What The Bible Says...

The Bible says...

Kill animals: Genesis 15:9-10, 1 Samuel 15:2-3
God punishes children for their parents' sin: Exodus 20:5
Men can sell their daughters as slaves: Exodus 21:7
You can beat your slaves: Exodus 21:20-21
Kill people who work on Saturday: Numbers 15:32-36
Kill women and children: Numbers 31:17-18
Kill men who love other men: Leviticus 20:13
Slavery is fine: Leviticus 25:44-46
Kill babies: 1 Samuel 15:2-3
Kill people of other religions: Deuteronomy 13:6-10
Kill atheists: 2 Chronicles 15:13
Kill wife if she's not a virgin: Deuteronomy 22:14-21
Slaves must obey cruel masters: 1 Peter 2:18
Women must obey men: 1 Timothy 2:12, Ephesians 5:22-23
Obey God or your girlfriend will be raped: Deuteronomy 28:30
Invade countries, enslave and kill: Deuteronomy 20:10-16
God creates evil: Isaiah 45:7
You can't choose whether you go to heaven or hell: Romans 9:16-18, John 6:44
Beat children with a rod: Proverbs 23:13-14

 

Yes, many of the Old Testament admonitions strike us today as horrific. Christians must grapple with the fact that their religion is rooted in a foreign import (OT): a collection of Bronze Age and Iron Age writings by an ancient people with cultural notions that seem barbaric today, because they were. But the way you state them out of context isn't particularly helpful. Take killing animals. We're about to sit down today with family, friends and neighbors to feast on an animal--probably a poor turkey. Vegetarians find this shocking. Others find it delicious and a treasured tradition. The animals referred to in the passages you quoted were sacrificial animals--animal sacrifice being central to Jewish Temple worship, as it was to other religions of the day. We might consider it a step forward from Caananite practices of human sacrifice, including children. Are you a vegetarian?

God creates evil. Isaiah 45:7? The word "ra", translated as "evil" can have other meanings, as well, not moral wrong.: e.g., the NLT uses "bad times". God, as author of natural law, created an order in which shit often happens. The philosophical efforts to explain why sometimes bad things happen to good people is called theodicy--sometimes claiming that God is acting to test us, refine us or has a higher purpose we can't understand. (see Job). (He didn't mention that bet with Satan). Interestingly, the passage you cite in Isaiah is addressed to Cyrus, the Persian king chosen to deliver the Jews from Babylonian exile. Isaiah and other prophets explained the exile as God's response to His people's infidelity to convenant and His stern efforts to get them back on track. After they got back to Palestine, and lived as a semi-autonomous Persian province for another two centuries, they developed a more Persian, dualistic view, attributing evil to ha-Satan (the Adversary)--a sinister character much like the Persian Ahriman. In the Jewish version, he was a combination of the prosecutor in the Heavenly Court in the Book of Job; Lucifer, the fallen Angel; and the Serpent who tempted Adam and Eve.

Kill people of other religions? Only if they try to persuade Jews to abandon the religion of Yahweh.Your statement is too broad.

Invade countries, enslave and kill. The Israelites must first offer terms of peace. Those cities that refuse are then beseiged, and the men put to death, but the women and children are to be taken as slaves. Hate to break it to you, but the USA has invaded other countries in the past and may be getting ready to do it again. Maduro had better watch his step!

Beat children with a rod: Proverbs 23:13-14? Only for their correction. ("Spare the rod, spoil the child.") Dr Spock is turning over in his grave!. Maybe we can give it a less literal interpretation in which "Time Outs" and "Go to your room" work, along with "No TV or cell phones for a week!".

And at last, the one passage from the New Testament: "You can't choose whether you go to heaven or hell": Romans 9:16-18, John 6:44. This is standard Pauline doctrine that salvation is not based on human will or effort, but on God's grace. Calvinists carry this to the extreme of predestination, but other Christians favor a less extreme interpretation--generally thinking that God's grace saves us from a less merciful fate.Can you imagine anyone "choosing" hell. What they choose is their own conduct, which can have unpleasant consequences.

Etc, Etc. These passages are shocking mainly to those who think of the Bible as the "Word of God". Progressive Christians take these passages with a grain of salt--as the words of fallible humans with differing agendas different points of time. But often containing wisdom as well as folly. And best taken in context (including historical context) instead of selective snippets. (I find Aztec-Toltec religion inspiring in some respects, if we can get past all the human sacrifice.) I thank Quetzalcoatl for shedding his blood to restore the human race.

 

Wow I cant believe it says all that!!!!!!!

 

No wonder Christians are so fucking confused.
Christians are no different from those who believe conspiracy theories.

No conspiracy is more elaborate than the Christian bible. That one's been going on for 2000 years.

The more confused Christians are about reality, the easier they are to influence and control.

Look at MAGA, 99.9% pure Christian. The easiest group to con, since they've been conned since birth.

But go on trying to justify your beliefs. To outsiders like me it's amusing.

 

I'm still digesting my turkey, so I'm taking advantage of some down time to reply. Let's start with your one quotation from the New Testament: Jude 1:5. Some New Testament scholars, notably Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, consider the Book of Jude to be a forgery by an author who falsely claims to have been, or hints at being, Jesus' brother. Bart Ehrman (2012). Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics, pp. 297–305. Jude's letter rails against various unidentified opponents, using apocryphal sources, threatening the wrath of God to befall them. The Book encountered resistance as a canonical work, but eventually made it in. Some scholars doubt that a real brother of Jesus would be so literate in Koine Greek. B. Reicke (1964). The Epistles of James, Peter and Jude. The letter had little influence among Christians.

The translation of the passage you've quoted is common (BSB, CSB, Douay Rheims, NIV, the NET Bible, CSBA, DRA, ESV, LSB, LEB, NLT, NRSVUE, WYC, etc.) but makes no sense. Jesus per se didn't lead the Jews out of Israel. The Bible tells us that Moses and/or God did that--the latter being the most logical possibility. Apart from the unlikelihood that Exodus actually happened, attributing the event to Jesus seems anachronistic. Saying that Jesus did it is probably based on the translators' muddled mindset that "Well Jesus is God, so same difference." This gets us into a Trinitarian quandary: Yes, Jesus is supposedly of the same substance as Yahweh, but to single Jesus out suggests His sole or primary responsibility for the deed. Jesus makes his debut by that name in the first century C.E., not 1446 BCE, 1250 C.E, or whenever the Exodus was supposed to have occurred. The less numerous but more plausible versions of the letter, incuding the KJV, have "the Lord" doing the delivering and punishing. One translator (MSG) uses the term "the Master", which I suppose is okay. Others show off their Hebrew by using Adonai (CJB) or Ha-Shem (OJB), the former meaning "Lord", the latter "the Name" (used because it's forbidden to say the sacred name Yahweh.) Κύριος.(Lord) is found in earlier versions of the passage, including the 4th century Codex Sinaticus. I know--picky, picky! Or maybe the translation you used is accurate, which would be another reason for doubting it.

Jude's letter reminds us about the consequences of ingratitude and/or apostasy. God liberated the Hebrews from bondage and provided them with food, but a minority still complained and expressed a desire to go back to Egypt. So naturally God destroyed them. The shocking thing is that some "Christian" folks apparently believe this. Those would be the biblical inerrantists. I find it impossible to reconcile this notion of God with the love, compassion and justice attributed to Jesus in the gospels. The latter is what I use as a hermeneutic to decide what to make of the rest of scripture.. So I put Jude's admonitions in the same boat with other forgeries and pseudopigrapha in the New Testament:, like the six disputed letters of Paul: something to remind us that not everything in the Bible can be trusted. Like the rest of life, it's a judgment call..

My turkey has been digested, so I'll do something more constructive and get back to you on those Old Testament passages later.

 

Yes, that's really unfortunate and true. It's the down side of living in a country where freedom of speech and religion are guaranteed by our Constitution. Having a right and being right are two different things. It doesn't matter that unbelievers can cherry pick atrocity stories from the Bible. It doesn't matter that misguided Christian "True Believers" think those tales all the inerrant word of God. I think they're wrong, and lots of Christians would agree with me on that. As always, it's a judgment call, and I try to base mine on reason and evidence.

Evangelical fundamentalists are riding high in the current administration and making the headlines as prototypical Christians, even though IMO, many of them are preaching and practicing a belief-value system that is 180 degrees the opposite of what the Gospels say He taught. If He showed up today and knocked at their door, they'd probably bolt it. When I call myself a Christian, I mean that I believe in and try my best to practice the core values the Gospels say Jesus preached and practiced: peace, compassion, social justice, love of God and neighbor, the Golden Rule. IMO. those truths are self evident, and are found in most religions As is the case with Christianity, they are cluttered with a lot of extraneous nonsense in all religions . But it's there in the gospels, and discerning minds are able to learn from Jesus and shape their lives accordingly. I'm talking about Progressive Christians like the Jesus Seminar, the late Revs. Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong, our local UCC pastor Robin Myers, my Methodist Sunday School , etc. Evangelical Fundamentalists have stolen Jesus, along with the flag. (See Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity; Robin Myers, Saving Jesus from the Church) I want them back!

Martin Luther was responsible for the sola scriptura (scripture alone) approach to the Bible, making "biblidolatry" a problem. The Catholic approach of relying of the Magisterium for a pipeline to God, presents another set of problems. Religious fundamentalism tends to discourage rational thought and to rely on whatever "it sez" (or seems to say) in the Good Book. Unfortunately, biological and social evolution favors "fitness" in religion as in other matters, and fitness, in evolutionary terms, simply means the ability to survive and multiply. The Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Islam in particular, are currently the winners, with over half of the world's population. Historical accident, combined with characteristics congruent with he psychological and social needs of the populations concerned, account for this condition. Overreach by both populations may eventually do them in, but I think that's unlikely in my lifetime. Unfortunately, the forms of both religions which have been most successful have flaws that limit their moral effectiveness.Conventional Christianity . IMO , went off the rails early on when Paul, who knew Jesus from a vision, became the first to write about it. His Christianity was mainly about Jesus' death and resurrection instead of His life and teachings. Then church politics took over, as various factions of Christians competed to have their pet doctrines accepted as truth. In Islam, the rationalist tradition of the Faylasufs (al-Razi, Avicenna, Averroes) gave way to rigid anti-intellectual fundamentalism, which has the advantage of simplicity and a comfortable sense of certainty. Hopefully, we'll evolve to the point that reason can take over and shape our destiny in a direction that leads to the greatest happiness for the greatest number, instead of the demagogues and kleptoocrats.

 

Yes, and worse. Many of the passages are so disturbing lots of Christians tend to gloss over them. If it's any consolation, archaeologists think much of the blood and guts and genocide involving the conquest of Canaan never happened. Why would the Israelites make up such tales, that cast them in a bad light? I dunno. Maybe to enhance a badass reputation, like the Aztecs did in probably exaggerating the extent of their human sacrifice.

 

Honestly, the Old Testament had it mostly right.

The New Testament appeals to a higher moral code, which feels much better to the righteous, but ultimately leads to the deaths of more innocents in the modern world.

So what do you want? To feel superior in your beliefs or to believe in justice for the guilty. In a world of gray, it’s about as black and white as it gets,

 

I'd prefer a world governed by what I think are Jesus' core values, as conveyed by the gospels: peace, justice, love of God, love of neighbor, and the Golden Rule, in which. I don't want those things in order to feel superior to anybody, but because they'd maximize net human happiness. If most people adhered to them the world would be a much better place from utilitarian and contractarian standpoints: the greatest happiness for the greatest number with the interests of least advantaged and socially marginal protected. How would that lead to the deaths of anyone? It would be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, as Jesus promised.

 

Getting back to the Old Testament quotes, the first three are from Deuteronomy. I take an historical-metaphorical approach to the Bible. I see no metaphorical value to the passages quoted, but from an historical perspective they're interesting in illustrating the ideological foundations of the southern kingdom of Judea during the reign of King Josiah in the 7th century, which Steibing and Helft (2023) describe as "a turning point in the development of Yawehism". (Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture, 4th ed., pp. 497-82). This was a period in which the worship of foreign idols had been rampant.. It was during this period that Hilkiah, the High Priest, "discovered" a supposedly lost Book of the Law given to Moses. Most scholars believe this was either the book you're quoting from, Deuteronomy, or an early version of what became that book. Cynics suspect it was written by Hilkiah or the King's scribe Shaphan. In any event, it served as the pretext for a crackdown on idolatry. Gods other than Yahweh were banned, and their priests were suppressed, along with mediums and magicians. Worship was centered in the Temple in Jerusalem instead of shared with rural shrines. So, yes. Death was the penalty for resisting this effort. They didn't have comparative religion classes back then, but if they did, I'm sure they'd be banned and the teachers executed ! Whatever our faults, we can still be thankful to be living in twenty-first century USA!

 

^^^^

If all the world was Christian, it would be the perfect Utopia. But in the real world, evil exists alongside goodness.

Think of the Venezuelan drug boat thing, Blowing those dudes out of the water is a provably bad from any kind of Christian perspective. But less net deaths occur as a result of their erasure from the earth than would occur as a result of those drugs reaching shore. So you kill three or four “bad” dudes with intent to bring death to Americans or allow hundreds to die by not interceding. What would Christ do if he was actually put in a position of earthly power?

 

To my knowledge, there's no evidence that any of the boats were carrying drugs. Randomly killing people who might possibly be importing drugs is a violation of international and domestic law. You or I could be next! I prefer working toward a better world.

 

It’s really not a political or evidentiary argument.

Let’s just say philosophically there was 100 percent proof those boats had drugs destined to ultimately go into the bloodstreams of men, women and children in America. And kill who knows how many? What’s the right answer? Kill the three or four guys delivering death or allow all of the ensuing pain from the deaths of addicts and innocents.

 

Right….so what about the drug companies executives and pharmaceutical moguls….who knowingly hooked thousands on opioid derivatives like OxyContin? Oh yeah, there were just capitalists on did it for $$$ so that’s OK. Seems like we are in no rush to clean up our side of the street.

 

I’m in a rush to clean up both sides of the street. But pharmaceuticals are responsible for a fractional number of opioid deaths as compared to the total.

https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

 

I'd say, try the old fashioned approach of apprehending the occupants and putting them on trial. If society wants to impose the death penalty for the crime, let it do so--thru legislative channels. Your hypothetical is exactly that. Nobody can be 100% certain of anything. That's why we have trials.

 

Well, ya know, Jesus didn’t have a whole lot of confidence in the outcome of trials.

 

The focus on female sorceresses may stem from societal views at the time, where women were often associated with witchcraft and similar practices. Sorcery or witchcraft can be defined as "the exercise or invocation of alleged supernatural powers to control people or events". Witchcraft | Definition, History, Trials, Witch Hunts, & Facts | Britannica Belief in, and fear of, witches is a cross cultural phenomenon
W. Behringer (2004). Witches and witch-hunts: a global history. In Babylon, sorcery was a criminal offense, punishable by death. R. Hutton, The witch: a history of fear, from ancient times to the present One function of the belief is to provide an explanation for misfortune. If Yahweh the omnipotent isn't responsible for it , who is? Sometimes sorcery in the Bible seems to be excused. I'm thinking of Samuel 1:28 where King Saul, who had recently banned all forms of witchcraft, disguised himself and consulted the Witch of Endor to consult the ghost of his late advisor Samuel about an impending battle with the Philistines , who says (loosely translated): Gimmie a break , I'm dead! And then foretells Saul's defeat and death.

Why single out sorceresses/ Cuz back then , as in medieval times and Salem , women were thought to be morally weak and particularly prone to the practice.

Putting this passage in context, in 2 Chronicles chapter 15, King Asa of Judah, having just returned to Jerusalem after defeating the Cushites, launched a religious revival in which his jubilant people joined a covenant to seek the God of their fathers. Yes, it says that those who would not join would be put to death. Those were the days!