Steve Ray-Amalekites 1-26-15

[PRmerger]

What merely metaphorical lesson had to be learned by the Israelites that did not actually involve carrying out the command in order to learn the lesson or have the effect on them intended by God? This seems to be a kind of "You should do X, but not really do X.

Well, that presupposes that X actually means slaughter other human beings.

But if X means, as Fr. Barron proposes, slaughter the evil from your lives, slaughter the actions the Amalekites do and totally sever them and their child sacrifices and idol worshiping from your lives…then it’s NOT “You should do X but not really do X”.

Incidentally, does it really make sense that God would abhor the child sacrifices done by these pagan tribes (and therefore command their slaughter) while then actually commanding child sacrifice, to be done by His chosen people?

 

[Gorgias]

Ummmm, excuse me. Assertion reality does not make (thanks Yoda).

I post the links to this material (not you) and post several in depth quotes (not you) from several documents, and then you assert that I am proof texting.

I believe I was responding to PR, not you, on that count.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Well, that presupposes that X actually means slaughter other human beings.

But if X means, as Fr. Barron proposes, slaughter the evil from your lives, slaughter the actions the Amalekites do and totally sever them and their child sacrifices and idol worshiping from your lives…then it’s NOT “You should do X but not really do X”.

Incidentally, does it really make sense that God would abhor the child sacrifices done by these pagan tribes (and therefore command their slaughter) while then actually commanding child sacrifice, to be done by His chosen people?

The problem then becomes why didn’t God specifically stipulate that the Israelites should NOT kill innocents such as the children because then the command would have been entirely consistent with abhoring child sacrifice because it involves the slaughter of innocents. He didn’t do that. Why not? An oversight on the part of the omniscient Being? I don’t think so. There is much more going on here than we realize. For that reason, I don’t think the commands should merely be dismissed as hyperbole or metaphor.

 

[Gorgias]

Yeah. And could you please affirm whether you are asserting that since the Amalekite babies have Original Sin (and are therefore not “innocent”) it’s perfectly moral to kill them?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s your case that it would be unjust for God to kill them, since they are innocent.

I’m refuting that case. They are not innocent, therefore it is not the case that it would be unjust for God to kill them (or, as is the situation here, command that they be killed).

(Hopefully, this won’t lead to a tangent, but I see that you’re not making the case that it was unjust for God to command that the Amalek warriors to be fought and killed. In other words, your assertion likewise implies “it would not be unjust for God to kill those who are not innocent.” I’m simply pointing out that your assertion that the children are innocent – with respect to God – is flawed.)

Am I reading you correctly here:

Not if you think I’m asserting that the Israelites, on their own initiative, can make decisions on the morality of killing others based on the notion of “innocence”. I’m making no such claim (and that’s why the charge that my logic is precisely the logic of abortionists is so outrageous). Here, we’re only addressing your claim – and your claim only addresses morality vis-a-vis God.

 

[Gorgias]

Egg-zactly.

It’s a horrifying door to open: “none of us is innocent and therefore we can kill and be killed”.

Stop – you’ve moved the goal posts! Who’s this “we” you’re talking about here? You see, we’re just discussing your assertion, which has to do with the justice of God’s actions vis-a-vis people.

If you widen the scope, and try to assert that we’re talking about the justice of human actions, you will necessarily have changed the argument and created a straw man.

The ‘abortionist’ argument is specious for exactly this reason.

However, my (Catholic) assertion is: it’s NEVER moral to take the life of an innocent…(and here we do not consider Original Sin to be a stain on one’s innocence).

Really? “Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught … the fact that [Adam] has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the ‘death of the soul’. Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin” (CCC, 403).

 

[Jerurussia]

“Amalac” is an Arabian word meaning “giants.” The parallel of this slaughter of giants is in the Americas, with the native tribes describing bloodthirsty giants. Their mandate from the Creator was to migrate in a giant circle, which they did again and again. Mexico was the “tail” and stayed in settlement after seeing the eagle eating the snake on the cactus. But the mandate followed by the rest was to keep moving. When the native tribes were passing over the Susquehanna river, they described giants, and requested safe passage through their land. This was not given.

Ed Conrad’s find of giant hominid bones in coal seams–a threat to evolutionistas–was shown to native leaders in the east, who said this confirmed their oral history of confronting warlike giants. This was not a live-and-let-live culture, and the natives said they slew these giants to the last man. edconrad.com/

The Amalekites were slain not only to the last man, woman, and child, but every head of cattle and livestock, suggesting a health interface. Jewish commentary notes that the Amalekites, notorious in their genocidal frenzy in the book of Esther, enjoyed mutilating the genitals of the slain to mock circumcision. The health precepts of Moses also included treatment of animals, including refusal to slice legs off living animals to eat and let the mutilated animal go; while Moses prescribed killing the animal humanely. Moses also forbade force-feeding, intubation and food stuffed in the gullet. Possibly the Amalekites were engaged in this slice-happy genocidal and animal-torturing lifestyle. Sex with animals is a possibility, ritually and medically tainting all living creatures in their possession. Moses described sexually transmitted disease in those who had relations with the Canaanites. The Amalekites are a sub-group, non-Arabic but in their territory. This is God’s mandated flushing of the Petri dish as with the profane matings in the time of Noah, and doubtless done because it threatened the survival of mankind.

Don’t shoot the messenger, Steve Ray; and try to understand that this was likely a mankind-threatening group that had to be eliminated just as the natives in America concluded.

I am reminded that Catal Huyuk was a thriving and wealthy trade center as supplying flint for super-sharp flint knives. If the Amalekites were a “flint knife” culture, this would explain the ability to slice and dice with a tool that is sharper than today’s scalpel, accounting for Moses’ forbidding slicing legs off live animals. This type of surgical cutting would not necessarily kill the animal if it were with a flint knife that would not let the animal bleed out especially if the wound were fired, a Civil War technique in amputations. The speculated mutilation by Amalekites of the bodies of the slain was doubtless incredibly repulsive especially if it was with something sharper than a scalpel, the precious flint knife used by the Jews only for circumcision.

 

[clem456]

The problem then becomes why didn’t God specifically stipulate that the Israelites should NOT kill innocents such as the children because then the command would have been entirely consistent with abhoring child sacrifice because it involves the slaughter of innocents. He didn’t do that. Why not? An oversight on the part of the omniscient Being? I don’t think so. There is much more going on here than we realize. For that reason, I don’t think the commands should merely be dismissed as hyperbole or metaphor.

Illustrating a misunderstanding of inspiration. This is the heart of the problem ^ . Inspiration does not mean “dictated word for word by the Spirit.” You are looking for open and shut rigid expressions of the divine will in literature that is written by human authors, who are inspired to write only what God wants, but are still human beings with human perceptions and ways of expressing themselves.

Rigid literalist expressions are not what inspiration is. When you ask “why didn’t God specifically stipulate…?”, do you see the problem?
The Church does not read Scripture this way.

I realize you haven’t been here the whole thread, here are some resources detailing how Catholic reads Scripture: The first one has the best index for clarity and ease of finding specific topics.
bc.edu/content/dam/files/…ation.htm#Sec3
much of the following is taken from that^^
vatican.va/holy_father/be…domini_en.html
And this in regard to this specific thread, Fr Barron is well qualified to speak on Scripture:
wordonfire.org/resources/…th-amalek/770/
Dei Verbum
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

Really, you can read almost anything that is solidly Catholic and the Church’s method of Scripture interpretation shines through.
Theology of the Body, for instance, is an incredibly detailed masterpiece of Scripture exegesis by JP2, which would not even lift off the ground if Saint JP2 read scripture like the fundamentalists.

 

[ericc]

None of them are fiction. I am permitted to believe: all of them are metaphorical commands to slaughter.

If they are not fiction and the slaughter did happened, who gave Moses and Joshua the command to slaughter?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Illustrating a misunderstanding of inspiration. This is the heart of the problem ^ . Inspiration does not mean “dictated word for word by the Spirit.” You are looking for open and shut rigid expressions of the divine will in literature that is written by human authors, who are inspired to write only what God wants, but are still human beings with human perceptions and ways of expressing themselves.

Rigid literalist expressions are not what inspiration is. When you ask “why didn’t God specifically stipulate…?”, do you see the problem?
The Church does not read Scripture this way.

I realize you haven’t been here the whole thread, here are some resources detailing how Catholic reads Scripture: The first one has the best index for clarity and ease of finding specific topics.
bc.edu/content/dam/files/…ation.htm#Sec3
much of the following is taken from that^^
vatican.va/holy_father/be…domini_en.html
And this in regard to this specific thread, Fr Barron is well qualified to speak on Scripture:
wordonfire.org/resources/…th-amalek/770/
Dei Verbum
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

Really, you can read almost anything that is solidly Catholic and the Church’s method of Scripture interpretation shines through.
Theology of the Body, for instance, is an incredibly detailed masterpiece of Scripture exegesis by JP2, which would not even lift off the ground if Saint JP2 read scripture like the fundamentalists.

Thanks for the lesson on exegesis. Let’s be very clear that we are speaking of words purported to have been spoken by God to the Israelites. There is much less wiggle room where the claim is that God spoke thusly.

Your explanation begins to border on an implication that, for example, the words attributed to Jesus himself in the Gospels were not really HIS words, not really “dictated word for word” by him to the Apostles or Gospel writers and, therefore, we are allowed to take great leeway in how we interpret HIS words.

So, for example, Jesus saying, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you will not have life in you,” could mean something quite different than those words actually state. You see where I am going here?

It certainly is legitimate to claim that “God-breathed” does not entail word for word dictation, but where “Jesus said…” is used in the Gospels or “God spoke to Moses and said…” is used in the Old Testament, the wiggle room is definitely constricted.

My suspicion is that the Old Testament writers were just as concerned with the actual words of God as the Gospel writers were with getting the actual words of Jesus correct. in both cases, those making notations would have been keenly aware that what they were witnessing was divine activity.

You may insist that quoting God is nonetheless transcripted and amended, but at some point we have to ask, “What then was actually said or actually intended?” and “Why did the author use those words, specifically if that is NOT what God meant to convey?” Great license or liberty can then be taken such that our interpretations begin to look more like eisegesis than anything else.

 

[Peter_Plato]

And this in regard to this specific thread, Fr Barron is well qualified to speak on Scripture:
wordonfire.org/resources/…th-amalek/770/

Link ends up at 404.

Try:

wordonfire.org/resources/homily/the-struggle-with-amalek/770/

 

[clem456]

Thanks for the lesson on exegesis. Let’s be very clear that we are speaking of words purported to have been spoken by God to the Israelites. There is much less wiggle room where the claim is that God spoke thusly.

Your explanation begins to border on an implication that, for example, the words attributed to Jesus himself in the Gospels were not really HIS words, not really “dictated word for word” by him to the Apostles or Gospel writers and, therefore, we are allowed to take great leeway in how we interpret HIS words.

So, for example, Jesus saying, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you will not have life in you,” could mean something quite different than those words actually state. You see where I am going here?

It certainly is legitimate to claim that “God-breathed” does not entail word for word dictation, but where “Jesus said…” is used in the Gospels or “God spoke to Moses and said…” is used in the Old Testament, the wiggle room is definitely constricted.

My suspicion is that the Old Testament writers were just as concerned with the actual words of God as the Gospel writers were with getting the actual words of Jesus correct. in both cases, those making notations would have been keenly aware that what they were witnessing was divine activity.

You may insist that quoting God is nonetheless transcripted and amended, but at some point we have to ask, “What then was actually said or actually intended?” and “Why did the author use those words, specifically if that is NOT what God meant to convey?” Great license or liberty can then be taken such that our interpretations begin to look more like eisegesis than anything else.

What do you think of the documents, and what the Church teaches about how we are to read Scripture?
If you don’t subsciribe to Catholic readings of Scripture, then we don’t have much to discuss. We might as well be talking two different languages.

 

[Gorgias]

And this in regard to this specific thread, Fr Barron is well qualified to speak on Scripture:

Clem,

Are you claiming that, given that there’s a spiritual sense of the passage, this implies that there’s not a literal sense?

 

[Gorgias]

None of them are fiction. I am permitted to believe: all of them are metaphorical commands to slaughter.

PR,

What, specifically, are you suggesting? That the commands weren’t actually given to the Israelites – that is, that the assertion of the commands is simply a metaphor? Or, perhaps, that the commands were given, but that the command itself – as given by God – is a command to slaughter metaphorically? Or, that the command was given by God and was received by the Israelites as a metaphor? Or, perhaps something else entirely?

 

[Peter_Plato]

What do you think of the documents, and what the Church teaches about how we are to read Scripture?
If you don’t subsciribe to Catholic readings of Scripture, then we don’t have much to discuss. We might as well be talking two different languages.

Not at all. I fully subscribe to what the Church teaches on how we are to read Scripture.

That does not mean we must appeal to metaphor and symbolism with regard to every difficult passage of Scripture. It is by considering the meaning carefully, deeply and thoughtfully that their full significance comes to light.

Father Barron offers a compelling view of the passages. He doesn’t, however, address the question of what actually occurred and why. Neither has the Church, as far as I know, declared authoritatively on how those passages are to be read.

In some sense, I find the metaphor or allegory apologetic somewhat contrived and ad hoc in terms of answering atheist concerns about how God could issue such commands. It appears to be a way of avoiding or sidestepping the concerns of atheists rather than addressing them head on.

I think the concerns can be answered full on, it is just that they haven’t been. Part of the reason for that is because of a failure to grasp who God ultimately is. I see the passages as an opportunity to make a case for God using an entirely different approach. How that is to be done is unclear at this point, but I strongly suspect it can be done.

 

[Gorgias]

Father Barron offers a compelling view of the passages. He doesn’t, however, address the question of what actually occurred and why.

Precisely. The Alexandrian school was famous for exegesis characterized by spiritualization and allegorization (the Antiochian school, on the other hand, tended toward literal and typological exegesis). Quite a controversy developed, as each side questioned the other’s approach.

The Church’s view of Scripture, as it developed, was that Scripture has both a literal sense and spiritual senses. The fact that Fr Barron is pointing out the Alexandrian interpretation – that is, a spiritual sense of the passage – does not imply that a literal sense does not exist. (I feel like a broken record, pointing this out again. )

PR offered a suggestion that might have promise – that the literal sense (that is, what the author intended) was, in fact, a metaphor. It’ll be interesting to see whether (and how) this pans out.

 

[SyroMalankara]

I like to theologize that best example of a righteous response is that of our father, the Prophet Abraham. When the Lord told him that He would wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded, again and again, “even if only 10 are righteous”… it seems to me, that as children of God, that is the proper request.

Indeed, the Lord’s command to eliminate sin from our lives - even if one should “pluck out one’s own eye”, or “kill every living thing” - is that serious, however, is the response to pluck out one’s eye or kill everything literal, or is the proper response to repent for oneself in (literal?) “sackcloth and ashes” and intercede for others even up to the point of ‘annoying God’

 

[irenaeuslyons]

Clem,

Are you claiming that, given that there’s a spiritual sense of the passage, this implies that there’s not a literal sense?

He is, but he is unwilling to defend it, because he can’t. Instead, he will avoid your question by saying “literal is not the same thing as literalist” and opine that we are not reading scripture like a Catholic.

 

[Birdpreacher]

it appears the only thing to do is abandon the bible as a divinely inspired text

1. Literal Interpretation: god commanded genocide. End of story. If you argue “well its ok for the god to kill people cause he made them” then I argue whether there is any standard we, as humans can use to determine whether the christian god is acting morally or immorally. If you say no, then whats the point in worshipping something we may not know for certain is good.
2. Metaphorical interpretation: the christian god sure has a lot of weaknesses in the language department as his holy book can use the tool of metaphor so poorly.

 

[Peter_Plato]

it appears the only thing to do is abandon the bible as a divinely inspired text

1. Literal Interpretation: god commanded genocide. End of story. If you argue “well its ok for the god to kill people cause he made them” then I argue whether there is any standard we, as humans can use to determine whether the christian god is acting morally or immorally. If you say no, then whats the point in worshipping something we may not know for certain is good.
2. Metaphorical interpretation: the christian god sure has a lot of weaknesses in the language department as his holy book can use the tool of metaphor so poorly.

Nice try, but this is just weak.

There is no “in principle” case to be made against God here. In principle, the omniscient and omnibenevolent God could have had specific, complete and certain knowledge about every individual within the Amalekite society and made a perfectly just moral determination that every one of their lives SHOULD have been ended at that point in time. Would it have been unjust, say for the omniscient and omnibenevolent God to order someone to kill Hitler as a child? I don’t think so. What if every person in the Amalekite camp had some past, present or future qualities where a perfectly just determination could have been made by God that the best moral action to be taken was to bring about all of their deaths? It is logically possible.

Or suppose Molinism is true and that God’s omniscient knowledge allows him to know with certainty what every person would do in every circumstance without infringing on their free will. God could then create individuals in time and place which “fits” with their merit and free will choices. Every person involved would then have merited what was done to them and no principles of justice nor morality would have been infringed.

Are either of these the correct explanation? Probably not. But they do show there are plausible responses to be had given the premise that the 3–Omni God was involved.

What they do show is that the passages cannot disprove the existence of God by claiming that issuing the command itself was immoral, in principle. It is logically possible for God to have issued the command, given his omniscience and omnibenevolence, without the command necessarily being immoral, in principle.

Neither is there a requirement to abandon the Bible as inspired since it is logically possible for the 3-Omni God to have issued the command given omniscience and omnibenevolence.

 

[clem456]

it appears the only thing to do is abandon the bible as a divinely inspired text

1. Literal Interpretation: god commanded genocide. End of story. If you argue “well its ok for the god to kill people cause he made them” then I argue whether there is any standard we, as humans can use to determine whether the christian god is acting morally or immorally. If you say no, then whats the point in worshipping something we may not know for certain is good.
2. Metaphorical interpretation: the christian god sure has a lot of weaknesses in the language department as his holy book can use the tool of metaphor so poorly.

Also misunderstanding what inspiration is.
Inspiration does not mean either/or ways of reading. As Christians, we do not abandon any passage of scripture because it is difficult to discern God’s revelation, any more than you would abandon physics because it is difficult. That makes physics you, instead of physics.

The challenge is to open your mind to what physicists teach you, not to tell them it’s difficult and therefore meaningless.

But it’s kind of a moot point. If you are agnostic the concept of inspiration is meaningless anyway, so I’m not sure what productive discussion we could have in this area…