Obviously, I'm not calling the Bible out on historical accounts of bad things. I'm talking about evil done BY God and his minions _and_ Evil instructions given BY God/minions to mankind.
I think you will find that you are heavily enfluenced by the Judaeo Christian ethics to begin with. Being a product of Western civilization your sense of outrage, I am pretty sure, is fueled by moral senses you derived from the Bible.
This is like the little child trying to slap her mother on the face from the vantage point of sitting on her lap. Without sitting on her lap the child and her arms are too short to be able to reach the mother's face.
Its curious that the ethics that you use to condemn the God of the Bible are derived so much from the Bible itself. In order to scold God you have at least subconsciously stood upon His book.
Chief among these is the order to murder every man woman child and animal in a town if one person among them is of a different religion.
You would have to explain to me why each and every instance of people with "a different religion" was not handled in the same way, because it was not.
Why weren't the Philistines not exterminated when they stole the ark of the covenant ? They only got sores on their bodies and figured out that they needed to return the ark to Israel.
Daniel in Babylon, learned all the wisdom that the Babylonians taught. He just continued with his three friends to believe in Yahweh. We don't see as severe an extermination in that case.
If God acted differently on occasion then there should be some reason for this. One case was to Him WORSE then another case.
In the book of Jonah we see God's reluctance to judge a nation with "another religion". Ninevah repented to the prophet Jonah's dismay, and they were sparred a judgment.
So unlike you, I see these differences in severity as indications of a deciding Judge who dispenses the appropriate discipline according as each case may be.
Reworded: "Kill members of your OWN religion is their neighbor is not."
That's radically immoral and unjustifiable under any scenario.
I would prefer the exact quote you refer to rather then your rewording.
Within the Levitical laws there were the trespass offering, the sin offering, the consecration offering, and other offerings. Sins could be atoned for through these offerings. So I see God providing a way out of the death penalty to that theocratic society.
There were some recorded capital deaths for sure. But I think in more cases the way of atoning offerings was a remedy for even the most serious offenders.
Am I correct that your outrage must indicate that you are vehemently pro-life too? Would I be correct that you are also outraged at the millions of abortions that murder innocent unborn children each year ?
Are you pro-life or pro-choice ?
jaywill:
There are many instances of God's dealing with man. They are of different levels of severity. They could be arranged on a scale of extremely severe to very merciful.
Nuggin:
A God which is at time extremely severe is not a merciful God.
This is not logical to me. Even a judge of the world has a great array of remedies he or she may enact to deal with an offense.
Why should not the Judge of all the earth not have the wisdom to employ different recompenses to offenders ? I would not say a judge who gave a death penalty in one or two instances is by nature without mercy when it can be seen that with lesser offenders a punishment varied from community service or probabtion to some limited time in jail.
It is more likely to me that this was a sign of God's varied levels of severity according to His righteoussness. The less likely scenario to me is that God arbitrarily singled out the Amalekites for total extermination just on a whim.
I don't agree with you about a occasional sadistic Judge, for no apparent reason other then mood.
Let's take Exodus for example.
God hardens the pharaoh's heart, then sends in Moses to oppose the pharaoh knowing full well that the pharaoh can not oppose God's will and therefore must reject Moses.
At that point, the apparent goal for "God" and Moses is to get the Jews out of Egypt.
The way I read that story is that pharoah was hard hearted to begin with. God wanted to display His glorious miracles and dramatically deliver the Jews. So God hardened pharoah more to get him to stand against such devastating calamities.
If I recall rightly, Paul wrote about it saying
"What if ...?" (Romans 9:22-24)
"And what if God, wishing to demonstrate His wrath and make his power known, endured wuth much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto ... not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles ?"
The impression I get is even Paul could only speculate on this difficult account. So I also will not pretend to have an answer for every philosophical paradox in the Bible.
The person most qualified to make a judgment about what God did would have been the Son of God - Jesus Christ. Unless you, Nuggin, have a higher morality then Jesus Christ, I suspect your condemnation of God may be ill-informed and in error.
Jesus never leveled this kinds of accusations against His Father though He spoke much about the Old Testament history. He was ethically and morally in a position to do so if ANYONE ever was.
God, being ALL POWERFUL, has an infinite number of possible solutions to this problem.
Here are a few:
- Teleport the Jews away
- Make the Jews invisible and have them escape
- Turn all the Jews into birds, allow them to fly away, then turn them back
- Erase the minds of all the Egyptians so that they forget about the Jews.
There are obvious differences in your priorities and God's. Whereas you are concerned with efficiency as the most important thing, God has some other priority in mind.
And I think as always that is to make His people one with Him from the inside out - a union and a blending.
This profound revelation is gradually disclosed. Often it is seen in the typology and symbolism until the New Testament covenant is enacted.
But He did also do some things like what you mentioned. He brought them out "on eagle's wings". The pillar of cloud stood between the Hebrews and the Egyptian army. This must have obscured their visibility as you suggest.
And certainly the mad pursuit of pharoah seems to indicate a suspension of good sense. This is especially as they plunged into the Red Sea after them. Some of the actions are like what you mentioned.
The list extends on to infinity, meaning there are an infinite number of merciful solutions which can be enacted by an all powerful being to achieve his stated goal.
But you have one instance being dealt with at one tme by God. That was not the only instance of God rescuing His saints. And in other accounts in the books of Joshua, First and Second Kings, Daniel, etc. there are other ways God intervened.
So I see much variety in God's acts of liberation. There is no need for me to get stuck only on Exodus. Each and every way points to the Son of God. For Christ is God's ultimate salvation.
However, God chooses NONE of these merciful solutions. Instead, he elects to punish ALL the people of Egypt for the decisions of the Pharaoh whom God has prevented from doing as Moses says.
I don't agree that God was not merciful in Exodus. They are said to have left
"a mixed multitude" which means some of the Egyptians joined the Jews.
The instructions to place the blood on the doorpost was to anyone who would beleive and obey. This was meciful because some of the Egyptians probably took heed to the warning of Moses. At least the instructions of the way to be passover by the destroying angel was given to ANYONE who took heed.
I do not read it as only being effective to the Jews. And they left Egypt a
"mixed multitude". God had mercy on the believing Egyptians.
Did every single person in Egypt own Jewish slaves? No. Of course not. In fact, a good number of them would have worked along side the Jews in their daily lives.
As indicated above some Egyptians left with the Hebrews in the Exodus.
Other utterances in the Old Testament indicate that God loved the people of Egypt. For example:
"In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship woth the Assyrians.
In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land.
With which Jehovah of hosts will bless, saying Blessed be Egypt My people and Assyrian the work of My hands and ISrael My inheritance." (Isaiah 19:23-25)
This is a glimpse into God's love for the nation of Egypt, whom He promises to call -
"Egypt My people" .
Doesn't this show God's mercy on Egypt sometime in the course of history ?
The punishments culminate in the murder of the first born sons. This includes infant children born in the week leading up to the punishment.
It could be regarded as a repayment on a national level. Afterall the policy from Pharoah was to kill all the male babies of the Hebrews. And that was without ANY warning.
At least God's judgments were on a graduating scale and were preceeded by warnings.
Stated again: Your "merciful" God deliberately chooses to murder children for alleged crimes that were done by people the children have never met, and who've had their will decided for them BY God. This is in opposition to the just fixing the problem without killing anyone be they guilty or innocent.
God the Creator is the Giver of all life. He has the power and authority to give life. He has the authority to take it away.
The death of children of Egypt speaks of their temporal punishment. It tells us nothing about their portion in eternity. I suspect that I will see some of those judged for the sins of their parents in the eternal new heaven and new earth.
I expect to be surprised. Who knows? Maybe even Pharoah will be there.
I have to stop here for this morning. MY bottom line is that I beleive God does the right thing, in the right way, at the right time.
Jesus, of all humans, was most qualified to point out moral defficiencies in His Father's behavior in the Old Testament. He did not condemn His Father but refered to Him as
"Righteous Father".
He has built up a kind of approvedness in human history such that I am inclinded to believe His word over your rationals.
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