huckleberry wrote:I will be upfront my view sees these as not making a clear description of God. The God I read of in the Old Testament is the God who frees slaves because all humans should be free. This God provides basic laws of right behavior to encourage people to be what their best potential is. This God brought prophetic voices out of the people to correct rulers and clarify what the law wants from people. It wants both personal responsibility and social justice. The God of the Old Testament is faithful to these intentions even though people are not. In the face of peoples preference for covert criminality God promises the developement of a new heart being formed in humans.
Now this I can agree with wholeheartedly. I like the idea of the Jubilee years, in which all people taken as slaves are set free (try telling the antebellum south that, LOL). One peculiar thing that I remember reading was the idea of a city of refuge for those who killed accidentally. I’ve never been in that situation, so I can’t really pass a true and honest judgment. But we have manslaughter verdicts these days, so apparently the idea that one can take life without intending to was on someone’s mind back then even. I guess my mind just attaches something dark onto the concept of taking another person’s life.
huckleberry wrote:From some angles it could appear that Jesus was teaching a new picture of God. I think my statement shows I think Jesus was preaching the God of the Old Testament. He did make some clarification. One I think is important to notice. Jesus views pieces of Old Testament law as constructions of human beings. The clearest example is his comments on divorce. In some ways Moses rulings would be human. Some marriages are disasters. However Moses ruling places the power in the hands of the man. My point is not that I have a perfect legal prescription for marriage. I do not. Instead I believe a significant dimension of obnoxious legal rulings are made by humans and are a result of cultural norms of the time. This observation is not wishy washy. It is a direct statement that we are responsible to rethink legal particulars to try to assist living for best principals.
You had me until just after “Jesus was teaching a new picture of God”. Do you think that divorce is unacceptable? Or do you just think that we should walk more carefully into marriage. I think the latter.
huckleberry wrote:I cannot claim to know exactly how inspiration works with each example. The rules of holy war are questionable. I suspect they reflect very old sacrificial concepts. However it is possible they are late developement reflecting what loosers in a war with Babylon wished to be the case. There was some efforts to put the rules into effect in the Maccabean period. It doesn't get much attention in preaching because there is no historcal reason to see God approved that attempt. The historical result was the overthrow of Maccabean autonomy by Rome. In the time of Jesus the question of what to do about Rome was a key internal argument in Judea. Jesus did not approve the war hopes of those who wanted to chase Rome out of the country. Those hopes would have been importantly based upon the holy war concept. We all know that history went according to Jesus view and the alternative view was destroyed by Rome.
I like what I put in bold, I think that’s an interesting theory, and it ties into what I said above about man attributing to God what does not belong there. I do not think that war is justified in any case, but that’s just my pacifism talking. I know a lot of vets who would yell at me for that, and I’m not going against what THEY do. They defend us, it’s our leaders who rule “phallus first” who get us into these wars into the first place which call our vets into battle. THAT I disagree with.
huckleberry wrote:I find the Canaan conquest the most difficult subject to deal with. Part of the difficulty I find in thinking about it is that I strongly suspect the story is a difficult mix of real history and allagorical recreation of history. Torah is a story of moral journey from moral corruption to a hope of moral integrity and a promised life. The Canaanites function in the story as embodymnets of everything to be left behind. (I have already pointed out how taking that literally like the partisans of the Roman Jewish war did was a failure and rejected by Jesus) I think there is solid reason for reading the story allagorically in its stark extreme form. The reality that the Bible also records that the origal inhabitants were not destroyed. In fact they become part of Isreal over a long process of mutual jostling.
Again, I bold the part that stands out to me the most, but I think that by far this is the most interesting part of your entire post. Thanks for sharing. I wish more people could take a look at what you just said, instead of focusing on what was written. They use man’s words to try to pin one on God, but if they reasoned as you have done above, their arguments would be deflated. Which is probably why they haven’t reasoned as you have.
huckleberry wrote:I was thinking that the story of the flood is a simplified version of this problem. First the stories are probably related. Each has the theme of Gods purpose leading into the future with a choice and the elimintation of the old bad qualities of the human race. I notice that both stories employ the device of portraying the people destroyed as the very zenith of human evil. They are pictured has reaching past a point of no return. People now have doubts that Canaan literally ever was that just as people doubt there was a time of Noah when everybody was awful. I have seen discussion on the canaanites go around and around about whether they actually were that bad. I see absolutely no actual knowledge one way or the other on the question. If you read the story in the Bible as literal it would make sense to read the premise,depravity, as literal as well. I do not see sense in believing a literal flood and not believing the literal premise of the flood that is all the destroyed people really needed destroying. It is a garbled mess to believe God is described by destroying everybody and not accepting the part of the story that says they really genuinely needed destroying. Now I read neither story as completely literal.(one the flood, I read as completely parabalic,the other war as having been reshaped history made to fit a parable) Read as stories with a meaning the premise of maximum evil should be accepted as a fictional part of the story. Its meaning lies in the message evil passes away while good endures.
The flood story shows up in other religions, the History Channel did a good stint on that. I too do not take these stories literally. First of all, why would God create just to destroy?
In comes the theory of reversing the “made in Our image” statement. “Let us make man in Our image”….why couldn’t we just leave it at that? Sometimes I just don’t like human beings, I swear. I think that over the years, especially within Christianity, we have tried so hard to have a God that is tangible, that we have completely messed up the concept of a mystical experience with that same God, and have replaced it with an old white man on a cloud who shoots fire at those who displease him and blessings at those he favors. Even the portrayals of a black Jesus miss the point.
In trying to make God into our image, we have ascribed every terrible human quality to God…which I think is mainly responsible for the breakdown of faith among quite a few today. Who would want to believe in a hateful, racist, murdering God? And how can folks just hide in their churches and pray with all that’s going on today. I would not, I cannot. But I do not see God in the same way that many Christians do. I face the facts of why I am Christian, and try to live and believe authentically…which I think is possible. Theology in general interests me, because I see it all as interconnected. I hope that as time passes I’ll come to understand more. But I refuse to pin myself in one place for the sake of safety, either.
huckleberry wrote:That last comment about evil passing away is one of the most fundamental Old Testament hopes. It is expressed literally numerous times. I think it appriate to hear it expressed through parable or allagory.
LOL, according to the anti-theists all we have to do is chuck the book we’re talking about. Then all will be well. I appreciate your posting.
-GIMR