Morality, God's rules and Leviticus

[havemercy]

Taken from another forum:

Much of Leviticus concerns itself with the dismemberment of animals, various other means of sacrificing to the Lord God, and such things as sexual and medicinal practices; however there are a few passages which should raise questions for the discerning contemporary Christian, namely:

Leviticus 20:9 'If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

Leviticus 20:10 'If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

Leviticus 20:13 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Leviticus 20:27 ‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’

while i recognize that the Christians of today, because of the New Covenant, are thankfully not required to follow these laws, they still accept that it is God that gave them (as the author of the Old Testament). and yet, most people today would find these commands abhorrent, and morally unacceptable. it should be readily apparent that we’ve arrived at yet another contradiction between modern morality and God’s purported commands. a Christian’s choices regarding these passages are:

1. God was not the author of Leviticus.
2. The commands are morally sound.
3. God gave commands to mankind that were morally questionable, or wrong.

the first denies the divine authorship of a major book of the Old Testament, the choice of which casts doubt on the origin of the rest of both books. the second flies in the face of virtually every moral standard of the modern age, particularly murder. the third has implications for the greater Christian theology, because one cannot consider a being who gives morally questionable or wrong commands to his inferiors to be the source and paragon of morality.

how can Christians resolve this seemingly intractable problem?

I would say that:
2. The commands are morally sound.

Though I’m not sure “morally sound” expresses the meaning or sense behind the Levitical laws.

:ehh:

 

[slowbutfaithful]

There’s a decent description of this apparent connundrum in the Catholic Encyclopedia newadvent.org/cathen/09071a.htm

A particularly relevant portion of the text is copied here:

“Because the code of morality which we have in the Old Testament was inspired by God and imposed by Him on His people, it follows that there is nothing in it that is immoral or wrong. It was indeed imperfect, if it be compared with the higher morality of the Gospel, but, for all that, it contained nothing that is blameworthy. It was suited to the low stage of civilization to which the Israelites had at the time attained; the severe punishments which it prescribed for transgressors were necessary to bend the stiff necks of a rude people.”

 

[system]

A friend and myself have a similar concern:

It seems that Christians absolutely should be concerned with what is written in the Old Testament, as the god in question is the same god as the New Testament, correct? If the god of the Old Testament is as crazy and murderous as he is in scripture, then we have the same crazy, murderous god today, the same being that divinely inspired the New Testament. The New and Old testament are absolutely inseparable to Christians.

A further problem for Christians is trying to reconcile their invention of the trinity, which states that Jesus (a seemingly loving and caring guy), is God, the baby-slaughtering, racist, sexist, and probably raging alcoholic.