Loving God vs. Vengeful God?

[openmind77]

Yet again, you’re begging the question. How can you know from your limited human perspective so much about the circumstances of that time and that situation to make any judgment at all?

The fact that you are using the word “atrocities” indicates that you are presupposing such a moral position.

Scriptural exegesis clearly states that the ban that was place on those peoples was strictly a matter of divine justice. God could’ve easily snapped His anthropomorphic fingers and destroyed those people Himself, but He promised Noah in making His covenant with Noah, that He’d never do it again.

Secondly, as God’s chosen and “first born son” among His creation, it was required that the Israelites ,as mediators between God and the rest of creation, mediate the justice required by God for the atrocities which those peoples committed and for whom He had placed the ban on.

Therefore what the Israelites did was NOT commit “atrocities” or “ethnic cleansing,” but divine justice.

What the Israelites did was an act of mercy from the divine perspective. It was better that those peoples, even the children who either would have been sacrificed or prostituted out in any regard, that they should die in their bodies so that their souls can be saved, than to live and then lose both their bodies and souls in eternal hell.

Their souls, just as the righteous dead souls of the rest of the dead, were the ones Jesus went to preach to after His crucifixion. Those souls may be enjoying bliss with God right now.

So it seems apparent that your use of certain inflammatory words would be rather un-called for.

If someone came to you today and said he had to kill his neighbor and his whole family because God had ordered him to do so because of their evil ways, how do you know with your limited human perspective that he is not telling the truth?

Maybe that sinful family next door is so immoral that God has indeed asked this righteous person to take care them. According to you it is better that they all be killed in order to save their souls.

 

[Amandil]

If someone came to you today and said he had to kill his neighbor and his whole family because God had ordered him to do so because of their evil ways, how do you know with your limited human perspective that he is not telling the truth?

Maybe that sinful family next door is so immoral that God has indeed asked this righteous person to take care them. According to you it is better that they all be killed in order to save their souls.

This is a non-sequitur. God doesn’t use human individuals anymore to mediate His justice. That is Christ’s job.

So I would infer that he has no real authority and I would do everything in my power to stop him.

 

[Counterpoint]

“Ethnic cleansing” is rather disingenuous given what I know and what you apparently are ignoring.

There are more than a few biblical scholars who agree with my interpretation.

“The wars of extermination have been characterized as genocide by a number of scholars and commentators.[38][44][45] Shaul Magid characterizes the commandment to exterminate the Midianites as a “genocidal edict”, and asserts that rabbinical tradition continues to defend the edict into the 20th century.[46] L. Daniel Hawk describes the extermination of Canaanites as “ethnic cleansing”, but notes that the narrative includes contradictory indications that Canaanites were absorbed into Israeli society.[47][48] Ra’anan Boustan, Alex Jassen, and Calvin Roetzel assert that - in the modern era - the violence directed towards the Canaanites would be characterized as genocide.[49] Zev Garber characterizes the commandment to wage war on the Amalekites as genocide.[50] Pekka Pitkanen asserts that Deuteronomy involves “demonization of the opponent” which is typical of genocide, and he asserts that the genocide of the Canaanites was due to unique circumstances, and that “the biblical material should not be read as giving license for repeating it.”[51]” (soucre: Wikipedia: Judaism and violence)

Have you ever bothered asking what the Canaanite, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites were doing?

Yes, I have. They were guilty of worshiping their gods.

In Deut 20:16-18 God tells the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanite nations, “otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the lord your God”. (source: Wikipedia: Judaism and violence)

 

[Amandil]

There are more than a few biblical scholars who agree with my interpretation.

And their subjective opinions are suppose to mean something to me?

Yes, I have. They were guilty of worshiping their gods.

It’s not that they were worshipping “their” gods. It was what that worship entailed and how it was institutionalized. Ancient cultures didn’t have any such notions as the “separation of church and state”.

It was integral to their whole life and culture.

 

[Counterpoint]

And their subjective opinions are suppose to mean something to me?

It would appear that you are trying to justify genocide rather than repudiate it.

It’s not that they were worshipping “their” gods. It was what that worship entailed and how it was institutionalized. Ancient cultures didn’t have any such notions as the “separation of church and state”.

It was integral to their whole life and culture.

Religious freedom, separation of church and state, and democracy are clearly not biblical.

 

[PeaceInChrist]

And their subjective opinions are suppose to mean something to me?

It’s not that they were worshipping “their” gods. It was what that worship entailed and how it was institutionalized. Ancient cultures didn’t have any such notions as the “separation of church and state”.

It was integral to their whole life and culture.

The things involved with worshipping their gods included child and infant sacrificed to moloch, incest and pedophilia, bestiality, and a variety of other practices that would still be considered detestable and morally repugnant. They are outlined in the laws given to the people of Israel, in order to prevent them from doing similar things. See Leviticus, Deuteronomy, ect.

Besides, as I posted in another thread, God is infinite, and we are finite offenders of his precepts. We are repugnant in his sight because of sin. If he eradicated all of us, he’d be just in doing so. In fact, eternal death is still dealt to those who refuse his mercy, which is literally infinitely worse than death on this earth. And again, he’d be justified in killing us all. We are infinitely less than him, and have offended him. We are dust to him, so the fact that he has mercy at all in any capacity, especially eternal mercy, is already infinitely more than we deserve.

 

[openmind77]

This is a non-sequitur. God doesn’t use human individuals anymore to mediate His justice. That is Christ’s job.

So I would infer that he has no real authority and I would do everything in my power to stop him.

Now I get it - before Christ, God was powerless to handle justice on his own. He needed some humans to do it for him. So very conveniently Israelites were there to massacre woman, children and babies for him. What was the Christ doing at that time? Watching the massacre?

 

[Amandil]

The things involved with worshipping their gods included child and infant sacrificed to moloch, incest and pedophilia, bestiality, and a variety of other practices that would still be considered detestable and morally repugnant. They are outlined in the laws given to the people of Israel, in order to prevent them from doing similar things. See Leviticus, Deuteronomy, ect.

Besides, as I posted in another thread, God is infinite, and we are finite offenders of his precepts. We are repugnant in his sight because of sin. If he eradicated all of us, he’d be just in doing so. In fact, eternal death is still dealt to those who refuse his mercy, which is literally infinitely worse than death on this earth. And again, he’d be justified in killing us all. We are infinitely less than him, and have offended him. We are dust to him, so the fact that he has mercy at all in any capacity, especially eternal mercy, is already infinitely more than we deserve.

Are these words intended for me or “Counterpoint”? Because I agree with every word of this post.

 

[Counterpoint]

The things involved with worshipping their gods included child and infant sacrificed to moloch, incest and pedophilia, bestiality, and a variety of other practices that would still be considered detestable and morally repugnant. They are outlined in the laws given to the people of Israel, in order to prevent them from doing similar things. See Leviticus, Deuteronomy, ect.

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Genesis 22:2

"Francesca Stavrakopoulou has speculated that it is possible that the story "contains traces of a tradition in which Abraham does sacrifice Isaac.[17] Richard Elliott Friedman has argued that in the original E story Abraham may have carried out the sacrifice of Isaac, but that later repugnance at the idea of a human sacrifice led the redactor of JE to add the lines in which a ram is substituted for Isaac.[18] (source: Wikipedia: Binding of Isaac)

 

[tonyrey]

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of

Francesca Stavrakopoulou: an atheist who “speculated”…
Richard Elliott Friedman: an atheist who also speculated - “may have”…

The simplest explanation: Abraham **mistakenly **believed God told him to sacrifice Isaac and was prevented from doing so by divine intervention. That is more consistent with the teaching of Jesus that God is a loving Father (rather than the primitive notion of a merciless Judge).

 

[openmind77]

Francesca Stavrakopoulou: an atheist who “speculated”…
Richard Elliott Friedman: an atheist who also speculated - “may have”…

The simplest explanation: Abraham **mistakenly **believed God told him to sacrifice Isaac and was prevented from doing so by divine intervention. That is more consistent with the teaching of Jesus that God is a loving Father (rather than the primitive notion of a merciless Judge).

I agree totally - there are lots of ‘mistakes’ like these in the OT regarding God’s commands.

Anything in the OT which is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus should be discarded.

 

[Counterpoint]

The simplest explanation: Abraham **mistakenly **believed God told him to sacrifice Isaac and was prevented from doing so by divine intervention. That is more consistent with the teaching of Jesus that God is a loving Father (rather than the primitive notion of a merciless Judge).

I agree with the “mistakenly” part. But you are only making my point. There are a lot of “mistaken” beliefs about God in the Bible.

 

[Amandil]

Now I get it - before Christ, God was powerless to handle justice on his own. He needed some humans to do it for him. So very conveniently Israelites were there to massacre woman, children and babies for him. What was the Christ doing at that time? Watching the massacre?

Strawman.

 

[tonyrey]

I agree totally - there are lots of ‘mistakes’ like these in the OT regarding God’s commands.

Anything in the OT which is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus should be discarded.

It is unreasonable to regard every statement in the OT as infallible.

 

[tonyrey]

I agree with the “mistakenly” part. But you are only making my point. There are a lot of “mistaken” beliefs about God in the Bible.

How do you distinguish the true from the false?

 

[Amandil]

Francesca Stavrapoulou: an atheist who “speculated”…
Richard Elliott Friedman: an atheist who also speculated - “may have”…

The simplest explanation: Abraham **mistakenly **believed God told him to sacrifice Isaac and was prevented from doing so by divine intervention. That is more consistent with the teaching of Jesus that God is a loving Father (rather than the primitive notion of a merciless Judge).

How exactly is that the “simplest explanation”?

I would think that the simplest explanation would be that Abraham heard God just as God intended Him to in order to test Abraham’s faith.

God didn’t need to test Abraham, did He? God surely knew that Abraham would do precisely what He asked. But it is recorded that in fact that us what God asked Abraham to do. Why?

Was the test for Abraham, or was it meant for us? That God is not less important than even our first born children? That we should literally be willing to give up the most precious thing in our lives in order to obey God. For Abraham, his most precious treasure was Isaac. Yet he truly believed that if God could give him one son, even at their advanced age, that God would do it again because God swore by Himself that He would.

That’s the simplest explanation. And it’s not contrary to the teaching of Jesus.

 

[openmind77]

How do you distinguish the true from the false?

The simplest, best test is to see if something contradicts Jesus’s own statements.

If Jesus says the Father is a loving, kind, merciful God and something in the OT contradicts that, then discard it without hesitation.

 

[tonyrey]

How do you distinguish the true from the false?

 

[oldcelt]

openmind77;11830965:

The simplest, best test is to see if something contradicts Jesus’s own statements.

If Jesus says the Father is a loving, kind, merciful God and something in the OT contradicts that, then discard it without hesitation. /quote]
I fully agree with you but I doubt whether every contributor to this thread does.

I’m with the both of you. but why didn’t the ECF see the problems? Those stories have been in there since the bible was codified and I feel reasonably comfortable in saying that these contradictions have caused many serious Christians problems.
I mean, the first-born are massacred, but Pharaoh lives to a ripe old age (if it really was Ramses).

 

[tonyrey]

I’m with the both of you. but why didn’t the ECF see the problems? Those stories have been in there since the bible was codified and I feel reasonably comfortable in saying that these contradictions have caused many serious Christians problems.
I mean, the first-born are massacred, but Pharaoh lives to a ripe old age (if it really was Ramses).

Do you mean the Early Christian Fathers? The books of the Old Testament were not selected by the Church because they were literally true in every detail but because they explain the background from which Jesus came and demonstrate how He fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah made hundreds of years prior to His birth.