written some three thousand years ago… this is interpreting out of context and this is what most of these attacks do. One needs to understand the purpose of the teaching and not merely pick out verses to make an appeal to emotion.

We Need to Understand the Christian View of the Torah.

Now I cannot speak for how the modern Jew interprets the Torah. In rejecting Jesus as Messiah, they obviously have a different view of the purpose of the Law than a Christian does. Therefore the reader who wants to know how the Jews today understand the commands in the Law would have to consult with the Jews to understand their perspective.

However, to accuse Christians of “pick-and-choose” hypocrisy without understanding what they understand about what the Law’s purpose was in relation to Christ is rather foolish indeed. We believe that Christ came as a fulfillment of the Law, and prior to his coming, God gradually prepared the nations for the acceptance of the message they could not have understood at the time of the revelations to Abraham.

Therefore, when Christians give a defense of their view of the Scripture, they are not “explaining away” the difficult verses. Rather, we are expressing our faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who fulfills the Law and the Prophets. We trust that, in the revelations of Christ, we know that God is not a merciless judge. Rather, He is a loving Father who seeks what is best for us, and deals with us according to our ability to know the truth.

Recapitulation Revisited

I mentioned in Article III, the idea of recapitulation indicates the Jewish Law was a preparation for the fullness of Christ. The person who condemns the Law generally does so by assuming that the Christian believer, if in power, would enact the Torah much as certain radical Muslims would prefer to enact the Sharia law. This betrays an ignorance of the Scriptures and the Christian understanding of them, and we should start with a look in Matthew 5:

¹⁷“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. ¹⁸For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

²¹“You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.

This verse has often been cited out of context to say Jesus has said Christians need to obey the Jewish Law to the letter. We then stand accused of hypocrisy and picking and choosing. However, such a claim demonstrates a misunderstanding of how Christians understand this teaching. A footnote for 5:17 in the New American Bible tells us:

To fulfill the law appears at first to mean a literal enforcement of the law in the least detail: until heaven and earth pass away nothing of the law will pass (Matthew 5:18). Yet the “passing away” of heaven and earth is not necessarily the end of the world understood, as in much apocalyptic literature, as the dissolution of the existing universe. The “turning of the ages” comes with the apocalyptic event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and those to whom this gospel is addressed are living in the new and final age, prophesied by Isaiah as the time of “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22). Meanwhile, during Jesus’ ministry when the kingdom is already breaking in, his mission remains within the framework of the law, though with significant anticipation of the age to come, as the following antitheses (Matthew 5:21–48) show.

See how this Christian understanding is quite different from the view of the personal interpretation of a literalistic reading of the Scriptures without context? When Christ fulfills the Law, the reason for the Law will have been met, and the Law will pass away… not to licentiousness and self gratification, but to an even stronger demand for holiness which governs even the internal person and not just the outward observance of commands.

Elements of the Law which have been misunderstood become clear: not only is committing murder wrong, but also hating one’s brother is evil. A legalistic reading of the Law, which permits all sorts of injustice, will pass away in the face of Christ’s teaching and fulfillment of the Law.

Given that Christians understand all people are brethren in Christ, we are not to behave wickedly to anyone.

This is not a modern day attempt to explain away “inconvenient” Bible verses. St. John Chrysostom (AD 347-407) has said about fulfilling the Law in His Sermo XVI on Matthew:

And how, one may ask, did He not destroy it [The Law]? In what way did He rather fulfill either the law or the prophets? The prophets He fulfilled, inasmuch as He confirmed by His actions all that had been said concerning Him; wherefore also the evangelist used to say in each case, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” Both when He was born,and when the children sung that wondrous hymn to Him, and when He sat on the ass, and in very many more instances He worked this same fulfillment: all which things must have been unfulfilled, if He had not come.

But the law He fulfilled, not in one way only, but in a second and third also. In one way, by transgressing none of the precepts of the law. For that He did fulfill it all, hear what He saith to John, “For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” And to the Jews also He said, “Which of you convinceth me of sin.” And to His disciples again, “The prince of this world cometh, and findeth nothing in me.” And the prophet too from the first had said that “He did no sin.”

This then was one sense in which He fulfilled it. Another, that He did the same through us also; for this is the marvel, that He not only Himself fulfilled it, but He granted this to us likewise. Which thing Paul also declaring said, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” And he said also, that “He judged sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh.” And again, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! yea, we establish the law.” For since the law was laboring at this, to make man righteous, but had not power, He came and brought in the way of righteousness by faith, and so established that which the law desired: and what the law could not by letters, this He accomplished by faith. On this account He saith, “I am not come to destroy the law.”

But if any one will inquire accurately, he will find also another, a third sense, in which this hath been done. Of what sort is it then? In the sense of that future code of laws, which He was about to deliver to them.

For His sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out, and filling up of them. Thus, “not to kill,” is not annulled by the saying, Be not angry, but rather is filled up and put in greater security: and so of all the others.

This point must be understood. Christians (unless they are unfaithful to Christ) do not pick and choose the parts of the Bible we want to follow. We follow the teachings of God as He intends them to be followed. Christ’s teaching is the lens through which Christians look at the Old Testament because He fulfills this Testament.

Revisiting the Understanding of the Brutal Times

I do not bring this up to claim “moral relativism.” However I believe that when God speaks to us, we need to remember this does not happen in a vacuum. He must speak to us through the cultural clutter which is in our society. This doesn’t mean that God’s message is relevant only for the time He speaks in of course, but if He speaks to a time 3000-4000 years in the past, we must be aware of the fact that people once accepted things we know to be wrong, and God had to gradually move us from this sinful understanding.

God speaks to us in history, not in the legendary past. He speaks to us in our fallen state, not in the state we were in before original sin. He speaks to people of all walks of life, not just philosophers and theologians. When God spoke to Abraham, we have a society which had been sinning against God for a long time indeed, and many of these sins had become institutions around the world. Brutal conquests with bitter aftermaths, practices of cruel depravity and so on, were widely practiced from Europe to Asia, and in the Americas. We fall into error if we forget this.

If a person thinks that the Ancient World, before the Jews and Christians appeared, was a time of peace and tolerance and justice, that person knows nothing about the history of the ancient world.

Some of these acts were so wicked (Sins which cry out to God for judgment) they could never be condoned at any time. The Catechism tells us of some of these:

1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are "sins that cry to heaven": the blood of Abel,¹³⁹ the sin of the Sodomites,¹⁴⁰ the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,¹⁴¹ the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,¹⁴² injustice to the wage earner.¹⁴³

Other sins were still wrong in the eyes of God, but because they were so ingrained into society and not as readily apparent as others, it would take many generations of placing restrictions before society could come to the understanding it was wrong. Some other acts could be right in certain contexts, but wrong in another.

Societies once commonly practiced all sorts of actions in war which would be considered war crimes today… yet none were seen as wrong practices then. Societies saw nothing wrong with pillage and rape against one’s enemies though this would be condemned if practiced against one’s own people.

We need to remember this is the world which God set out to save: The Bible did not order the taking of slaves or extermination on a whim. The Law, in fact, placed the first restrictions on this kind of behavior, with condemnations for behaving as the neighboring nations did.

With these points in mind, we can move on perhaps to look at some of the more troublesome laws in the Old Testament.

Issue I: A Look at Slavery

A Caveat

I am NOT writing to defend slavery here. Don’t get the impression that I am calling slavery good or justified. I am a part of a religious tradition which teaches all people are children of God and are to be treated as such. I do indeed find it tragic that past generations saw nothing wrong with the practice. However, I also believe that the proper understanding of the nature of slavery is needed to avoid making errors out of ignorance. To assume, for example, that all slavery was of the type the Pre-Civil War America used would be quite wrong and lead one to condemn all slaveholders for conditions which did not apply in all times in history and make a general assumption of all Christians on account of a few. A slave owning society should be judged for what they did and not for what another slave owning society did.

A General Look at Slavery

You may be a fundamentalist atheist if… You believe that when our forefathers are framing the Constitution, they're staunch deists, but when they're beating their slaves, they're Bible-believing Christians.

– From “You may Be a fundamentalist atheist if…”

Slavery is often viewed as a Jewish/Christian institution, where the worst and most dehumanizing aspects of the practice were assumed to have been instituted by Jews or Christians. This would be an error. Slavery existed before the Torah was pronounced by God, and even before God spoke to Abraham.

Slavery was actually an institution held in most of the ancient world. Before Abraham left Ur, slaves were a part of life. Laws about them appear in the Code of Hammurabi for example. The ancient Greeks and Romans and Babylonians and Egyptians all had rules concerning slaves. Some were slaves who were captives in wars. Some were slaves as a penalty for breaking the law. We don’t really see at this time however that any person who was from society X was viewed as a slave automatically. Certain societies may have been oppressed more because they were weaker, but we don’t really see the racial slavery prevalent in the American South.

Slavery differed in practice in different regions of the ancient world, and differed in how it was practiced in different times. For example, we should realize that by ancient standards, the modern practice of prison labor would be considered slavery, though we don’t often call it that today.

A failure to realize this point is to make a mistake about the slavery which was mentioned in the Bible.

Was Slavery a Judaeo-Christian Invention?

In America, slavery is a rather sensitive issue. We have a shameful legacy of racial slavery in this nation which considered the African-American to be less than fully human and good only to be enslaved. Often, we assume all slavery was of this type and forget that it was a type of slavery which only appeared in the west during the mid 15^th century, which the Church denounced as soon as it began to be practiced again (beginning with Pope Eugenius IV in 1435).

One of the post hoc fallacies which condemn Christianity runs along the lines of “America was founded by Christians. Americans kept slaves. Therefore Christianity is to blame for slavery. This overlooks the fact that Christians can fail to carry out the Christian message. It also forgets that Christians were also the ones who opposed slavery. Some Christians invoked the Bible to justify their own actions yes. That doesn’t mean Christians accepted slavery. We need to remember that all too often, Christian teaching was subverted by culture in certain regions (which is to be condemned), and even today self proclaimed Catholics (such as Pelosi) promote policies condemned by the Church.

What Does the Bible Say About Slaves?

We see that the Torah had rules about keeping slaves. I have certainly seen some objections that: if God thought slavery was wrong, then why did He not forbid slavery?

I think we need to make a distinction here between the acts of most of the world, which had some pretty harsh rules about slaves, and the Torah of the Israelites which put some pretty strict restrictions on the keeping and treatment of slaves. As I mentioned earlier with recapitulation, it may be necessary to gradually change a society by putting on restrictions a little at a time. If slaves were enslaved because they were felons for example, what is the result of just letting them go? If slaves were totally dependent on their masters, what was the result of suddenly casting them loose? Given the Middle East at this time assumed slavery as a general part of life, the sudden abolition of slavery could have been extremely disruptive and work against the ultimate preparation of the salvation for Gentiles and Jews both.

With this in mind, we can look at what the Bible says about slaves. There were rules considering the Hebrew who, due to financial hardship, would enter into a temporary state of servitude. There were also rules considering the non-Hebrew slaves.

In Exodus 21, we see that among the Hebrews, slavery was a limited thing, and normally employed when a person sold himself for a time (though a sentence for a crime was also an option). They could be a slave for six years, but on the seventh (with the exception of one who voluntarily chose to remain in perpetual bondage), they must be set free. A slave could not be sold to a foreign people. Now if a slave married a wife prior to slavery, the wife and children went free with him. However, if the master gave the slave a wife, the wife remained a slave.

This seems harsh if we think other cultures were as "enlightened" as 21st Century America. However, in comparison to societies around the Israelites, this was a radical restriction.

Slaves were not to be forced to work on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10), and could not be mistreated. Exodus 21:26-27 tells us that a slave who was struck and suffered a permanent injury was to be freed. This indicates a radical restriction compared to other cultures, in that the slave was not the mere property of the owner, but had some human rights.

One interesting contrast to other societies is that the treatment of runaway slaves. For example, the Code of Hammurabi mandated the death penalty for the harboring of a fugitive slave, saying in #19:

If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death.

In contrast, Deuteronomy 23 tells us:

¹⁵“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you; ¹⁶he shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place which he shall choose within one of your towns, where it pleases him best; you shall not oppress him.

So we do see a difference in how the slave was viewed. This law shows us the recognition that sometimes the slave had a need to run away because of cruelty or saving one's life, and the Israelites were not to send a one back to his owner but was to permit him to live among them.

Compared to societies where the slave was under the complete domination of the master, the Israelite was forbidden to treat their slaves in an abusive way (a slave owner could be punished if he mistreated a slave so he died).

Leviticus 25:44ff is probably the most uncomfortable section on slavery, because depending on how one interprets it, one might consider it a divine sanction for slavery. Now it is true that the chapter seems to make a distinction between Jews in slavery and slaves from other peoples, but the question is whether this is a command or a concession.

A command is where one is ordered to do something or not do something. A concession is permission to do or not do a thing. What we see is essentially the Torah did not forbid the keeping of slaves. Rather it made commands regarded how a slave was treated in the already existing institution of slavery.

One thing we need to remember was that Israel was to be a holy nation, and those of the nations around Israel were pagans and practicing pagan customs which were condemned as evil. This helps distinguish the difference in treatment of the Israelite and the foreigner. From this sense, we can see the idea that slavery of foreign peoples was not done from xenophobia or racial hatred, especially as condemnations of mistreating slaves applied to all slaves.

If Israel was at war, and the people made peace, then enslavement was not allowed (though the nations would be subjugated and take part in certain works of labor). The taking of slaves in war seemed to be limited to conditions when battles were actually fought and peace did not come to be. So what we seem to have here is not a mandate to take slaves, but rather, we have a part of the rules for conflicts (Deuteronomy 20:10-20) and how captives were to be treated was a part of this rule.

Does the Lack of a Commandment against Slavery Mean Slavery was Good?

It does not logically follow that laws which put restrictions on slaves but did not abolish slavery means God approved of slavery. Ultimately, the complaint of atheists seems to be that God should have forbade slavery if He was really good.

The logical form seems to be:

1. If God is [Good], He would have [forbade slavery] (If [A] then [B])

2. He did not [forbid slavery] (Not [B])

3. Therefore God is not [good]. (Therefore Not [A])

It is logically valid in this form (though often the argument is often expressed in the logically invalid ways of Affirming the Consequent or Denying the Antecedent). There is a problem however with the assumption the argument makes. If God tolerates and limits an evil without forbidding it directly (with the intention of leading humanity to where they understand it is wrong), then we have a condition where one can be good and still not meet the conditions of the one presuming to judge God and His intentions.

This is the ultimate problem with the main premise. The lack of the motive prevents us from saying “God is not good because He did not do this.” For example, if I see one man shoot another man, am I right in condemning the shooter? I would be wrong if it turned out the shooter acted in self defense.

Now, this does not mean that slavery was ever good. There are certainly many things which were tolerated because of the hardness of hearts (see Matthew 19:7 and divorce for example). Certainly it would be better if people some 3000+ years ago were less violent in society, but they did not understand… indeed the whole purpose of Scripture is about God bringing man to salvation from his sins. This is not done by mere external observance, but in the heart. God had to gradually bring them to where they could understand. Christians, understanding recapitulation, are not guilty of “picking and choosing” or “defending slavery.” Rather they seek to understand the Scriptures in proper context.

So the accusation of God being evil, because He did not make the banning of slavery one of the Ten Commandments, is a charge which lacks the evidence and motive. God is not acting in history to create a perfect human society. Rather He is acting to bring all people to salvation, converting their hearts to change the way they treat their fellow man.

Issue II: The Law and Genocide

genocide

■ n. the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.

– Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A. (2004). Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

– Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Does the God who commands "Thou shalt not kill" contradict Himself and order the mass slaughter of anyone else who disagrees? Some of the challenges of certain atheists show that certain practices of 3000+ years ago shock us. Now while some atheists may ask out of malice, others may indeed be sincere, being deeply troubled by what they cannot reconcile and seem to be in conflict.

I cannot promise I will succeed in answering (or even addressing) all the issues on this topic, I do believe the question to be valid and I hope to at least give a Christian answer to the question "How can you think this is a good God?"

Considering the Concerns of the Troubled Reader of Scripture

This is, perhaps, the most difficult and scandal causing accusation of course. These are the sections of the Bible where God commands total war (called ḥērem or the ban) against some of the nations of the chosen land delivered to the Israelites. This does shock the modern reader who can think of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist today and wonder if the God we believe in could command us at any time to exterminate our neighbors.

What Are The Assumptions? Why They Should Be Recognized.

One of the problems in the assumptions which are held by certain people who condemn the Bible is that we tend to think of the societies of the pagan Middle East then as being cosmopolitan and liberal as America is today. We then envision some group of religious zealots coming from out of nowhere killing Americans arbitrarily for nothing more than perhaps being a little "sexually liberated" and practicing different religions. A lot of the "Religion is intolerant" charges come from this sort of thinking.

This view however seems to overlook the fact that these societies were not like cosmopolitan liberal America. They practiced some rather barbaric things. One of the most horrific is the example of human sacrifice, usually of children. The Canaanites, the Carthaginians, the Phoenicians… they all tended to sacrifice infants. City states often raided for profit, slaves and the like. The losers could expect that those not taken as slaves could be killed. It’s not a time I would want to have lived in.

With this in mind, we need to remember that what we have here is a culture which existed in these conditions and took part in these activities. The judgment of God against these city-states is not something we Christians are lying in wait to carry out against our fellow Americans. They were carried out against specifically named nations that practiced things which, if they were done today, would be on the front pages under banner headlines like MAN MURDERS CHILD IN BIZARRE RITUAL!

Looking at Commands of God

Unlike the topics in Article II, where we can say that men behaved evilly, Christians cannot use this defense here. Since we hold God is perfect and good, and we believe the Bible does not err, we must explain how a good God could give orders which seem so horrific today.

I believe, when we look at the commands of God on this topic, we need to recognize two aspects:

That God commanded the Israelites to act as His agents of judgment in limited circumstances (He didn't command this with every people, but only with certain cities which were condemned for wicked practices).
In other circumstances, God commands, by giving limitations to the cultural conduct of the region, with the view of guiding the people away from the evils done.

Why are these aspects important? Because it distinguishes the actions of Israel being the instrument of Divine Punishment from the actions which Israel undertook on their own that were restricted.

Understanding What Was Commanded

We need to recognize that this was not a call to exterminate all unbelievers, Allahu akhbar, in the Middle East. It was not a call to forcibly convert all people (Judaism does relatively little converting from the outside). Certainly forms of this wickedness could be found elsewhere (German tribes, Aztecs and the druids would later practice some human sacrifice for example, though we don’t seem to see the depravity that existed in these civilizations mentioned in the Bible). This was a command to cleanse the land God chose to make Holy from all the reprehensible practices within it.

The commands begin in Deuteronomy 7, where we see what God commands:

¹“When the LORD, your God, brings you into the land which you are to enter and occupy, and dislodges great nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites: seven nations more numerous and powerful than you—

²and when the LORD, your God, delivers them up to you and you defeat them, you shall doom them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.

³You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons.

⁴For they would turn your sons from following me to serving other gods, and then the wrath of the LORD would flare up against you and quickly destroy you.

⁵ “But this is how you must deal with them: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their sacred poles, and destroy their idols by fire.

⁶For you are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own.

What is interesting in what is commanded is the word which is translated as “doom” or “destroy.”

The Concept of Ḥērem

The word used for doom or destroy (depending on the translation used) is in fact [הַחֲרֵ֣ם] (ḥērem, sometimes spelled charam), which has several meanings: ban, devote, exterminate, excommunicate. This may seem to be vastly contradictory, but that is because of the mindset of not understanding the concept behind the word.

The Anchor Bible Dictionary (hereafter referred to as the ABD) speaks of ḥērem as follows:

A special form of dedication is Heb ḥērem, “severe dedication; ban.” This is found mainly in contexts of war (Josh 6:17–21; 8:26; 10:1, 28, 35, 37, 39, 40; 11:11, 12, 20, 21; etc.) but may apply to one’s own property (cf. Lev 27:28, “field of one’s inheritance”; cf. v 21). Things placed under ḥērem include persons, their buildings, animals, precious objects and metals, and land. Objects, animals, and land so dedicated would be destroyed or become sanctuary property to be used by the priests (Num 18:14; Josh 6:19, 24; Ezek 44:29). Humans would be put to death (Lev 27:29). As with regular dedication, ḥērem can take the form of an unconditional declaration or a vow (Num 21:2–3).

—Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). ABD (3:244). New York: Doubleday.

Now I’m not bringing this up to play word games and claim that everyone was in error in thinking meaning ‘A’ when really meaning ‘B’ was meant. However, understanding what ḥērem means is important to understand what God commands. Consider Leviticus 27:

²⁸“Note, also, that any one of his possessions which a man vows as doomed to the LORD, whether it is a human being or an animal or a hereditary field, shall be neither sold nor ransomed; everything that is thus doomed becomes most sacred to the LORD.

“Doomed” is ḥērem and the sense is that what is ḥērem is not to be used for profane purposes

God has made the land of Israel and the people he brought out of Israel ḥērem which means it is sacred and consecrated to Him. Abominable practices are not to be found in the land He made holy and are not to be performed by the people He has made holy. Because of this, the practices which are abhorrent must be driven out of the land. This is not arbitrary. God acts against wickedness, starting in the Land which will be holy.

The ABD tells us:

Child sacrifice, which often is an accompaniment of idolatry, is a cause of pollution (Ezek 20:26, 31; 23:37–39; Ps 106:37–38). Deuteronomy places idolatrous implements under ḥērem (“extreme dedication”) status which means that as the Israelites conquer Canaan they are to destroy the implements (7:5, 25). One who misappropriates idolatrous materials falls under ḥērem status (Deut 7:25–26; cf. Josh 6:18; 7:12; 1 Kgs 20:42). One under this status is liable to death (Lev 27:29; Deut 13:13–19—Eng 13:12–18; Joshua 7). One who sacrifices to other gods also falls under ḥērem status (Exod 22:19).

—Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). ABD (6:734). New York: Doubleday.

It is not denied that these cities within the land God has made Holy to Him are to be destroyed for their abominable practices. The emphasis, of course is on “driving out.” We don’t see a command to destroy those who have fled for example (see Deuteronomy 9 below), but rather the purification of a region from the wicked practices which were limited to the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Ḥērem is concerned with things which are condemned to be destroyed because of their idolatrous opposition to God. If the land of Israel is to be made holy and if the abominations of the inhabitants are to be considered so foul that they must be purged… not looted, then it stands to reason that God could make use of the Israelites to punish these nations just as He made use of the Babylonians to later punish the Israelites.

Ḥērem is Limited

Notice, however that this sentence of ḥērem is not to be applied to all the inhabitants of all nations the Hebrews encounter. Rather they are to be done in a certain context. Under Recapitulation, we understand that God’s act of salvation for the world begins with the people and the land He has chosen. The nations driven out of Israel are driven out because of their wickedness, showing how sin is so contradictory to God and the way we are called to live

This is shown in Deuteronomy 9, we see God speaking of these nations that Israel is to “doom.”

³Understand, then, today that it is the LORD, your God, who will cross over before you as a consuming fire; he it is who will reduce them to nothing and subdue them before you, so that you can drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD promised you.

⁴After the LORD, your God, has thrust them out of your way, do not say to yourselves, ‘It is because of my merits that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’; for it is really because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you.

⁵No, it is not because of your merits or the integrity of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land; but the LORD, your God, is driving these nations out before you on account of their wickedness and in order to keep the promise which he made on oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

⁶Understand this, therefore: it is not because of your merits that the LORD, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

Notice the emphasis on “driving them out” from the lands they held. This is not a case of God saying “always and forever, kill people who are not Jews.” Instead, God is speaking of specific nations in the land He has made holy which were being punished by God. God did not arbitrarily decide to uproot people who were innocent and did no wrong for the benefit of the Hebrews. Rather, these people were to be driven out on account of their wickedness. If they had not practiced this wickedness, they would not have been driven out.

What wickedness? We see this in Deuteronomy 18:

⁹“When you come into the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of the peoples there.

¹⁰Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortune-teller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner,

¹¹or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead.

¹²Anyone who does such things is an abomination to the LORD, and because of such abominations the LORD, your God, is driving these nations out of your way.

Human sacrifice and some rather sickening practices of magicians of these places was why these peoples were not to be allowed to continue practicing their ways after being conquered. Moreover, we need to remember that the people who consulted these magicians took part in the abominations by making them necessary.

Indeed, when we get to Deuteronomy 20, where we see God giving the command with the nations who were to be exterminated, we can see a very interesting thing about Deuteronomy 20:16-18.

¹⁶But in the cities of those nations which the LORD, your God, is giving you as your heritage, you shall not leave a single soul alive.

¹⁷You must doom them all-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD, your God, has commanded you,

¹⁸lest they teach you to make any such abominable offerings as they make to their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD, your God.

This is often interpreted to mean that the Israelites were ordered to slaughter such people wherever they were. This is not so. In those cities in the geographical boundaries of Israel, the culture which did these abominations mentioned in verse 18 (human sacrifice among others) were not to be left standing lest it corrupt the Israelites. However, some of these nations existed outside the boundaries of Israel and the people there were not hunted by the Israelites. For example, the Canaanites existed in Syria and Lebanon, the Hittites lived in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). The Amorites lived in Syria and Arabia. The Jebusites and were ethnically and culturally Hittite. These nations, we can see, existed partially in Israel and partially outside.

I believe I have shown that the actions against these nations were because:

God had decreed this land sacred
These nations practiced abominable things against the Natural Law to an extent that God decreed they were to be punished for their crimes.

Because the task was to clear out a purified land and not to destroy the inhabitants of these other cities of this group of people, the charge of genocide does not follow. The purpose of this was not to inflict harm on a group because of a racial or religious hatred, but to perform the judgment God commands.

Here is a dilemma. If God does not exist in the first place, then the charge cannot be that God is evil. If God exists however, and is Judge, one needs to demonstrate how God behaved unjustly in His actions before the charge of genocide can be directed against God.

Certain Objections at this Point

Usually around here, one comes across the objection “What about the innocent people? They didn’t do anything!” When it comes to the adults, the question can be raised with “What innocent people?”

If we go to Genesis 18:20-33 and look at God’s promise, we can see that God exacts punishment on Sodom and Gomorrah because their wickedness is so great that not even ten just men can be found.

If we consider Ezekiel 18, we see that God does not desire the destruction of the sinner but their salvation. In Genesis 15:16, we see an interesting passage which fits in to the concept of God knowing what the future inhabitants of Israel will do without sanctioning it:

¹⁶In the fourth time-span the others shall come back here; the wickedness of the Amorites will not have reached its full measure until then.”

This doesn’t mean God leaves them to their wickedness and then arbitrarily destroys them. We understand this to mean that they have a period of time to repent, but instead they will not avail themselves of this.

From this, we can see the Amorites will grow in wickedness, but that God tolerates it but does not approve it. Haydock’s commentary says:

…during which period of time, God was pleased to bear with those wicked nations; whose iniquity chiefly consisted in idolatry, oppression of the poor and strangers, forbidden marriages of kindred, and abominable lusts. (Leviticus xviii; Deuteronomy vi. and xii.)

So in such a case we need to consider some things when interpreting Scripture. Christians believe God does not take pleasure in destroying the wicked, but wants the salvation of all. Yet if He does punish the wicked, it stands to reason that those He passes judgment on have received their judgment rightly. A claim which disagrees with this requires evidence to the contrary.

Finally there is the issue of the children. It does indeed seem harsh to us that even children were slain, unless we remember that we believe in eternal life and that God only punishes people with damnation for those sins they are responsible for, not for sins which could not be known by them. Bringing the innocent out of the world, away from a culture which will destroy their souls if God had not punished the city can be understood in this context.

Conclusion: The Unspoken and Unproven Assumptions behind Accusations of an “Evil God”

The person who makes the accusation of the immoral God here, accusing Him of maliciously ordering the infants to be destroyed makes some assumptions here. First, he or she assumes that the inhabitants under ḥērem were innocent (or at least the sins were “minor”) and that the God condemning them was a vicious and intolerant being. Second, the person assumes God was ordering the children punished. Third, the person assumes that the Christian holds to the assumptions the atheist assumes.

Ultimately the accusation of the “evil God” comes from the assumption that sins are unimportant things, and not to be worthy of punishment. Since God punishes sinners in the accounts of Scripture, the act is taken without consideration of motive.

I think I should close this article with a quote from Fr. Thomas Crean O.P.

God is infinite, uncreated goodness. Therefore He has the right to be loved and obeyed unconditionally. This is simply how things are. God can no more abolish His rational creatures’ duty of obedience and love towards Him than He can abolish the laws of mathematics. Sin is a refusal of God’s right to be loved and obeyed. It is a metaphysical monstrosity: a created will trying to raise itself above the Will that created it. God owes it to His own goodness and holiness not to ignore sin, for that would be to allow evil to subject Him to itself. He can forgive sin on condition of repentance, or He can punish it, but He cannot pretend that it is significant, any more than He can cease to be God.

— God is No Delusion, page 124

Christians believe God only punished the guilty when necessary, but seeks the salvation of all when they will turn to Him. The Torah was the beginning of the preparation of a nation to be holy and dedicated to Him, but ultimately the fulfillment of what God intends is in the salvation brought to the whole world in Jesus Christ. Failing to understand this, and accusing Christians of “picking and choosing” is to fail to understand anything at all about Christianity.

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article V): God and His Law

Preliminary Notes

[Profanity, Blasphemy and personal attacks will get the poster banned without warning. If you wish to disagree with the article, please be civil and respectful in doing so.]

Introduction

We Need to Understand the Christian View of the Torah.

Recapitulation Revisited

¹⁷“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. ¹⁸For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

²¹“You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.

Given that Christians understand all people are brethren in Christ, we are not to behave wickedly to anyone.

This is not a modern day attempt to explain away “inconvenient” Bible verses. St. John Chrysostom (AD 347-407) has said about fulfilling the Law in His Sermo XVI on Matthew:

And how, one may ask, did He not destroy it [The Law]? In what way did He rather fulfill either the law or the prophets? The prophets He fulfilled, inasmuch as He confirmed by His actions all that had been said concerning Him; wherefore also the evangelist used to say in each case, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” Both when He was born,and when the children sung that wondrous hymn to Him, and when He sat on the ass, and in very many more instances He worked this same fulfillment: all which things must have been unfulfilled, if He had not come.

But the law He fulfilled, not in one way only, but in a second and third also. In one way, by transgressing none of the precepts of the law. For that He did fulfill it all, hear what He saith to John, “For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” And to the Jews also He said, “Which of you convinceth me of sin.” And to His disciples again, “The prince of this world cometh, and findeth nothing in me.” And the prophet too from the first had said that “He did no sin.”

This then was one sense in which He fulfilled it. Another, that He did the same through us also; for this is the marvel, that He not only Himself fulfilled it, but He granted this to us likewise. Which thing Paul also declaring said, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” And he said also, that “He judged sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh.” And again, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! yea, we establish the law.” For since the law was laboring at this, to make man righteous, but had not power, He came and brought in the way of righteousness by faith, and so established that which the law desired: and what the law could not by letters, this He accomplished by faith. On this account He saith, “I am not come to destroy the law.”

But if any one will inquire accurately, he will find also another, a third sense, in which this hath been done. Of what sort is it then? In the sense of that future code of laws, which He was about to deliver to them.

For His sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out, and filling up of them. Thus, “not to kill,” is not annulled by the saying, Be not angry, but rather is filled up and put in greater security: and so of all the others.

Revisiting the Understanding of the Brutal Times

Some of these acts were so wicked (Sins which cry out to God for judgment) they could never be condoned at any time. The Catechism tells us of some of these:

1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are "sins that cry to heaven": the blood of Abel,¹³⁹ the sin of the Sodomites,¹⁴⁰ the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,¹⁴¹ the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,¹⁴² injustice to the wage earner.¹⁴³

With these points in mind, we can move on perhaps to look at some of the more troublesome laws in the Old Testament.

Issue I: A Look at Slavery

A Caveat

A General Look at Slavery

– From “You may Be a fundamentalist atheist if…”

A failure to realize this point is to make a mistake about the slavery which was mentioned in the Bible.

Was Slavery a Judaeo-Christian Invention?

What Does the Bible Say About Slaves?

We see that the Torah had rules about keeping slaves. I have certainly seen some objections that: if God thought slavery was wrong, then why did He not forbid slavery?

This seems harsh if we think other cultures were as "enlightened" as 21st Century America. However, in comparison to societies around the Israelites, this was a radical restriction.

If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death.

In contrast, Deuteronomy 23 tells us:

¹⁵“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you; ¹⁶he shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place which he shall choose within one of your towns, where it pleases him best; you shall not oppress him.

Does the Lack of a Commandment against Slavery Mean Slavery was Good?

The logical form seems to be:

1. If God is [Good], He would have [forbade slavery] (If [A] then [B])

2. He did not [forbid slavery] (Not [B])

3. Therefore God is not [good]. (Therefore Not [A])

Issue II: The Law and Genocide

genocide

■ n. the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation.

– Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A. (2004). Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

– Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Considering the Concerns of the Troubled Reader of Scripture

What Are The Assumptions? Why They Should Be Recognized.

Looking at Commands of God

I believe, when we look at the commands of God on this topic, we need to recognize two aspects:

That God commanded the Israelites to act as His agents of judgment in limited circumstances (He didn't command this with every people, but only with certain cities which were condemned for wicked practices).
In other circumstances, God commands, by giving limitations to the cultural conduct of the region, with the view of guiding the people away from the evils done.

Why are these aspects important? Because it distinguishes the actions of Israel being the instrument of Divine Punishment from the actions which Israel undertook on their own that were restricted.

Understanding What Was Commanded

The commands begin in Deuteronomy 7, where we see what God commands:

¹“When the LORD, your God, brings you into the land which you are to enter and occupy, and dislodges great nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites: seven nations more numerous and powerful than you—

²and when the LORD, your God, delivers them up to you and you defeat them, you shall doom them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.

³You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons.

⁴For they would turn your sons from following me to serving other gods, and then the wrath of the LORD would flare up against you and quickly destroy you.

⁵ “But this is how you must deal with them: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their sacred poles, and destroy their idols by fire.

⁶For you are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own.

What is interesting in what is commanded is the word which is translated as “doom” or “destroy.”

The Concept of Ḥērem

The Anchor Bible Dictionary (hereafter referred to as the ABD) speaks of ḥērem as follows:

A special form of dedication is Heb ḥērem, “severe dedication; ban.” This is found mainly in contexts of war (Josh 6:17–21; 8:26; 10:1, 28, 35, 37, 39, 40; 11:11, 12, 20, 21; etc.) but may apply to one’s own property (cf. Lev 27:28, “field of one’s inheritance”; cf. v 21). Things placed under ḥērem include persons, their buildings, animals, precious objects and metals, and land. Objects, animals, and land so dedicated would be destroyed or become sanctuary property to be used by the priests (Num 18:14; Josh 6:19, 24; Ezek 44:29). Humans would be put to death (Lev 27:29). As with regular dedication, ḥērem can take the form of an unconditional declaration or a vow (Num 21:2–3).

—Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). ABD (3:244). New York: Doubleday.

²⁸“Note, also, that any one of his possessions which a man vows as doomed to the LORD, whether it is a human being or an animal or a hereditary field, shall be neither sold nor ransomed; everything that is thus doomed becomes most sacred to the LORD.

“Doomed” is ḥērem and the sense is that what is ḥērem is not to be used for profane purposes

The ABD tells us:

Child sacrifice, which often is an accompaniment of idolatry, is a cause of pollution (Ezek 20:26, 31; 23:37–39; Ps 106:37–38). Deuteronomy places idolatrous implements under ḥērem (“extreme dedication”) status which means that as the Israelites conquer Canaan they are to destroy the implements (7:5, 25). One who misappropriates idolatrous materials falls under ḥērem status (Deut 7:25–26; cf. Josh 6:18; 7:12; 1 Kgs 20:42). One under this status is liable to death (Lev 27:29; Deut 13:13–19—Eng 13:12–18; Joshua 7). One who sacrifices to other gods also falls under ḥērem status (Exod 22:19).

—Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). ABD (6:734). New York: Doubleday.

Ḥērem is Limited

This is shown in Deuteronomy 9, we see God speaking of these nations that Israel is to “doom.”

³Understand, then, today that it is the LORD, your God, who will cross over before you as a consuming fire; he it is who will reduce them to nothing and subdue them before you, so that you can drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD promised you.

⁴After the LORD, your God, has thrust them out of your way, do not say to yourselves, ‘It is because of my merits that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’; for it is really because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you.

⁵No, it is not because of your merits or the integrity of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land; but the LORD, your God, is driving these nations out before you on account of their wickedness and in order to keep the promise which he made on oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

⁶Understand this, therefore: it is not because of your merits that the LORD, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

What wickedness? We see this in Deuteronomy 18:

⁹“When you come into the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of the peoples there.

¹⁰Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortune-teller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner,

¹¹or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead.

¹²Anyone who does such things is an abomination to the LORD, and because of such abominations the LORD, your God, is driving these nations out of your way.

Indeed, when we get to Deuteronomy 20, where we see God giving the command with the nations who were to be exterminated, we can see a very interesting thing about Deuteronomy 20:16-18.

¹⁶But in the cities of those nations which the LORD, your God, is giving you as your heritage, you shall not leave a single soul alive.

¹⁷You must doom them all-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD, your God, has commanded you,

¹⁸lest they teach you to make any such abominable offerings as they make to their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD, your God.

I believe I have shown that the actions against these nations were because:

God had decreed this land sacred
These nations practiced abominable things against the Natural Law to an extent that God decreed they were to be punished for their crimes.

Certain Objections at this Point

If we go to Genesis 18:20-33 and look at God’s promise, we can see that God exacts punishment on Sodom and Gomorrah because their wickedness is so great that not even ten just men can be found.

¹⁶In the fourth time-span the others shall come back here; the wickedness of the Amorites will not have reached its full measure until then.”

From this, we can see the Amorites will grow in wickedness, but that God tolerates it but does not approve it. Haydock’s commentary says:

…during which period of time, God was pleased to bear with those wicked nations; whose iniquity chiefly consisted in idolatry, oppression of the poor and strangers, forbidden marriages of kindred, and abominable lusts. (Leviticus xviii; Deuteronomy vi. and xii.)

Conclusion: The Unspoken and Unproven Assumptions behind Accusations of an “Evil God”

I think I should close this article with a quote from Fr. Thomas Crean O.P.

God is infinite, uncreated goodness. Therefore He has the right to be loved and obeyed unconditionally. This is simply how things are. God can no more abolish His rational creatures’ duty of obedience and love towards Him than He can abolish the laws of mathematics. Sin is a refusal of God’s right to be loved and obeyed. It is a metaphysical monstrosity: a created will trying to raise itself above the Will that created it. God owes it to His own goodness and holiness not to ignore sin, for that would be to allow evil to subject Him to itself. He can forgive sin on condition of repentance, or He can punish it, but He cannot pretend that it is significant, any more than He can cease to be God.

— God is No Delusion, page 124

Monday, March 15, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article IV): Commands of God Through the Prophets

Preliminary Notes

Profanity, Blasphemy and personal attacks will get the poster banned without warning. If you wish to disagree with the article, please be civil and respectful in doing so.

I can only deal with certain issues (this article, at almost 6700 words, is well over the maximum word length I prefer [I prefer to cap at 3000 words] as it is. The omission of a topic is not due to evasion of an issue, but a consideration of article length. All the examples given are quite real and can be found in different atheistic sites (though the language was blasphemous enough I cannot quote them directly)

A Note on Revisions to the Sequence of this Series

When I wrote article III I stated I would have God’s punishment of David, God’s actions through Moses and a discussion of slavery in Article IV, and Genocide accusations in Article V. As I went through the editing, I noticed that discussing slavery in Article IV was out of place with the other topics. Therefore the layout will be: Article IV will be aimed at God speaking through the prophets and Part V will be on God speaking through the Law, where slavery and genocide will be covered.

Hopefully that will be the last change of layout I need to make.

Introduction: Commands and Actions From God

Many of the charges of God and the Bible being immoral are based on the words, actions and commands of God, or more accurately based on the interpretation of these things. The accusations presuppose that the actions of God were done arbitrarily, and out of proportion to whatever the cause He responded to. It is becoming common to see on atheist sites the accusation that God “commanded” rape or murder or other crimes.

Let’s look at one of the more infamous quotes out there:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

– Richard Dawkins

These words of Richard Dawkins tend to set the tone how the “New Atheist” views the God presented in the Bible these days. While in Article II, the discussion was about the actions of men who were interpreted as paragons of virtue when they were actually viewed as sinners, this time we need to look at the statements and laws of God in the Old Testament. Since we, as Christians, hold God to be perfectly good, we cannot use the same argument as we did last time. Instead, we have to look at what was commanded and the context behind such actions, though we can use the more fundamental premise that the accusation is based on a misunderstanding.

First of all, I would say that Christians would almost universally reject Dawkins' charge on the grounds that he is giving a motive to God's actions that Scripture does not support and that Christian teaching views as error filled. If one wishes to argue their view of God over the Christian understanding, then let them present the evidence to be evaluated, and not base it on uninformed reading of Scripture

I think a particularly relevant reply to Dawkins comes from Presbyterian Pastor David Robertson who said:

When someone tells me they do not believe in God I often ask them what sort of God they believe in. They will then come out with the kind of statement that you do at the beginning of the chapter [Arnobius’ Note: Robertson is referring to Dawkins’ book The God Delusion] and I will tell them that I do not believe in that God either. You rightly point out that this argument is not valid for someone who is claiming there is no God whatsoever because there is no supernatural (a faith position, which is of course itself indemonstrable). However you spend a considerable amount of time attacking particular versions of God and therefore you open yourself to this rejoinder. Most of us do not believe in the God you so passionately attack.

– David Robertson, The Dawkins Letters, page 47

Robertson puts it well indeed. Christians look at the version of God presented by Dawkins and reasonably ask “On what basis can you justify your accusation?” This is why, before the credibility of the charges of Dawkins can be accepted, Christians insist on assessing the charges to see if they are valid. If there is no evidence, the charge does not stick.

However, instead of evidence, we see certain actions pointed to, and we see people who claim that God is being evil are giving an evil motive without evidence. Then when Christians point out the accuser is making assumptions on motive based on the personal interpretation of Scripture being taken in a literalistic fashion, we are then accused of “trying to explain away” the texts.

So let’s put a stop to the nonsense here. The atheist who attacks God as evil either needs to provide evidence of their charge or recognize they are no better than the fundamentalists they ridicule.

Things to Consider Regarding Biblical Interpretation

Article III of this series is important to keep in mind here (you may want to open it in another tab to refer back to it), as the Ten Principles discussed there are required for the proper understanding of the Christian beliefs concerning the events this article will review.

As I pointed out in Article III, the context of the times needs to be understood in interpreting Scripture. Moreover, in accusing God of an evil intent, one has to know the intent of God.

Atheists and certain non-Christians look at some of the actions of the Bible and are scandalized by what they read, asking how one can reconcile such acts with the claims of a loving and merciful God. I think one thing which such people overlook is that God is not merely merciful, but He is just as well. This means that while God forgives the repentant sinner and calls to repentance, He may also choose to exact punishment for those who do not repent, and is just in doing so. God isn’t a sort of Santa Claus here who does nice things and doesn’t hold anyone to anything. As Creator of the whole universe, He does have the right to pass judgment on those who know actions are wrong yet perform those actions anyway.

The Issue for this Article: Prophecies

With these preliminaries in mind, we can move on to the issue of the word of God in prophecy.

When it comes to prophecy, I believe confusion exists when the message of the Prophet is misinterpreted as being something it is not intended to be. I have noticed that this generally comes about because the ancient wording of Scripture is taken in a sense which is not intended by the author. Remember, to attack a position which is not held is the Straw Man fallacy. To attack a Scriptural verse based on modern understandings of words, while failing to recognize that all of these have changed from the time, culture and language they were written is to attack a belief not even held.

How Prophecies Can Be Misunderstood

Some seem to believe that God directly causes what happens. Others misunderstand symbolic acts which God commands His prophet (to perform to emphasize the verbal message), thinking the command to the prophet is a command to all the Israelites. The result is an interpretation vastly different from the actual meaning of the verses. We need to remember that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (except for the Deuterocanonical books, which were written in Greek). When we interpret literally based solely on an English translation, and do not consider the possibility of the English language being unable to capture fully the meaning of the Hebrew/Greek, the possibility for misinterpretation climbs higher.

Because the idea of prophecy is often misunderstood, people think it means “predicting the future.” Instead, a prophet acts as a mouth for God. God gives the prophet a message which is to be preached to the people. Usually, there is a pattern to the message. The people have strayed from God. God calls them to return and be reconciled with Him. The warnings of prophets are warnings of what will happen if they do not change their ways.

Sometimes the prophet is commanded by God to act in a certain way to bring home the warning God wishes to make. The people are confronted by an image which tells them what they are or what they will be if they do not change their ways. This image may be shocking, but often it is a case of “If you do not wish to suffer like this, then stop behaving wickedly and repent.”

As I said above, some people think prophecy is “seeing the future” and some believe God causes people to act in certain ways against their will on account of the misinterpretation of these things. Neither view is true. The prophet’s message is not as a threat but an attempt to bring the person, who is falling into sin, into a repaired relationship with God.

Prophecy I: Ezekiel and Dung. A Case of Extreme Misinterpretation in Literalism

I’ll start off with this example of an extreme case of literalistic misinterpretation that can happen when Scripture is interpreted out of context and without understanding of the verses. I have seen some atheists make the accusation that God commanded the Israelites to bake bread out of human feces and eat it. This appears to represent a case of either blind bigotry or willful malice, as it distorts a verse of the Bible into something so different from what it said, that it is difficult to imagine a rational person making such a mistake naturally.

The attack is based on the King James version of Ezekiel 4:12, which reads: “And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”

The argument I encountered on the internet was that God commands that Jews eat feces as a component of bread. Attacks then go on with other verses describing siege conditions (commonly Isaiah 36:12 is cited) with the claim that they are eating dung because God commanded it. However, this is to take a 17^th century English translation and apply 21^st century grammar to it. “Bake it with dung” doesn’t mean “bake it mixed with dung inside it.” It means “Bake it over a fire of dung.” Repulsive yes… but such practices to cook with animal dung have existed on plains cultures (19^th century Midwest and Mongolia among others) where there is no wood to burn.

We can see this is a misrepresentation of Ezekiel 4:12 by looking at translations other than the KJV:

· 12 For your food you must bake barley loaves over human excrement in their sight, said the LORD. (NAB)

· 12 “You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.” (NASB 95)

· 12 Eat your food as you would eat a barley cake, baking it over human dung where the people can see.” (NCV)

· 12 Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” (NIV)

· 12 You are to eat this in the form of a barley cake baked where they can see you, on human dung.’ (NJB)

· 12 And you shall eat it as barley cakes; and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight.” (NKJV)

· 12 Prepare and eat this food as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire using dried human dung as fuel and then eat the bread.” (NLT)

· 12 You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. (NRSV)

· 12 And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” (RSV and RSVCE)

· 12 “Eat it as a barley cake; you shall bake it on human excrement before their eyes. (Tanakh)

Note all of these translations show that the food is to be cooked over dung, not with dung. Those individuals who have made this accusation have not bothered to see if their translation erred or their interpretation erred. Whether their interpretation is from malicious intent to distort or from a willingness to believe the worst based on a hatred of the Judaeo-Christian God, what we have is massive distortion nonetheless.

Now one might wonder, reasonably, why God would command this to be done in the first place. This requires reading in context. God has delivered to Ezekiel a message which calls on the Israelites to repent or suffer the consequences of being delivered to their enemies, which will happen in siege. In chapter 4, God describes a siege which will occur, and Ezekiel is to act out by his suffering what the Israelites will go through if they do not repent:

¹“And you, O son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it a city, even Jerusalem; ²and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. ³And take an iron plate, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴“Then lie upon your left side, and I will lay the punishment of the house of Israel upon you; for the number of the days that you lie upon it, you shall bear their punishment. ⁵For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred and ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; so long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. ⁶And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, a day for each year. ⁷And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared; and you shall prophesy against the city. ⁸And, behold, I will put cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege.

⁹“And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them. During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. ¹⁰And the food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; once a day you shall eat it. ¹¹And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; once a day you shall drink. ¹²And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” ¹³And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them.” ¹⁴Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! behold, I have never defiled myself; from my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has foul flesh come into my mouth.” ¹⁵Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” ¹⁶Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. ¹⁷I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment.

If Israel and Judah will not repent, then they will suffer under siege as God withdraws His protection. The graphic image Ezekiel is to display is intended to be a shocking emphasis. Food and water will be scarce (mixed grains were considered inedible in ordinary times. 20 shekels weight was about 8 ounces. 1/6 of a hin is equal to 2/3 of a quart) [See New Jerome Bible Commentary 312] and so will the fuel for the cooking fires (hence the need for cooking over dung), so they will be reduced to desperate circumstances, being able to eat about 8 ounces of food a day and 2/3 of a quart of water a day. (See this site as to how drastic this would be). The cooking over human dung indicates a situation where all fuel for cooking, including animal dung would not be available.

We see the Israelites were definitely not ordered to do this. God speaking through Ezekiel was an act of mercy, giving the people a chance to avoid the suffering of a siege.

Prophecy II: David and Nathan… and God

The Act of Sin and Judgment

I haven’t forgotten that in Article II I promised to discuss God’s judgment of David’s sin. To remind the reader, this involves David's acts in committing adultery with Bathsheba and having her husband killed, then marrying her and proudly showing off the child they had together.

This is a public flaunting of the disobedience to God and Nathan comes to David in 2 Samuel 12 with the following judgment:

¹And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. ²The rich man had very many flocks and herds; ³but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. ⁴Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” ⁵Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; ⁶and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

⁷Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; ⁸and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. ⁹Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. ¹⁰Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ ¹¹Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. ¹²For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” ¹³David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.”

What we have in this prophecy, spoken through Nathan, is God’s passing judgment on David.

Interpreting the Prophecy of Nathan: Points to Remember

Now I have seen misinterpretations which assume that the wives of David and the Child were punished instead of David. This seems to be based on the assumption that the people who carried out the acts with David’s wives did so due to a direct command from God and that God was punishing the child for existing. Neither assumption is true.

In order to correctly make sense out of God’s judgment, we need to recall some points:

1) There is a difference between God's direct will and His permissive will. When God directly wills something to happen, it happens either through God directly willing something to happen or through natural causes He directly wills to happen. When it comes to His permissive will, it does not mean God forces a thing to happen, but rather He withdraws His protection and allows things to take their course.

In the case of David’s wives, we can say this is a case of God withdrawing His protection. Because David has spurned God, God withdraws His protection from David's house. From this we can see that when Absalom does evil, David suffers the consequences. God withholds His protection as a chastisement, but Absalom is not forced to do these things by God. To say God directly caused sin is an example of taking literally what is in fact a way of saying what David suffers comes as a result of his chastisement.

The person who accuses God of doing horrible things often assumes that the evil acts done by people trying to kill David were directly willed by God. However, all God needs to do is to withdraw His protection and those individuals with evil intent will be able to target David freely. Remember, Nathan tells David the sentence of God is decreed "because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife." David spurns God. Is it just for David to expect God to ignore this?

2) Free will of Man. This is the counterpart of #1 above. We see in a later chapter that the son of David (Absalom) rises up against his father and does have sexual relations with David's wives in public in 2 Samuel 16:22 which fulfils the prophecy of Nathan. However we must remember Absalom did not do these acts on the command of God. He did these acts on his own volition as a display of power encouraged by his advisor. [Essentially by doing this in public, Absalom was committing an act which indicated a total rejection and defiance of David. People who might consider support Absalom would know that Absalom wasn't going to cut a deal with his father and leave them holding the bag.] God told David (through the prophet Nathan) in chapter 12 that these things would happen, but they happened through the choice of Absalom and not because God commanded them to happen. If Absalom had been a righteous man, he would not have done these things.

3) God’s judgment is essentially David’s judgment brought upon himself. What he has decreed was that the unnamed wrongdoer deserves death and shall be required to repay in a proportion which is punitive. He has been hoisted by his own petard.

4) Sin has public consequences. David had a trusted soldier murdered, taking Uriah's wife for his own. This is something which doubtlessly upset the balance of power among David's family, and the immorality of David served as an evil influence. 2 Samuel 13 tells us of David's son Amnon raping his sister Tamar, resulting in Absalom murdering Amnon. This disintegration of morals in the House of David spirals out of control. None of these acts can be attributed to God however.

Even from a human perspective, David has probably made a lot of people angry… friends of Uriah, David's sons offended to see this woman Bathsheba replacing their mothers in the hierarchy of things, people seeing David publicly flaunting his actions. Is it surprising some of them will be inclined to turn on David, given the chance? Is it surprising that some of these people will seek to harm those close to David when they cannot reach him directly?

What David did (aside from the fact it was sinful) to others did not just harm Uriah, but others as well. As a result, the aftermath of David's sin harms him and affects other people as well. David committed adultery and did injustice to Uriah. He abused the power given him as King. Depending on whether Bathsheba was forced or seduced, David was guilty of at least adultery and possibly rape (Scripture does not tell us whether she was willing or not). He impregnates her, causing a life to come into being, and he takes Bathsheba as his wife after the death of Uriah, which gives a public scandal as to his contempt to the law of God.

David was living publically in sin, having murdered the husband of the woman he committed adultery with, taking her as his wife and having the child of this action publically acknowledged as his son. It’s like History of the World Part I: “It’s good to be King.” No man would dare challenge David, and some might even think it acceptable. “After all, if the King did this, then why is it so bad if I only do that?”

5) Finally, In light of the fact that we as Christians know of the Resurrection, we recognize that the Lord does have the right over all life and death is not the end of all. Not one of us knows when we shall die or how. A man might live to be a hundred. An infant might die shortly after birth. If God chooses to grant the child of David a short life before the sins of the House of David corrupt him, if He chooses to grant a long life to a bitter individual so he might find salvation in the end, God does have this right to determine how long each person shall live.

Because all life is from God, God has the right to decree when a individual’s life ends. (See Article III Principle Three). I might live for another 50 years, or I might die of an auto accident tomorrow. I do not think the time of life given to me is unjust. I merely have the time I have.

Where is the Malice?

We believe God does no evil, and because of this we can see that the death of the Child was not a punishment to the child, though David was punished because of his sin which resulted in the death of Uriah and David impregnating Bathsheba.

When we consider that the death of the child was not a punishment of the child, the arguments against this section of the Bible begins to collapse. Many atheists I have read who comment on this say the child went through prolonged suffering before dying. The problem is Scripture doesn't say this. It says the child became ill (2 Sam 12:15) and died after a week (2 Sam 12:18). The Christian who believes God is both just and merciful recognizes the possibility that God did not cause the child to suffer. That the author described the situation of the child dying is clear. That the child suffered during this time is not described. This is a meaning added by one who wishes to impute a malicious intent to God. This addition of detail is really an Appeal to emotion employed here. But where is the evidence for this accusation against God? There is none.

If God Exists, then Sin is against God as Well as against Man

God sent Nathan to challenge David who openly spurned God’s teachings. As I mentioned in the first article, if God exists, then the doing of Good and avoiding Evil requires this balance not only in relation to the fellow man, but also in relation to God. Because David so publically defied God in doing this evil, and did harm to others, God is justified to exact punishment for these sins. As I mentioned in Article III, Principle 10, punishment can serve multiple purposes. We see several intentions for the punishment David received. There was Retribution of course. God was punishing David because he sinned in a severe way. There was also Deterrence. Knowing that God will punish evildoers, David recognizes there is a strong need to avoid future behavior of this type, and others thinking it might be acceptable to behave likewise are shown it is condemned by God. But most important, this punishment is given to bring David to repentance. When faced by Nathan's parable, David realizes he is the man he condemned and regrets for his actions.

A Look at Motive in the Act of God

So let us look at the sentence God gives David through Nathan with this understanding in mind.

God withdraws His protection from David. Those enemies of David, whether through lust for power or desire for revenge or other motivations, turn on him and do evil to him by committing adultery with his wives, trying to usurp him and take over his kingdom, etc. As David did violence to Uriah by ordering his death, after God withdraws His protection from David, his son will seek to do violence to him by trying to kill him. David and Bathsheba have a child together of adultery which is flaunting their sinful act to the public. God calls this son of David to Himself which brings home to David how evil his deed was.

What we are seeing is that what David and his family suffer is a logical consequence of what he has done. If one removes a stone from a wall of rock and starts a rock slide, regretting the removal of the rock will not stop the slide.

Now admittedly the idea of innocent people being caught in the middle of a rebellion is a sad thing, and that a child did die is something which stirs the heart with pity. However this is exactly why it is not prudent to trust to merely what one thinks it means without considering context. To interpret out of context is to misinterpret.

Prophecy III: Moses and the Pharaoh

The Issue of Moses and Pharaoh

The main objection to this story seems to ultimately be focused on the 10th plague (the angel of death) slaying the firstborn of Egypt and the verses of God "hardening" Pharaoh's heart. However, to understand the verses objected to, we need to recognize the context of the verses in relation to why these chastisements were inflicted.

In the account of Exodus, we see the Egyptians oppressing the Israelites, forcing them into a condition of slavery. Because the rulers feared to have a large ethnic minority in their midst, the orders were given to kill all the male children. This was not merely an action performed by the legal authorities. We see in Exodus 1:22 that the pharaoh commanded all his subjects to throw any male Hebrew children they came across into the river to drown, though allowing the girls to live. (Which seems to indicate an example of sexual exploitation of minorities was a common barbarity of ancient times.

Who Is Responsible For Pharaoh’s Heart Being Hardened?

Now when Moses comes to Egypt and gives warning to the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, probably what is considered most scandalous to the person who does not understand Scripture is the phrase, in the KJV of the Bible, where we hear that “And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.” (Exodus 7:13 KJV).

The Hebrew word is [אֲחַזֵּ֣ק] (chazaq) which is used in Scripture in verses which tell us that Pharaoh was hardened in heart.

Indeed, in Exodus 7:13, 7:22, 8:15, and 9:35 we see the same word used to describe Pharaoh’s action… all of them recognizing that Pharaoh hardened his own heart “just as the LORD had foretold.”

Indeed, if one goes ahead to Malachi 3:13, chazaq is used in this verse:

¹³You have defied me in word, says the LORD, yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”

Chazaq is defiance in this case. A person or people who defy God can expect to pay the price if they refuse to heed the warnings of God and refuse to repent.

So ultimately the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh must be understood in the sense of the Hebrew text and not the rendering of the verse in English. Indeed, in the context of the other verses, we can see that the phrase objected to is not intended to be taken in a literal sense.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in 1893, issued the encyclical Providentissumus Deus which laid down certain requirements for the study of the Scripture. One of the things he laid out was the importance of the understanding of the context and the use of idioms in the original languages, saying (in #18):

Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us – “went by what sensibly appeared,”(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

The Hebrew manner of speaking does not mean God forced Pharaoh, against his will, or forced Pharaoh to be obstinate. Commentary on Scripture describes this as God leaving Pharaoh to his own devices. It is important to remember this, as we need to understand how the Christian understands the Bible in light of the atheistic accusation against the Christian that we ignore what is inconvenient to us.

Really, in order for the charge for a “wicked God” to stick, one needs to establish that God would not have spared Egypt even if Pharaoh had repented.

True Repentance vs. Toying With God

In all cases, the theme of Exodus runs as follows: Moses, acting as God’s prophet, tells Pharaoh to stop oppressing the Israelites. Pharaoh refuses. God visits a plague on Israel. Pharaoh appeals for respite, promising to comply with God’s command. Once respite is given, the oppressions continue. Pharaoh is not repentant for the evil he has done. He simply believes he can do acts of lip service without changing his behavior. The reader should reflect on Ezekiel 18 (which is shown in entirety in Article III). A person who truly repents will be spared. The person who does not, will not.

Repentance is not "OK I'll stop doing this until you stop smacking me around," and then changing one’s mind once the suffering is over. Repentance is recognizing that an act is truly wrong and turning away from it, regretting the wrong done and seeking to make amends.

This shows us Pharaoh’s culpability personally. Now how about society? Many may argue that the punishment of the whole society for the sins of Pharaoh was wrong. But is this a fair assessment?

After all, what we have seen is a society which sought to enslave an ethnic minority in a brutal fashion, and seemed to be willing to kill the male children (and perhaps exploit the females). Slavery tends to corrupt the people who are the masters, and this seems to be such a case.

Now, as I mentioned in Article III Principle Eight, the ending of slavery in entirety seems to have fallen under the idea of Recapitulation. However the drowning of the male children and oppression of a race by the Egyptians seem to fall under the idea of chastisement for an evil which the people punished cannot claim they did not know what was right (See Article III Preliminary Two).

When we consider this, it seems that the ultimate basis for the charge of an immoral God is meaning which the challenger puts into the text but is not actually found in the text. Essentially the worst possible "spin" is given to the text, without giving proof of why this "spin" should be accepted.

The Angel of Death

The tenth plague is the death of all the firstborn of the Egyptians. This is not just infants. This includes the adults as well. Now one may ask, “How is this just?” Well consider this. If the Egyptians consented to the killing of all the Hebrew males, then it follows that they must face judgment for this act. However, if the Egyptians had consented and released the Hebrew slaves, they would have been spared this. We see in Exodus 4, where God tells Moses:

²²So you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my first-born.

²³Hence I tell you: Let my son go, that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, I warn you, I will kill your son, your first-born.”

This didn’t come out of the blue here. After nine plagues, it became quite clear that when Moses said God would do a thing, the thing would be done. Since Pharaoh was warned this would happen, and the previous nine plagues show the God of Moses could do these things, it indicates a profound stubbornness to continue on the path to destruction.

As for the individual Egyptians who were not the Pharaoh, did they deserve such treatment? It seems to me the question is: Did they repent of their part in Egypt’s oppression or did they just want to escape their own destruction?

Really, the accusation of the immoral God is a case of arguing in a circle:

Q: How do you know God is evil?

A: Because He condemned the Egyptians to die

Q: Why did God condemn the Egyptians to die?

A: Because He is evil

So where is the evidence that God was “Dag nasty evil”?

Evidence of a motive is again absent. Scripture tells us of why God saw fit to punish Egypt. If one wishes to claim the Egyptians did not deserve the punishment meted out, or accuse the account in Exodus of being false, the question is, where is the evidence for the claim?

Conclusion

In the examples given above, we see that the interpretation given by those who claim an evil act on the part of God do not consider the context and intent of the Biblical verses, instead taking a literalistic meaning of Scripture (“It says X so it means X literally”). When one considers the context and language used (Hebrew), we can recognize that God chastises evil acts but gives the peoples involved a chance to repent and change their ways first. If the Israelites had repented, they would have avoided the siege. If David had repented, he would have avoided his chastisement. If Pharaoh and the Egyptians had repented and freed the Hebrews, they would not have been afflicted with the plagues.

From this we can see that to condemn God as immoral is to grossly misinterpret these verses.

[Next time, I will discuss the Law of God and the issues of Slavery and “Genocide.”

Pages

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article V): God and His Law

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article V): God and His Law

Monday, March 15, 2010

Immoral God and Immoral Bible? (Article IV): Commands of God Through the Prophets