Question about violence in the OT

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jen7
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

Jen7

Guest
My father was baptized Catholic but not raised in the faith. For years my mom has prayed for him to take RCIA. This summer he signed up for his first ever Bible Study at their parish. He is SO disturbed by all the violence God seems to enact (the flood in Noah’s time, the plagues in Egypt, battles God told His people to initiate, etc.) He came to me last week genuinely confused. HOW could God not just permit but encourage and initiate these things??! I did not know what to say. Do ya’ll??
 
Jen7 said:
HOW could God not just permit but encourage and initiate these things??!
Click to expand...
God neither encouraged nor initiated. Ask your Dad if he encouraged or initiated you being grounded or losing your allowance when you misbehaved. No - we encouraged and initiated our Father punishing us based on our own voluntary decisions to disobey.

Noah flood because man continuously disobeyed God to the point God had to hit the reset button but promised man he’d never do it again

Plagues 100% caused by Pharohs stubbornness and refusal to free slaves. Even though he knew a new plague would come he still would hold onto the slaves. Just pure stubbornness

Same w battles, as someone said they were waged against people continuously disobeying God.
 
Yes and a lot of times in the OT, God was using war to eliminate idolatry from the land and to protect Jews from the idolatry practiced by the surrounding tribes.
 
Aquinas11 said:
Ask your Dad if he encouraged or initiated you being grounded or losing your allowance when you misbehaved.
Click to expand...
Well… my dad is about the gentlest man you can imagine. I don’t remember ever being grounded. Just the sort-of shocked, sad look on his face. For me, that was far worse than a grounding. I couldn’t handle disappointing him. The most awful “punishment” I remember way him saying sadly, “I thought you were smarter than that.” I died inside.

I think my dad thought of God as equally gentle. Problem is not all God’s children take such subtle hints I guess!!
 
I need to read Genesis and Exodus again myself so I can find these “very clear” indications & share them with him. I think it would help him.

By the way, would ya’ll pray for him?? I feel like he’s finally opening a tiny door to the faith & I pray for him to have a personal experience with God during this time.
 
Critical point.

OT = God getting sick and tired of humans unable to obey his laws

NT = God lovingly offering his only son so that man can have a decent chance to get to heaven. God didn’t have to do it. Remember in Genesis it was fall of Adam/Eve that inclined man to sin , thus so many couldn’t abide Gods law in OT
 
God through the prophets gave plenty of warnings to the Israelites to repent and avoid punishment. They sinned, were punished, repented and forgiven.This cycle repeated itself. Each time they sinned God never abandoned them. He forgave them and welcomed them back like Hosea welcomed back his wife.

God even warned non Israelites such as Assyrians in the book of Jonah. They repented and were spared. It didn’t last though. They went back to their evil idolatrous ways and were eventually crushed.
 
Read the Gospels with your Dad, Start there.
Then the rest of the New Testament. Then go back into the Old Testament later, after understanding Jesus and His Ministry more.
 
I agree with what your father sees as terrible violence in the Old Testament, so hopefully I can be a sounding board as to some of the advice others have been giving you.

@(name removed by moderator) recommended having your dad to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. To someone who doesn’t believe that method doesn’t negate the violence in the OT. It just makes the doubter wonder why God the Father seems utterly capable of any kind of compassion that his son seems to show. If anything it would push your father into Marcionism.

@Aquinas11 said that God never encouraged or initiated these things. In Exodus 34 God tells Moses “I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory”. Regarding the plagues in Egypt not only did God harden Pharaoh’s heart to prevent him from releasing the Hebrews, but since the fault lied with Pharaoh then justice should have been applied just to him. There’s no reason to set a series of plagues which would kill many. God initiated having a man killed for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. God set forth a detailed set of instructions as to how his people could obtain and abuse slaves, even though they were in the desert at the time and had spent over 400 years prior as slaves themselves.

@Zach said God gave many warnings about the punishments that he handed down, but much of that is highly disproportionate to what was done. A good analogy would be a mugging victim getting shot because he took too long handing over his wallet. Sure, the victim was warned, but it certainly wasn’t warranted. We can look at the story with the census where a monetary tribute wasn’t given as prescribed which caused thousands to die.

Finally, @lil_user says we are not in a position to judge God’s actions. I think we certainly are. Your father absolutely does. To try and brush it off by saying God’s morality is not our own or we simply don’t understand is not an explanation but a way to excuse great evil.
 
Thank you for understanding, Mike. I can at least let my dad know he’s not alone in his feelings. I think that will mean a lot to him.

Does anyone know good books that might explain the violence?
 
Now, now, don’t you think this is just a bit rude? I’m sure he’s read it, just not the same way you have. I appreciate both ya’ll’s perspectives & appreciate you BOTH for posting here. No need to jump down someone’s throat for not seeing what you see in scripture. We are here to learn from one another, right?
 
For goodness sakes! Who is an atheist? And regardless… atheists can think, too! They can also read the Bible. How else are they supposed to stop being atheists?! 😉 I’m happy for anyone with an opinion to chime in here. Someone who struggles in the same way as my dad, is consoling to hear from, as is everyone else.
 
Well I’m a lifelong Catholic & have read it & didn’t remember all the details Mike mentioned. Plus I didn’t know what to say to comfort and explain these passages to my dad. Those things don’t make me an atheist, haha!
 
I have no doubt about that. But if I can’t help my dad make sense of Genesis he’s probably not going to even get to those other books of the Bible. 🙁 He’s a 75 year old man who is just crawling out of his comfort zone now. I don’t want to explain away God’s actions, but I would like to extend compassion for the difficult passages he’s grappling with & some concrete exegesis to help him understand. I’m afraid “read the rest of the Bible and it’ll make sense” may not apply here just because… well, when you don’t like or understand the first few chapters of a book, sometimes you don’t finish it to the end. This is why I am seeking help here in this forum.
 
Yes, I realized this is what you were saying. I was just pointing out that by your measuring stick I’d look more “the atheist” than Mike. He remembered more details than I did!

Mike the atheist (or not!) - thank you for your contributions.
 
My questions are the ones Mike brought up. Those passages. Why?? I have read Dives Et Misericoria. But I wish the encyclical covered the whole OT!! And my dad won’t read Dives Et Misericordea - he just wont. He’s not a “deep thinker” type. He doesn’t enjoy reading.
 
I can not commit to doing this right now. My retired father is reading the OT. I am very much NOT retired, though! While it might be ideal for me to comb through Genesis in great detail like I did in college, I am not at a place in life where I can commit to this. I appreciate your very kind offer to study it with me though.
 
My dad? Of course not. This is his first experience with the Bible beyond faithfully sitting through Mass all the years of his marriage out of respect for my mom.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top