Need help with defending / understanding Old Testament

[Anim8]

I was talking to a couple of guys on another forum, but I’m a little stumped as to how to answer this.

You don’t honestly believe that any of the other major religions are different do you? Christianity, Hindu, and Judaism are all ridiculously violent. The only reason that most western Christian people think that Islam is somehow more violent than their own religion is that they haven’t read (or choose to ignore) the bad spots in their own bible.

Just to show you that it’s every Christian’s duty to kill non believers, I found some of the better quotes from the loving Christian God.

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT

I can respond to the last one, that is the reason we require mass on Sunday’s,and the Church does recognize and allow that we work if it is necessary. But I’m pretty lost on the others.

 

[Nita]

When God called the OT people to be His chosen people, He established not only a religion, but also a nation. The laws He decreed encompassed religion, health, civil government, everything. The laws you cite would fall under the judicial aspect. Unlike our democracy that insists on separation of state and religion, with the Jews, the two were welded together. What harmed the religion, harmed the nation and vice versa.

When Jesus came, the kingdom He founded was the universal kingdom of God (Church)- a religion, but not a nation. The members of this kingdom were to go into everywhere and be leaven within the existing nations. Hence, only “laws” retained from OT were the moral laws. (To these were added Jesus further moral teachings and doctrine, and His instruction on the hierarchical structure of this kingdom, His Church.) Other national and judicial laws were no longer were applicable since Christianity was not a nation.
Nita

 

[Nita]

Few more thoughts.

Regarding the various laws that decree execution of someone:

As mentioned in previous post, God was establishing a religion and a nation. You can usually tell how threatening a certain action was to this purpose of God by the severity of the penalty He decreed. What could prove fatal to the establishment of this religion/nation - where His truth could be taught, upheld and practiced - was likely to deserve capital punishment. (Keep in mind also the lack of prison facilities when the nation is rural, small, etc. When the laws were originally given, the Jews were still nomadic, travelling thru the desert.)

Acts that God considered a serious threat included:
Living side by side with pagans (hence the expelling or killing of pagans when the Jews conquered a land);
Jews who adopted pagan beliefs and practices;
Adultery (stable family life critical)
Murder

There are probably more; but if you examine them you understand why there needed to be a severe punishment if a Godly nation was to be “born” and survive in the midst of a pagan world. (An analogy in my mind is that the years from Abraham to Moses constituted the pregnancy; from Moses to Jesus, birth to adulthood; Christianity, adulthood.)

Nita

 

[Texas_Roofer]

My understanding is the New Testament and the Old Testament is the same, same God, same message. The difference is the writers (people). If you lived in fear of a warring neighbor that would naturally appear in your writings. If your dream was to form a like minded society (Jewish/Israel) then that appears in your writings. How can you receive God’s reward if you do not know what an award is? I think the key is to understand the Bible is inspired writing but not free of all forms of error, that is why the faith verses works argument never ends. My advice is to respond with this “Given the bible writings span thousands of years the writings reflect customs and beliefs of various times, we now know putting others to death is only a last resort, in modern times we can use incarceration in form not available 2,000-5,000 years ago. The difference is most religions have grown to understand violence was not the intent of God’s plan and thus have retrained the faithful to stop violent actions. We advice to focus on the objective of God’s plan not the past means which occurred through human fault. Unfortunately a few religions have continued to accept violence as an acceptable means. Additionally, a few accept the killing of innocent women and children for political and religious statements. It is also important to understand many if not most Muslims do not condone violence. We have to be careful about painting a religion with the actions of a single member whether that member was in the bible or not.”