Arguments Against Christianity: Why God hurts others to punish David? 2 Samuel

[pocaracas]

From the wiki:
"
The Temple tax (lit. מחצית השקל the half shekel) was a tax paid by Israelites and Levites which went towards the upkeep of the Jewish Temple, as reported in the New Testament.[1] Traditionally, Kohanim (Jewish priests) were exempt from the tax.
"
What does “upkeep of the […] temple” mean, if not money for the priests in charge of the temple?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

God isn’t “killing 70,000 people for lack of payment”. You are the one twisting the narrative, if this is what you assert it’s saying.

By twisting the narrative do you mean not adding to scripture?

If the reference in Exodus 30 isn’t to the census in Numbers, then please identify what census it refers to. (There is no other. Therefore, my analysis is exegesis, not the eisegesis you’re claiming that it is. )

In Exodus 31 (the same speech from God to Moses as Exodus 30), God tells Moses his people should observe the sabbath. Which sabbath? Was the next one after Moses got back down the mountain. Is it a year from now? Or is it every sabbath?

In Exodus 22 when Adonai told Moses to not let a sorceress live was he referring to one particular sorceress, or any sorceress?\

In Exodus 23 when Adonai told Moses to sow their fields and harvest their crops for 6 years, then in the 7th year let the land be unplowed and unused was he referring to just the next 7 year period or is he talking about every 7 year period?

I can continue like this just with the instructions God gives in Exodus, but there’s no need. There’s nothing in Exodus 30 regarding performing a census that says it’s about one particular census.

You realize that the Church doesn’t hold the Talmud as inspired, or even authoritative, don’t you? So, some Jewish scholars have expressed this take on the narrative. Umm… why’s that convincing to a Christian?

I understand that the Talmud isn’t authoritative for Christians. Still the Jewish people have quite a history of interpreting the writings that make up the OT. Also I noted that there are Christian sources that agree with me that David’s problem was not getting the half shekel payment.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Here’s the thing: what you’re missing in your analysis is that the ancient OT perspective is occasionalist – God Himself, and God alone, is responsible for every event that happens on the earth. (The implication is that, if God doesn’t cause every event, then He’s not omnipotent – someone else causes stuff to happen.)

So, with that in mind, the narrative of 2 Sam 24 doesn’t say what you assert it does – it just reflects an occasionalist perspective. On the other hand, by the time of the post-exilic account in 1 Chronicles, Israel has already escaped occasionalism… and therefore, attributes the blame to an “adversary” (that is, to a ‘satan’).

So… I get it that you recognize a difference. However, disregarding the narratives simply on account of the differences, without attempting to understand the reason for the difference, is an approach that is rather anachronistic.

So each passage in scripture is “true” according to the catechism. But you’re saying true can mean something that is completely false so long as someone else misinterpreted it. Not only that we can assume that the misinterpretation is in the first and not the second; but also I can safely assume that if anyone were to claim the “occasionalist” explanation to take away credit from God (for something that wasn’t embarrassing) that person would be told that doesn’t count.

Well, I have to be heading to an appointment in Room 101.

“Occasionalism means not ‘secondary causation’.” Pretty straightforward… unless your goal is simply to denigrate the narrative.

How can the narrative being denigrated any further? My apologies. You are saying that X means both X and not X. If apologetics were a person it would be convicted for the attempted murders of language and basic logic.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Calling this victim blaming is begging the question. If they were guilty, then your premise that God slew the innocent is baseless.

Let’s take a look at another instance where Adonai punished people for an act committed by someone else. (Ignoring God’s culpability as noted in Exodus 10:1) Pharoah refused to let the Hebrews go. Eventually Adonai killed every single firstborn son in Egypt “from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well” apart from those who marked their doors. Those are children – innocent children. Adonai shows no hesitation in killing innocent children so I’m certainly not begging the question using the term “victim blaming”.

God judges justly, and David affirms this in the case of the death of his son, saying, “I will go to him; he will not return to me.” He knew that his son’s soul was saved, though his mortal life was cut short in infancy. Thus the adulterers suffered the pain of losing a child, but the child will surely go to Heaven.

I’ve said it so many times, God had more choices than either not punishing anybody or killing other people. He could have hurt David. He could have taken away David’s earthly power. He could have whisked the child to be raised to have a normal life with another family. Heck, he could have whisked the child to another time to live a life. Instead God chooses the child to suffer on the brink of death for 7 days until he finally perished. You and I have very different definitions of judging justly.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

It pains me to say it, but as an atheist your moral outrage in regard to this “god” is on target. You should object to it, it is objectionable and does not accurately reflect a loving God as revealed in Christ.
You are debating fundamentalist interpretations that are not in step with mainstream Catholic thought or Tradition.

Keep this in mind: Catholicism interprets all of scripture through Jesus Christ.
The violent “god” clung to by many Christians is a caricature of the God we put our faith in.

I understand that the catechism notes that scripture can be interpreted in one of four ways (one literal and three figurative). But even if you decide a passage is figurative or symbolic in some way it can still present a deity that sees no problem with hurting innocent people for the acts of others.

How would you interpret the passages that are being discussed here? If you don’t think the events described in them are literal then what happened? Why should we choose such an interpretation over a literal one? Does your interpretition still put Yahweh in a negative light?

 

[mythbuster1]

It means funding the purchase/production of liturgical supplies and the maintenance of the physical infrastructure.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Except at the beginning of the text it explicitly reads that Israel wasn’t innocent.

Then why did God not punish those guilty for what they had done prior to the great census kerfuffle? Did he jot a note and then after not getting his money from the census think that was the perfect time to get around punishing those 70,000 guilty of whatever?

And as I explained just above to mythbuster1 God is not exactly one to kill with discretion.

 

[pocaracas]

And who handles the “purchase/production of liturgical supplies and the maintenance of the physical infrastructure”?

 

[Gorgias]

By twisting the narrative do you mean not adding to scripture?

No… I mean deliberately ignoring context and making erroneous inferences.

In Exodus 31 (the same speech from God to Moses as Exodus 30), God tells Moses his people should observe the sabbath. Which sabbath? Was the next one after Moses got back down the mountain. Is it a year from now? Or is it every sabbath?

You’re misconstruing what I’m saying. The context in Exodus 30 is payment of the temple tax. The construction of the sentence is a third-class conditional sentence: we’ve got either a hypothetical or a probable future condition.

Please recall that the temple tax was an annual tax. It did not require a census. (See Mt 17:24 – there is no ‘census’ that takes place; Peter and Jesus simply are required to pay the annual temple tax.)

Therefore, what we have here is a conflation of two notions: if – hypothetically – Moses were to call for the census, then he should also use it in order to levy the temple tax.

Moses does end up calling for a census, which we see in the beginning of the book of Numbers. After that time, ostensibly, the collection of the temple tax is not entangled with a census. Therefore, your notion that God is mad at David because He didn’t get his money is absurd. (No exegesis required. )

There’s nothing in Exodus 30 regarding performing a census that says it’s about one particular census.

In the Septuagint, we have: “ἐὰν λάβῃς τὸν συλλογισμὸν τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ”. Literally, it’s “if you should take the reckoning of the sons of Israel”. The count – not a count in general. The count – not the counts in plural.

Also I noted that there are Christian sources that agree with me that David’s problem was not getting the half shekel payment.

I went back through the thread, but couldn’t find references to “Christian sources”. Maybe I missed them. Could you cite your sources, please?

 

[Gorgias]

But you’re saying true can mean something that is completely false so long as someone else misinterpreted it. Not only that we can assume that the misinterpretation is in the first and not the second; but also I can safely assume that if anyone were to claim the “occasionalist” explanation to take away credit from God (for something that wasn’t embarrassing) that person would be told that doesn’t count.

No. What I’m saying is that, if we wish to interpret a piece of literature – Biblical or otherwise – and we wish to come up with a valid understanding of it, it’s necessary to understand it in the context of the time and place of the initial audience. The initial audience of 2 Sam 24 was occasionalist; the initial audience of 1 Chronicles was not. If you ignore that fact, then you misinterpret the narratives.

C’mon, you’re smarter than what you’re claiming here! If a library has two books, the earlier of which says “lightning is caused when Zeus throws bolts from the sky” and another, later one which says “lightning is caused by atmospheric disturbances”, would you really say that it wasn’t ‘atmospheric disturbance’ in the former, even though they believed it was Zeus? (After all, that was your claim, remember? You castigated Msgr Pope for asserting that David called the census, claiming that 2 Sam 24 proved him wrong. )

If a reasonable analysis of a piece of literature makes you think of 1984, then I recommend you stop reading.

You are saying that X means both X and not X.

No. I’m saying “interpret pieces of literature in their own context”. I’m saying “anachronistic interpretations are illogical and unreasonable.” Language (in terms of pragmatics) and basic logic (in terms of the anachronistic fallacy) is what you’re murdering here.

 

[Agathon]

Then why did God not punish those guilty for what they had done prior to the great census kerfuffle? Did he jot a note and then after not getting his money from the census think that was the perfect time to get around punishing those 70,000 guilty of whatever?

In the book of Chronicles, David didn’t complete the census, so I fail to see how money factors into this.

 

[ethereality]

I’m thinking to unsubscribe from this thread, because I’ve lost interest, yet Mike appears unwilling to be told differently from his opinion on the matter …

 

[Gorgias]

Yes, he does seem quite dogmatic in his stance, and certain of his personal interpretation of a Scripture he doesn’t believe in, doesn’t he?

I’ll say a prayer for your healing, @ethereality!

 

[ethereality]

Thank you! My back pain has decreased substantially and appears to continue
improving, though other health problems such as severe near-sightedness and
several (too many to count) eye-floaters remain unchanged. Should I try to
convince myself that God is healing these as well? … I have prayed for
years…

 

[mythbuster1]

The Levites, not the priests. Also, “liturgical supplies” includes animals for burnt offerings, which were raised by and purchased from shepherds and ranchers.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

You’re misconstruing what I’m saying. The context in Exodus 30 is payment of the temple tax. The construction of the sentence is a third-class conditional sentence: we’ve got either a hypothetical or a probable future condition.

Right, And when a sentence is constructed conditionally such that “When doing A, you must also do B,” then the thrust of the subject matter is about A. If a sentence says “When changing a flat tire, you must first have your parking break set” you’ll find that in a manual about tire changing not parking breaks. The fact that the passage essentially says when you count people, make sure to get a half shekel from them means its focus is on counting people.

Please recall that the temple tax was an annual tax. It did not require a census. (See Mt 17:24 – there is no ‘census’ that takes place; Peter and Jesus simply are required to pay the annual temple tax.)

Therefore, what we have here is a conflation of two notions: if – hypothetically – Moses were to call for the census, then he should also use it in order to levy the temple tax.

Moses does end up calling for a census, which we see in the beginning of the book of Numbers. After that time, ostensibly, the collection of the temple tax is not entangled with a census. Therefore, your notion that God is mad at David because He didn’t get his money is absurd. (No exegesis required. )

In the Septuagint, we have: “ἐὰν λάβῃς τὸν συλλογισμὸν τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ”. Literally, it’s “if you should take the reckoning of the sons of Israel”. The count – not a count in general. The count – not the counts in plural.

You’re talking about a translation of a translation. If you look at a collection of different Bible translations here you’ll find that most of them either have it as “a census” or “take the number/sum of”. The latter matches with the interlinear translation from the Hebrew as seen here. Don’t let the definite article throw you off on that one. One of the jobs I do at work is to regularly record the temperatures of rooms where we store certain important electronic equipment. Just because I record the temperatures one hour doesn’t mean I won’t do it again another hour. The same thing goes with “taking the sum of the sons of Israel”. Making that count one time doesn’t mean it won’t be done again, and it certainly doesn’t mean the same monetary precautions aren’t required each time.

I went back through the thread, but couldn’t find references to “Christian sources”. Maybe I missed them. Could you cite your sources, please?

While we disagree wildly on this topic, there might be one thing we truly agree on: This new format for CAF makes it incredibly hard to find what you’re looking for

Anyway, post 27:
Apologetics Press

Post 76:
Common Truth

I also suggested searching online under “david census half shekel” for more articles.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

No. What I’m saying is that, if we wish to interpret a piece of literature – Biblical or otherwise – and we wish to come up with a valid understanding of it, it’s necessary to understand it in the context of the time and place of the initial audience. The initial audience of 2 Sam 24 was occasionalist; the initial audience of 1 Chronicles was not. If you ignore that fact, then
you misinterpret the narratives.

C’mon, you’re smarter than what you’re claiming here! If a library has two books, the earlier of which says “lightning is caused when Zeus throws bolts from the sky” and another, later one which says “lightning is caused by atmospheric disturbances”, would you really say that it wasn’t ‘atmospheric disturbance’ in the former, even though they believed it was Zeus? (After all,
that was your claim, remember? You castigated Msgr Pope for asserting that David called the census, claiming that 2 Sam 24 proved him wrong. )

What I’ve been talking about regarding the difference between these passages is truth. Assuming that David actually had a census, then one of three things occurred:

1. God had David hold a census. (2 Samuel 24)
2. Satan had David hold a census. (1 Chronicles 21)
3. David decided on his own to hold a census. (Neither 2 Samuel 24 nor 1 Chronicles 21 are true)

By saying that 2 Samuel 24 is to be read as an occasionalist explanation is to say that it is incorrect. It is a false assumption by the writer, emphasis on “false”. This causes a problem because each passage of scripture is supposed to be true in one way or another. In your analogy you gave two books with different attempted explanations for lightning. The first book is false, but that’s okay because people today aren’t told to treat it as true. It doesn’t have the extra weight of being guided by the Holy Spirit.

Another important factor is that in your example Zeus throwing lightning bolts is different than atmospheric disturbaces, but they are not opposites. In the Biblical comparison God doing something is the exact opposite of Satan doing something. One of those needs to be brushed aside, not as some alternate truth, but as fiction.

One final thought on this: We are lucky that 1 Chronicles 21 is there to correct the errors of 2 Samuel 24. What if there are other passages that are also occasionalist but we’re not so lucky to have a second passage to correct its errors? How would we know?

If a reasonable analysis of a piece of literature makes you think of 1984, then I recommend you stop reading.

If you’re saying that one passage is partially untrue and the other is true, then we’re fine. If you’re saying both are true, then that’s classic doublethink.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

In the book of Chronicles, David didn’t complete the census, so I fail to see how money factors into this.

The 1 Chronicles 21 story has the census completed in all but two of the tribes, whereas the 2 Samuel 24 story has the census being completed. That gives us a few possibilities:

1. The reading in 1 Chronicles 21 is accurate to where all but two tribes’ numbers were reported by Joab. Later Joab reported a number to David including all of the tribes (to make 2 Samuel 24 accurate). If both readings are accurate then your statement would be more accurately written: In the book of Chronicles, David hadn’t yet completed the census, but would eventually do so." Though that would counter the second part where you don’t think money factor into this.
2. The reading in 1 Chronicles 21 is accurate to where all but two tribes’ numbers were reported by Joab. The reading in 2 Samuel 24 is false when it says that David completed the census. We would then have the problem that a piece of scripture guided into existence by the Holy Spirit would be false. Also this doesn’t solve the problem of the half shekels since the reading in 1 Chronicles 21 says the census was completed for all of the tribes (and if some scholars’ interpretations are to be believed didn’t follow the money practice in Exodus 30).
3. The reading in 2 Samuel 24 is accurate and all of the tribes’ numbers were reported by Joab. The reading in 1 Chronicles 21 is false that Joab witheld the numbers from two of the tribes. We would then have the problem that a piece of scripture guided into existence by the Holy Spirit would be false. Also this doesn’t solve the problem of the half shekels.
4. Neither reading is correct.

An interesting tidbit to add to this contradiction is a second contradiction. Let’s set aside the numbers for Judea. One says 430,000 men and one says 500,000. Even though there is a large 16% difference between the two numbers it’s at least conceivable that in 2 Samuel 24 the number was due to rounding. No, what I want to focus on is that the tally in Chronicles is greater when Joab counted two less tribes that the tally in Samuel where Joab counted all of the tribes. Unless there were negative soldiers in the tribes of Levi and Benjamin then there is a major problem.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I’m thinking to unsubscribe from this thread, because I’ve lost interest, yet Mike appears unwilling to be told differently from his opinion on the matter …

Yes, he does seem quite dogmatic in his stance, and certain of his personal interpretation of a Scripture he doesn’t believe in, doesn’t he?

It’s not a dogma. It’s simply the method by which one tries to discern what is and is not true. A quick perusal through CAF will show Christians using the same methods to pick apart non-Christian religious texts that they believe have inconsistencies that are internal, external, and/or moral (e.g. how the Book of Mormon features items in the Americas which didn’t exist at the time, or how different passages in the Quran say different things about non-believers).

The problem I see is presupposing a particular reading even if the words, events, and what we know both in our hearts and in the world don’t match up. I can’t claim something is what I want it to be through sheer force of will. Integrity won’t let me do that.

ethereality, don’t worry about unsubscribing from this thread. I’ve said what I wanted to say. Please don’t take this as either me trying to declare some kind of victory or as some kind of concession. It’s an internet forum which means the only winners are the ones that don’t participate! We’re not going to convince each other of anything. Instead I do want to focus on that slavery thread. If you really want to see me angry…

 

[ethereality]

For me, internet forums are places to learn, not to spend time typing arguments.

I’m not sure what was accomplished by everything you wrote and was written back to you. As far as I can recall, you say the plague was due to the Exodus command that they pay money to the Temple; others say it was because David was trying to count what God said would be uncountable, thereby blaspheming God.

In either case, God killing people seems justified by the facts that God owns us and because God is just and our souls are eternal this death is not ‘bad’ like it would be under atheism (i.e., the dead good people go to heaven). You seem to insist on the atheist’s perspective of death (i.e., essentially bad) and definition of God as ‘a being in the universe’ rather than creator of the universe and our master, and then it seems a lot of time was spent trying to dissuade you from these firmly held beliefs.

I don’t want to discuss slavery, but thanks for the invitation.