Laws in the Old Testament

[GarrusN7]

Why do the laws in the Old Testament seem to be so immoral? It seems to me that many of the things taught in these books are recognized today as being incredibly evil, so much so that if any nation today tried to base its laws on the laws of the Old Testament, they would be condemned on a global scale.

I have in mind things such as: Endorsing slavery and the selling of human beings(Exodus 21:7-8, Leviticus 25:44-46), proscribing the death penalty for working on the sabbath(Exodus 31:15), killing those who worship a different god, specifically killing your own family members if they worship a different god(Deuteronomy 13:7-12), destroying entire towns simply because some of the people in those towns worship the wrong god(Deuteronomy 13:13-19), etc.

I have heard many proposed answers to these questions, but unfortunately they all seem somewhat contrived and unsatisfactory. Why is it that the morality on offer in the Old Testament seems so different from what we would expect from a morally perfect God?

 

[AlltheRoses]

Why do the laws in the Old Testament seem to be so immoral? It seems to me that many of the things taught in these books are recognized today as being incredibly evil, so much so that if any nation today tried to base its laws on the laws of the Old Testament, they would be condemned on a global scale.

I have in mind things such as: Endorsing slavery and the selling of human beings(Exodus 21:7-8, Leviticus 25:44-46), proscribing the death penalty for working on the sabbath(Exodus 31:15), killing those who worship a different god, specifically killing your own family members if they worship a different god(Deuteronomy 13:7-12), destroying entire towns simply because some of the people in those towns worship the wrong god(Deuteronomy 13:13-19), etc.

I have heard many proposed answers to these questions, but unfortunately they all seem somewhat contrived and unsatisfactory. Why is it that the morality on offer in the Old Testament seems so different from what we would expect from a morally perfect God?

God was preparing people for the law of love that Christ would introduce. An eye for an eye, for instance, might seem like a brutal system of law to people very much concerned with the love and mercy that Christ taught, but that precept (an eye for an eye) seems very fair, enlightened, and merciful compared to the type of law that came before that, which was, if your neighbor pokes out your eye, you better take more than an eye from your neighbor.

 

[GarrusN7]

God was preparing people for the law of love that Christ would introduce.

I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean here. Are you saying that God couldn’t teach them true morality because they weren’t ready yet? Or have I misunderstood you?

An eye for an eye, for instance, might seem like a brutal system of law to people very much concerned with the love and mercy that Christ taught, but that precept (an eye for an eye) seems very fair, enlightened, and merciful compared to the type of law that came before that, which was, if your neighbor pokes out your eye, you better take more than an eye from your neighbor.

I agree that the Israelite laws were, in many cases, more moral than those that came before/those of surrounding nations. But we are not talking about a God who is simply somewhat more moral than other gods, we are talking about a God who is supposed to be morally perfect. Why would a morally perfect God order evil things, for any reason?

 

[Crumpy]

Certainly, the commands which involve capital punishment are meant to deter the Israelites from commiting such sins.

We should be careful about turning tables and judging God and his commandments.

No matter how dark the appearance of these laws, they are based on God’s jealous love for his people.

 

[GarrusN7]

Certainly, the commands which involve capital punishment are meant to deter the Israelites from commiting such sins.

We should be careful about turning tables and judging God and his commandments.

No matter how dark the appearance of these laws, they are based on God’s jealous love for his people.

It is not the capital punishment itself I take issue with (I’m a supporter of the death penalty), rather, it is the fact that A)Death seems much too harsh for something like picking up sticks on the wrong day, or being born into the wrong religion, for instance, and B) what about the endorsement of slavery? Or the decision to murder an entire town (and their livestock) just because some people worshipped the wrong God? If you came home to find out that your children(and their dog) had been murdered because the guy down the block converted to the wrong religion, would you consider that just?

 

[AlltheRoses]

I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean here. Are you saying that God couldn’t teach them true morality because they weren’t ready yet? Or have I misunderstood you?

I agree that the Israelite laws were, in many cases, more moral than those that came before/those of surrounding nations. But we are not talking about a God who is simply somewhat more moral than other gods, we are talking about a God who is supposed to be morally perfect. Why would a morally perfect God order evil things, for any reason?

In answer to the first question, I would say that, yes, I was trying to say that God wasn’t teaching them true morality yet. He was providing them with a foundation in truth and justice on which Christ’s true and complete morality of love and mercy could be built. I think that people have to be prepared to learn morality in much the same way they have to be prepared to learn any other complicated subject.

As to the second part, God, in my opinion, isn’t somewhat more moral than other gods, because He is the only God. Other gods are products of mythologies or figments of people’s imagination, but God is real. I would also say that God is morally perfect and He defines morality, so nothing He can do or order is evil. To me, evil is going against God’s will, and God cannot go against His own will, so I don’t think that God could ever do evil or order evil.

If that’s too much of a wiggle answer for you, though, I would suggest that God provided people with a template showing them how “justice” might deal with sins, so that they could better appreciate how “mercy” responded to their sins. Justice, in itself, isn’t evil, but, if justice isn’t tempered by mercy, then we are all condemned. The harshness of some of the OT laws showed people that truth, I think.

That’s just my two cents, however. May God bless you on your faith journey.

 

[Nate13]

Many of the “laws” are not based in moral Truths and instead are based in cultural reasons, or the laws are based in moral Truths that are applied based on the customs of the time. The idea of “justice” for example can be applied in a lot of different ways depending the culture and level of technology a people have. What might have been considered a just punishment then can no longer be considered a just punishment now because the circumstances have changed.

 

[GarrusN7]

In answer to the first question, I would say that, yes, I was trying to say that God wasn’t teaching them true morality yet. He was providing them with a foundation in truth and justice on which Christ’s true and complete morality of love and mercy could be built. I think that people have to be prepared to learn morality in much the same way they have to be prepared to learn any other complicated subject.

This is something that I have heard before, but unfortunately it doesn’t make much sense to me. Were the Israelites truly so backward that commands such as “Human beings are not goods to be sold” or “slaughtering entire villages is a bad thing” beyond their moral capabilities? Buddha was able to teach his people that such things were evil. My little brother, when he was only a few years old, was able to understand such concepts. Even my dog can understand not to harm others. If they can do so, what was preventing the Israelites from mastering such things? I must confess that it seems far more likely to me that these laws were invented by the Israelites themselves, not a morally perfect God, which would explain why these laws seem to fit so well with the general barbarity of the time, and not at all what we would expect from a morally perfect God. I’m open to alternative views, which is why I’m here, but the argument that the Israelites were somehow incapable of mastering even such basic ideas as “slavery is wrong” or “hey, don’t slaughter entire villages, okay?” seems a little far-fetched to me.

If that’s too much of a wiggle answer for you, though, I would suggest that God provided people with a template showing them how “justice” might deal with sins, so that they could better appreciate how “mercy” responded to their sins. Justice, in itself, isn’t evil, but, if justice isn’t tempered by mercy, then we are all condemned. The harshness of some of the OT laws showed people that truth, I think.

This is another stumbling block for me. The laws of the Old Testament do not strike me as being “harsh, but just”. Instead, they seem to be hopelessly unjust. Killing people because they were born into the wrong religion? Keeping people as slaves for no reason? Killing people in a town because someone else in the town sinned? Punishing sons for the crimes of their fathers? These things seem horribly unjust, not simply because the penalties are harsh, but because the laws themselves are unfair and unjust.

 

[GarrusN7]

Many of the “laws” are not based in moral Truths and instead are based in cultural reasons, or the laws are based in moral Truths that are applied based on the customs of the time.

But if something, say, slavery for instance, or the murder of infants, was immoral, why would God endorse it? You cannot simply say “well, slavery was the custom of the time”. Isn’t it the position of the Catholic Church that morality is eternal and unchanging (which is why they cannot change their position on things like homosexuality or contraception)? Doesn’t the church claim that to believe otherwise is to give in to the “Dictatorship of Relativism”? Isn’t that exactly what relativism means, to say “Well, it was moral back then, in that time and place, but now it’s immoral”?

The idea of “justice” for example can be applied in a lot of different ways depending the culture and level of technology a people have. What might have been considered a just punishment then can no longer be considered a just punishment now because the circumstances have changed.

Under what circumstances is slavery, or the slaughter of villagers, or religious intolerance morally acceptable?

 

[DENNYINMI]

The persons in the time frame of OT “laws” weren’t exactly what one might call civil.

Have you not read when and where Abram was called? Read about the city of Ur…

The background is pagan, priestess prostitutes’ and worship of idols.

God moved Abram out of this…but initially did “this” move out of Abram?

God was present (as an old friend of mine taught me), yah, even in the midst of paganism.

Slowly, very slowly, and what may seem as barbaric to us modern, civil, Christianized nations who know well the command to “love one another”…God moved them.

These laws you perceive as barbaric more than likely curtailed a current practice of these peoples, where with Christ…they become fulfilled within the law of “love”…The Law of Liberty.

 

[GarrusN7]

The persons in the time frame of OT “laws” weren’t exactly what one might call civil.

Have you not read when and where Abram was called? Read about the city of Ur…

The background is pagan, priestess prostitutes’ and worship of idols.

God moved Abram out of this…but initially did “this” move out of Abram?

God was present (as an old friend of mine taught me), yah, even in the midst of paganism.

Slowly, very slowly, and what may seem as barbaric to us modern, civil, Christianized nations who know well the command to “love one another”…God moved them.

These laws you perceive as barbaric more than likely curtailed a current practice of these peoples, where with Christ…they become fulfilled within the law of “love”…The Law of Liberty.

I addressed that point earlier when I said:

I agree that the Israelite laws were, in many cases, more moral than those that came before/those of surrounding nations. But we are not talking about a God who is simply somewhat more moral than other gods, we are talking about a God who is supposed to be morally perfect. Why would a morally perfect God order evil things, for any reason?

That being said, if morality is truly perfect and eternal, why did God order evil things in any time or place? Why not order them to be moral (i.e. not buying an selling humans, not murdering infants, etc.) and be done with it? If a person from a barbaric culture murdered your family because the girl down the street converted to paganism, and God explained “well, he’s from a barbaric culture, so I have to ease him in to the whole morality thing, we’ll get him started on ‘not killing’ in a few years”, would you consider that acceptable?

 

[AlltheRoses]

This is something that I have heard before, but unfortunately it doesn’t make much sense to me. Were the Israelites truly so backward that commands such as “Human beings are not goods to be sold” or “slaughtering entire villages is a bad thing” beyond their moral capabilities? Buddha was able to teach his people that such things were evil. My little brother, when he was only a few years old, was able to understand such concepts. Even my dog can understand not to harm others. If they can do so, what was preventing the Israelites from mastering such things? I must confess that it seems far more likely to me that these laws were invented by the Israelites themselves, not a morally perfect God, which would explain why these laws seem to fit so well with the general barbarity of the time, and not at all what we would expect from a morally perfect God. I’m open to alternative views, which is why I’m here, but the argument that the Israelites were somehow incapable of mastering even such basic ideas as “slavery is wrong” or “hey, don’t slaughter entire villages, okay?” seems a little far-fetched to me.

This is another stumbling block for me. The laws of the Old Testament do not strike me as being “harsh, but just”. Instead, they seem to be hopelessly unjust. Killing people because they were born into the wrong religion? Keeping people as slaves for no reason? Killing people in a town because someone else in the town sinned? Punishing sons for the crimes of their fathers? These things seem horribly unjust, not simply because the penalties are harsh, but because the laws themselves are unfair and unjust.

Well, the “slavery is wrong” and “don’t slaughter” precepts aren’t as basic as you make them out to be. Slavery and war crimes still exist today no matter how many religions condemn them, so, no, I honestly don’t think that mastering the impulse not to commit murder or enslave people is easy. That is why God moved His people from the laws of justice in the OT to the laws of mercy and love in the NT. God was doing what we in the educational field would refer to as “scaffolding.”

Teaching people right from wrong isn’t the same as teaching a dog not to bite. The average person is a lot more complicated and defiant than the average dog. Most dogs will obey for a treat or a pat on the head. Most people need to be convinced (logically and/or emotionally) to do the right thing.

When you understand that the wage of sin (something everyone is guilty of) is death, those laws are harsh but just. Strictly speaking, all people are sinners who deserve death, but, through God’s grace and mercy and the forgiveness available to us because of the Cross, we have a chance for eternal life. The harsh laws of the OT are just if the wage of sin is death, and their severity is a way of teaching us all how much we need grace and mercy.

 

[GarrusN7]

Well, the “slavery is wrong” and “don’t slaughter” precepts aren’t as basic as you make them out to be. Slavery and war crimes still exist today no matter how many religions condemn them, so, no, I honestly don’t think that mastering the impulse not to commit murder or enslave people is easy.

I’m not saying that everyone would have followed the laws against slavery and killing. I’m saying that that should have been the ideal. For example, a Catholic parent, if they are realistic, knows that there is a relatively good chance that their teenager will engage in pre-marital sex. Does that mean that they say “Well, controlling your sex drive is really hard, so just have as much sex as you want! Have fun kids!”? Of course not. No parent would tell their child to do something they considered evil just because they thought the kid was going to do it anyways. Similarly, I’m not disputing that some Israelites would do evil things regardless of what God told them. I’m asking why on earth would God encourage such unethical behavior? If anything, they depravity of humanity should have emphasized the importance of God taking a stand, laying out a firm hand and saying “NO! Killing infants is wrong. Buying and selling people as slaves is wrong. Religious intolerance is wrong.”. I for one would be very impressed if we looked back and found that the Israelite religion was, uniquely among the peoples of their time, deeply ethical in a way that transcended the barbaric morality of the time. But that is not at all what we see.

Teaching people right from wrong isn’t the same as teaching a dog not to bite. The average person is a lot more complicated and defiant than the average dog. Most dogs will obey for a treat or a pat on the head. Most people need to be convinced (logically and/or emotionally) to do the right thing.

That’s the problem. God doesn’t even try to convince them to do the right thing. He specifically orders them to do evil things!

When you understand that the wage of sin (something everyone is guilty of) is death, those laws are harsh but just. Strictly speaking, all people are sinners who deserve death, but, through God’s grace and mercy and the forgiveness available to us because of the Cross, we have a chance for eternal life. The harsh laws of the OT are just if the wage of sin is death, and their severity is a way of teaching us all how much we need grace and mercy.

So God ordered the buying and selling of thousands, and the murder of hundreds of thousands if not millions, to set an example for us? To scare us into begging for mercy?

 

[AlltheRoses]

I’m not saying that everyone would have followed the laws against slavery and killing. I’m saying that that should have been the ideal. For example, a Catholic parent, if they are realistic, knows that there is a relatively good chance that their teenager will engage in pre-marital sex. Does that mean that they say “Well, controlling your sex drive is really hard, so just have as much sex as you want! Have fun kids!”? Of course not. No parent would tell their child to do something they considered evil just because they thought the kid was going to do it anyways. Similarly, I’m not disputing that some Israelites would do evil things regardless of what God told them. I’m asking why on earth would God encourage such unethical behavior? If anything, they depravity of humanity should have emphasized the importance of God taking a stand, laying out a firm hand and saying “NO! Killing infants is wrong. Buying and selling people as slaves is wrong. Religious intolerance is wrong.”. I for one would be very impressed if we looked back and found that the Israelite religion was, uniquely among the peoples of their time, deeply ethical in a way that transcended the barbaric morality of the time. But that is not at all what we see.

That’s the problem. God doesn’t even try to convince them to do the right thing. He specifically orders them to do evil things!

So God ordered the buying and selling of thousands, and the murder of hundreds of thousands if not millions, to set an example for us? To scare us into begging for mercy?

God was preparing people to get to the level where they wouldn’t need to take slaves or commit war crimes. He had to narrow down the circumstances in which the war crimes or slavery are permissible, and control the nature of the war crimes and the slavery until He had gotten people to a point where they could accept that war crimes and slavery are not acceptable or necessary. He is preparing people to understand concepts of justice and mercy, rather than just follow rules blindly.

God doesn’t order anyone to do anything evil. Nothing is evil if it is God’s will. If God commands someone to do something, that person doing it is not evil because it is in keeping with God’s will. God’s will is the ultimate good.

Your last point is really exaggerated. Predictions of thousands and millions of people enslaved or killed when cities near ancient Israel were captured or destroyed would not be consistent with the estimates of the population of the ancient world. Most estimates suggest that the world population didn’t reach one billion until about 1800, and so desert cities in antiquity were not likely to contain millions of people to be killed or enslaved.

As to scaring us into begging for mercy, no. Teaching us to appreciate the value of the mercy that we need and that we should extend to others, yes.

At this point, though, I think that I have expressed my thoughts and feelings on the subject, and so have you. I believe that any further discussion between the two of us is likely to consist of us just rehashing what we said before. Perhaps talking to a priest or reading a theology book specifically on this subject (I regret that I can’t recommend any titles) would help you find a more satisfactory way of reconciling God and the OT laws. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to help you more, but I hope that God will guide you on your search for the truth.

 

[GarrusN7]

God was preparing people to get to the level where they wouldn’t need to take slaves or commit war crimes. He had to narrow down the circumstances in which the war crimes or slavery are permissible, and control the nature of the war crimes and the slavery until He had gotten people to a point where they could accept that war crimes and slavery are not acceptable or necessary. He is preparing people to understand concepts of justice and mercy, rather than just follow rules blindly.

So if I adopt a child from a third-world tribe that endorsed honor killing, it would be morally acceptable for me to let him perform an honor killing every once in a while until I could wean him off of it? It would be moral, in fact, for me to order him to do so?

God doesn’t order anyone to do anything evil. Nothing is evil if it is God’s will. If God commands someone to do something, that person doing it is not evil because it is in keeping with God’s will. God’s will is the ultimate good.

That is simply equating “Good” with “God’s will”. If that is the case, then speaking of God as good is simply being redundant. God cannot then be “good” in any meaningful sense.

Your last point is really exaggerated. Predictions of thousands and millions of people enslaved or killed when cities near ancient Israel were captured or destroyed would not be consistent with the estimates of the population of the ancient world. Most estimates suggest that the world population didn’t reach one billion until about 1800, and so desert cities in antiquity were not likely to contain millions of people to be killed or enslaved.

You are correct about that, I was trying to lowball my estimates to make up for the reduced population during that time, but I likely still aimed too high. Putting concrete numbers on it was a mistake in any case. The point is that many, many infants and innocents were bought, sold, or murdered during this time, on God’s orders (if the Bible is to be believed).

At this point, though, I think that I have expressed my thoughts and feelings on the subject, and so have you. I believe that any further discussion between the two of us is likely to consist of us just rehashing what we said before. Perhaps talking to a priest or reading a theology book specifically on this subject (I regret that I can’t recommend any titles) would help you find a more satisfactory way of reconciling God and the OT laws. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to help you more, but I hope that God will guide you on your search for the truth.

Unfortunately, I have talked to multiple priests and a friend of mine with a degree in theology, and none of them have been able to explain it adequately. Thanks for helping me to try and understand.

 

[rdscheirer]

All of what you have said is great.
Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your nieghbor as yourself.

All the other disputes are superfluus.

 

[Qualiteee]

There can be several ways that I approach this rather arduous issue (which many have pondered, thereby explaining the enormous amount of information on it if one searches).

The first “interpretation” might be that if you read closely, it was actually not God but rather the commanders of the Israelite army, if you will, that ordered the genocide. To paraphrase, they either misconstrued or deliberately went far beyond what YHWH had desired.

The second way to look at it might be that the writer of the books in question, namely Leviticus & Deuteronomy, exaggerated the stories for the purpose and benefit of the immediate reader i.e. the Hebrews. It may have been a way, through hyperbole and an massive expansion of thought in order to present a sharp contrast between the Israelite people as a nation set apart from all others; a clean people, a people of special and chosen proportions.

The third way to reconcile the accounts is with the simple understanding that God is the Sole and Supreme Arbiter of Life and Death.

I happen to prefer the second interpretation, myself, because the same way we look at the garden of eden and talking serpent story, the Earth existing prior to the Sun (according to Genesis 1) and the succession of the 6 “days”, the way we read that allegorically and symbolically, that’s how I answer the difficulties.

 

[DENNYINMI]

I like that response Qualiteee…

I too would go along with the second and third aforementioned reasons!

 

[GarrusN7]

The first “interpretation” might be that if you read closely, it was actually not God but rather the commanders of the Israelite army, if you will, that ordered the genocide. To paraphrase, they either misconstrued or deliberately went far beyond what YHWH had desired.

I’m not sure this works. In most cases, the scriptures makes it explicit that God commanded these things(the verses I quoted from Deuteronomy, for instance), and many of the relevant laws are not Israeli commanders doing their own thing, but were the actual laws that the Israelites were told to conduct themselves by. Moreover, if we believe that God’s prophets, such as Moses, were truly that out of sync with what God actually intended, that makes it hard to believe anything that they said.

The second way to look at it might be that the writer of the books in question, namely Leviticus & Deuteronomy, exaggerated the stories for the purpose and benefit of the immediate reader i.e. the Hebrews. It may have been a way, through hyperbole and an massive expansion of thought in order to present a sharp contrast between the Israelite people as a nation set apart from all others; a clean people, a people of special and chosen proportions.

Again, the Bible itself, and other historical sources, make it clear that the Israelites did not just use this as hyperbole, they really did run their country this way. In Jesus’ day, they were still banishing lepers and stoning people to death all over the place.

The third way to reconcile the accounts is with the simple understanding that God is the Sole and Supreme Arbiter of Life and Death.

Again, if you’re simply saying “God can do whatever he wants cause he’s God” that’s fine… but then you can’t refer to him as being perfectly moral. God can’t be “moral” in any real sense if he can just do whatever he wants (order murder, slavery, rape, genocide, etc.) and have whatever he does magically become moral. That renders the entire concept of moral and immoral non-sensical. If there’s nothing that God could do that could conceivably move him from “moral” to “immoral”, than you’re basically defining morality as “whatever the heck God wants”, in which case, God isn’t really any more moral than Kim-Jong Il.

 

[DENNYINMI]

. THE OLD LAW

1961 God, our Creator and Redeemer, chose Israel for himself to be his people and revealed his Law to them, thus preparing for the coming of Christ. The Law of Moses expresses many truths naturally accessible to reason. These are stated and authenticated within the covenant of salvation.

1962 The Old Law is the first stage of revealed Law. Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments. The precepts of the Decalogue lay the foundations for the vocation of man fashioned in the image of God; they prohibit what is contrary to the love of God and neighbor and prescribe what is essential to it. The Decalogue is a light offered to the conscience of every man to make God’s call and ways known to him and to protect him against evil:

God wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their hearts.13
1963 According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good,14 yet still imperfect. Like a tutor15 it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a “law of concupiscence” in the human heart.16 However, the Law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God.

1964 The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel. "The Law is a pedagogy and a prophecy of things to come."17 It prophesies and presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ: it provides the New Testament with images, “types,” and symbols for expressing the life according to the Spirit. Finally, the Law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential books and the prophets which set its course toward the New Covenant and the Kingdom of heaven.

There were . . . under the regimen of the Old Covenant, people who possessed the charity and grace of the Holy Spirit and longed above all for the spiritual and eternal promises by which they were associated with the New Law. Conversely, there exist carnal men under the New Covenant still distanced from the perfection of the New Law: the fear of punishment and certain temporal promises have been necessary, even under the New Covenant, to incite them to virtuous works. In any case, even though the Old Law prescribed charity, it did not give the Holy Spirit, through whom "God’s charity has been poured into our hearts."18

Catechism of the Catholic Church…may I suggest to you that we can only touch the surface of the mind and heart of God…and all the remedies are now found in the “prescription” of the NT through His son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

What did God "owe: us? ponder on that!