Gospel Editing Precludes Divine Inspiration

[steve]

I could be wrong, but I suspect many who visit this forum are not as convinced as Steve is that God's Old Testament commands to slaughter everyone including the suckling infants and animals (but keep the pretty virgins as slave wives) align with the teaching/character of Jesus.

True, many at this forum are not as convinced as I am. However, their position would be very much strengthened if they could show that Jesus and His apostles found some inconsistency between the Old Testament picture of God and their own.

It is interesting that those who take a position against the scripture, in this matter, can seldom do so without creating a caricature of the position they wish to ridicule.

In one case, when the Midianites had seduced the men of Israel, bringing them into fatal idolatry, God required that only the virgin women be spared. There is no reference to them becoming wives, nor is there any suggestion that pretty ones were to be spared and ugly ones killed. The sparing of the virgins was plainly due to their demonstrable innocence in the matter.

There is no law which, at the same time, orders the deaths of all infants and animals, while preserving the lives of the pretty women. Some groups (notably the Canaanites and the Amalekites) were slated for annihilation, it is true, but the women were not spared in those cases.

In other cases, the slaughter of all men of military age was ordered (Deut.20:13-15)—but all women, animals and infants were to be spared.

If someone can claim to have better acquaintance than God had of the situation so as to demonstrate that a better course of action than His would have been more just, I am willing to hear the arguments for such a claim. If one wishes to ridicule something the prophet of God (Moses) said, it might be reasonable for the critic first to find out what was said (so as not to be ridiculing a caricature)—and secondly, to demonstrate that the critic knows God better, and speaks more faithfully for Him, than Moses did.

Unfortunately, it is easy for a certain disingenuousness to pontificate as if one is wiser than Moses, without presenting any evidence that the critic has the qualifications to know better than did Moses—or Jesus and the apostles, who placed their stamp of approval on Moses..

Please read my lengthy post of Jun 07, 2015 (two pages back) and do us all the service of giving honest answers to my challenges. I am persuaded that, without this being done, my position (the position of Christianity through the ages) stands invincible. I am convinced that the reason that no one, including Paidion, has answered any of my objections (with anything other than subjective platitudes which contradict Jesus' own words) is because they are unanswerable.

Instead of speculating how many may or may not be as convinced as I am of any particular thing, it would be helpful for someone to enter the debate with something resembling rational arguments. My position is that "goodness and severity" are not mutually-exclusive traits which a full-orbed personality, like God's, would have any difficulty manifesting. Paidion's position is based on a single, unscriptural and counterintuitive proposition—namely, that it is impossible for God to possess all of the traits that the Bible declares Him to possess. Since it is not impossible even for the best of men or women to possess all these traits, it remains to be demonstrated that it is impossible for God to possess them.

Thus says the Lord:
“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
24 But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
(Jeremiah 9:23-24)

[psimmond]

Steve wrote: It is interesting that those who take a position against the scripture, in this matter, can seldom do so without creating a caricature of the position they wish to ridicule.

It's interesting that those who don't know what to do with all of the violent, brutish, tyrannical portrayals of God throughout the Old Testament accuse those who point them out of creating a caricature of God so as to ridicule.

Steve wrote: In one case, when the Midianites had seduced the men of Israel, bringing them into fatal idolatry, God required that only the virgin women be spared. There is no reference to them becoming wives, nor is there any suggestion that pretty ones were to be spared and ugly ones killed. The sparing of the virgins was plainly due to their demonstrable innocence in the matter.

There is no law which, at the same time, orders the deaths of all infants and animals, while preserving the lives of the pretty women. Some groups (notably the Canaanites and the Amalekites) were slated for annihilation, it is true, but the women were not spared in those cases.

In other cases, the slaughter of all men of military age was ordered (Deut.20:13-15)—but all women, animals and infants were to be spared.

Deuteronomy 21:11–14: Just prior to the conquest of Canaan, Moses told the soldiers they could take for themselves pretty girls as captives. And after giving them one month to mourn the slaughter of their family, the soldiers could have sex with them. If the soldiers weren't pleased with them after having sex with them, they were to let them go rather than sell them.

Do you really want to put a spin on this to say it was a good thing?

Steve wrote: I am persuaded that, without this being done, my position (the position of Christianity through the ages) stands invincible. I am convinced that the reason that no one, including Paidion, has answered any of my objections (with anything other than subjective platitudes which contradict Jesus' own words) is because they are unanswerable.

You are persuaded every time it says "God said" in the old Testament that God really said it, so your belief system has no choice but to reject all arguments, calling them "subjective platitudes." You think you are defending the faith and I can respect that because a year ago I would have done the same. But an honest reading of the Old Testament paints a very nasty picture of God as well as a very beautiful picture and you can accept these two pictures and call it a paradox or mystery or you can try to emphasize the beauty and sugarcoat the ugliness as many apologetics websites do. But there are many who believe there is another way that treats God with the honor and respect he deserves. (I know you think you are doing this, so please don't see this as an attack; however, it is a serious disagreement.)

[Paidion]

]1) How do you understand the so-called "hard sayings" of Jesus?

Hating our families...

Most Bible students I have encountered understand the word "hate" in this passage as meaning "love less."

Cutting off an offending appendage to prevent sin...

Yes, I do see that one as figurative speech to make a point.

God's judgement of the wicked, etc.

I see ALL of God's judgments as remedial.

I have a friend who believes Jesus acted violently when he drove the money changers from the temple, and uses that account to justify the rightful use of aggression against sinners.

I think your friend is mistaken. Jesus was angry that they "made His Father's house a house of merchandise" and He drove the animals (not the people) out with whips, threw the money on the floor and overturned the tables. I think there is a distinct difference between expressing one's anger and doing violence to people.

2) Why should we trust any part of the Bible over other ancient Near Eastern spiritual texts? I'm not asking for a detailed apologetic, but why do you believe the accounts about Jesus at all?

I believe that both Old and New Testaments contain a lot of history. I believe the accounts of what Jesus said and how He lived are true. Yes, the memoirs of the Messiah (the "gospels") differ in some respects. But they were written long after the events. Matthew and John didn't always remember the same things. The very fact of inconsistency points to true history. Interpretations of events and people's motives differ in all historical accounts. If there were not inconsistencies in the memoirs of Christ, I would suspect that they were contrived.

To ask why I believe the accounts about Jesus at all, is a bit like asking why anyone believes the accounts about Christopher Columbus. Various accounts of Columbus differ, and people differ as to whether he was a hero or a villain. But the basic history is correct. Similarly, the basic accounts of Jesus' life and teachings are correct.

As to why trust the Bible over the ancient Near Eastern spiritual texts, I see the Bible basically as history, whereas those spiritual texts I see as philosophy.

The Old Testament writers, while fairly accurate in recording historical events, often had their own interpretation of those events, often assigning God to be the author of killing and violent acts against people, and directing His people to do the same. Some people today to the same, such as interpreting earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, etc. as God's punishment of the people who have been affected by these disasters. The ancient Hebrew understanding of God developed as time went on, some of the writers interpreting God's part in the affairs of man differently from other OT writers.

It was Jesus who made known God as He really is, and He portrayed Him quite differently from the way the OT writers depicted Him—not as a violent, punishing God who killed people for virtually nothing, as He supposedly killed Uzzah for reaching out his hand to steady the ark so that it wouldn't fall when the oxen stumbled (2 Sam 6:6)—but as a kind God who is kind even to ungrateful and evil people (Luke 6:35).

The ancient Israelites perceived losses in life and in war as God's punishment that would lead the people into repentance and behavioral change. When we consider the history of Israel, if that's what their difficulties and losses were supposed to do, it didn't seem to work. But Paul taught that God's KINDNESS is meant to lead people to repentance. (Rom 2:4)

Paul understood the teaching of Jesus, and how His teachings differed from the teachings of the ancient Israelites and differed as well from the teachings of the Jews of Paul's day. Paul had been a good Jewish Pharisee who saw it as his Godly duty to have Christians put to death, they who followed one whom he considered to be a false Messiah. But when Messiah Jesus appeared to him, he submitted to His authority, and never quite forgave himself for what he had done to Christians. On that basis Paul called himself "the chief of sinners" and the "leaster" (less than the least) of all the saints (Eph 3:8). In writing Eph 3:8, Paul coined the word "ελαχιστοτερος" (leaster). This word is found nowhere else in any Greek writing.

[Paidion]

Here is a video in which Brad Jersak interviews Derek Flood concerning Derek's book "Disarming Scripture."

Although I don't fully agree with Derek's approach, I think there is much in it that is enlightening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYbva9J8L2g

[steve]

...those who don't know what to do with all of the violent, brutish, tyrannical portrayals of God throughout the Old Testament accuse those who point them out of creating a caricature of God so as to ridicule.

This is a strange, Dawkin-esque statement, which I am still puzzling over. You are the one who, by your own admission, doesn't know what to do with "the violent, brutish, tyrannical portrayals of God throughout the Old Testament." You speak as if I am the one having difficulty with these things. I am not having trouble with them. You are the one expressing the difficulties, are you not? I stopped having trouble with them when I submitted my thinking to the authority of Christ on all such matters.

It is Jesus, Brother, who said that Moses' words were the commands of God. Before you decide that Jesus did not say that, slowly read Mark 7:9-13 with greater care and humility than you have brought to your reading of Deuteronomy. In John 5, Jesus accused the Pharisees of not being able to believe in Him simply because they refused to hear Moses. He chided them:

"...if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:47).

How would you answer Him on this?

If Moses was unreliable—thinking He was speaking what God spoke to him face-to-face, but either lying or being horribly mistaken most of the time, why would God fault anyone for not believing him? There would be no rational, nor moral, reason to believe someone who was wrong in more than half of his declarations. Heck, I have known living false prophets who could get it right more often than that!

You need to submit to the judgment of Christ concerning the Torah, Brother, because God does not answer to you. Jesus said it would be Moses who would accuse the Pharisees before God, because they did not believe Moses (John 5:45). I don't think you want to be standing with them in that moment.

Jesus said it was easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one detail of the Law to fail (Luke 16:17)—yet you freely decide which details you will cavalierly disqualify because they ruffle your 21st-century sensitivities. Your misunderstanding of what God's laws are saying, coupled with your rejection of the testimony of the Son of God, leads you into dangerous error, Brother. You make yourself wiser than God—partly because you have no clue what the laws are requiring, and partly because you, apparently, think yourself competent to be Christ's judge about such things.

Deuteronomy 21:11–14: Just prior to the conquest of Canaan, Moses told the soldiers they could take for themselves pretty girls as captives. And after giving them one month to mourn the slaughter of their family, the soldiers could have sex with them. If the soldiers weren't pleased with them after having sex with them, they were to let them go rather than sell them.

Do you really want to put a spin on this to say it was a good thing?

Not the way you misrepresented it, no. Neither would Moses. However, this is another example of you (or somebody you have been reading) misrepresenting the actual content of the Law.

Deuteronomy 21:11-14 is an addendum to 20:14, which talks about the sparing of women and children who survive when the enemy's men are slain in war. The passage you referenced goes into the treatment of the females of marriageable age among the prisoners. Under ancient conditions, in any society, such prisoners would become eligible for marriage (or rape) to their captors. The Torah does not forbid such marriage (though it does not permit rape).

So, what, exactly, would a god as wise and good as yourself do for such women? Once their husbands have ceased to breathe and were rotting in the ground, should the survivors remain widows and childless? Whose responsibility would it then be to support them? Should they just be left to wander about the land homeless and without provisions? What are the options you would suggest? Why shouldn't such widows be incorporated into the normal society of Israel, and be allowed to have a domestic life without the perversions of their former pagan culture?

The Torah assumes (rightly) that the best thing for such widows is to be remarried, and incorporated into Israelite family life, but dictates that the men should not take them as wives until they have had time to mourn the loss of their former families. Pagans did not show this kind of sensitivity and compassion to the vulnerable widows of their enemies, but God commands it. If, because of the woman's persistent paganism—or for any other reason—the marriage doesn't work out (as might happen with any marriage in Israel, or anywhere else), she is to become a free, divorced woman, as opposed to being sold as a slave—the latter being the more common fate of prisoners of war in the ancient world. In other words, these laws extend to slaves, prisoners and women rights that were generally refused them in pagan societies.

Do I think the law is good? Of course!. I am a Christian, which means I am obliged to accept the authority of Jesus, who believed that the Law was from God, and that God is good (Matt.19:17). Paul also believed that the law was "holy, just and good" (Rom.7:12). Jesus and Paul both knew about the contents of Deuteronomy at the time they made their statements.

David said that the Law of the Lord is perfect (Psalm 19:7). Of course, in the sight of people like you, David bears the stigma of being deceived about God's character, and about the origin of the Mosaic Code. Yet, the prophet of God described David as a man after God's own heart, and Jesus said that David wrote by the Holy Spirit (Mark 12:36). If a prophet will testify that you are a man after God's own heart, and if Jesus says that your posts are written by the Holy Spirit, then I may have a more difficult choice as to whether to believe you or David. But then, if you were writing by the Holy Spirit, there would be no choice for me to make, since you would be writing in agreement with David, Jesus, Paul, and everybody who wrote or spoke under such inspiration. But what spirit is this, that disagrees with them all?

But an honest reading of the Old Testament paints a very nasty picture of God...

Brother, you are locked in a modern, Western cultural provincialism, which renders you incapable of seeing the commands of God in their historical reality—where God's laws shine as paragons of compassion and human rights when compared to the standard operating proceedures of war in the Ancient Near East. In your knee-jerk reaction to cultural conditions unfamiliar to you, you are objecting to laws that do not dictate any mistreatment of women, but which actually forbid such mistreatment—even of prisoners, slaves and other women—who, in other societies, would not be given similar rights. You have been drinking the pop Kool-Aid.

[dizerner]

But an honest reading of the Old Testament paints a very nasty picture of God...

Wouldn't you say that life itself paints a very nasty picture of God? The arbitrary pain of countless victims to the cruel acts of nature or man? This is where I think the "God is love only" people miss the bus. If God were love only we wouldn't have the world we live in.

[psimmond]

Steve wrote: You are the one expressing the difficulties, are you not? I stopped having trouble with them when I submitted my thinking to the authority of Christ on all such matters.

No, I used to have trouble with God's cruelty, violence, and desire for blood, but once I realized I no longer need to accept this picture, the trouble disappeared.

From the almost 50 years I have spent in the church, I have found that questioners are usually dealt with quickly. First they are labeled "liberal" (or apostate) for questioning orthodoxy/ancient creeds. Then they are accused of creating a caricature of God so they can ridicule God, the Bible, God's followers, Christianity, etc. This usually shuts them up or causes them to leave the church that no longer welcomes them.

Steve wrote: Not the way you misrepresented it, no. Neither would Moses. However, this is another example of you (or somebody you have been reading) misrepresenting the actual content of the law.

Deuteronomy 21:11-14 is an addendum to 20:14, which talks about the sparing of women and children who survive when the enemy's men are slain in war. The passage you referenced goes into the treatment of the females of marriageable age among the prisoners. Under ancient conditions, in any society, such prisoners would become eligible for marriage (or rape) to their captors. The Torah does not forbid such marriage (though it does not permit rape).

I didn't write this and I've never read it before...strike two

Steve wrote: It is Jesus, Brother, who said that Moses' words were the commands of God. Before you decide that Jesus did not say that, slowly read Mark 7:9-13 with greater care and humility than you have brought to your reading of Deuteronomy. In John 5, Jesus accused the Pharisees of not being able to believe in Him simply because they refused to hear Moses. He chided them:

"...if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:47).

How would you answer Him on this?

I would ask him if he was omniscient. (I'm pretty certain he would say "no" since he told his disciples he didn't know everything.) I would ask him if he had ever in his life made a mistake or misspoke. Then I would ask if he thought Moses always represented God accurately.

The way you spun Deuteronomy 21:11-14 was pretty impressive. According to you the pretty girls that were taken by the soldiers were widows of enemy soldiers, so taking them in to have sex with them wasn't a bad thing. So why exactly did they take the beautiful ones? It's also interesting that you don't apply this verse to what actually happened during the conquest, when God said kill everyone man, woman, child, and animal but keep the virgins.

Steve wrote: You have been drinking the pop Kool-Aid.

And you are determined to keep sugar coating everything Moses said so that it's suitable for a Baptist Sunday school class.

I think it's highly troubling that Paidion, who has been an active and valuable member of this forum for 10 years, is told that he can't advocate his "one-dimensional God" doctrine anymore on this forum until he answers your objections. But when he answers your objections you call his answers "subjective platitudes." (I also think it's silly to imply a god of love and peace is one-dimentional and somehow lesser than a full-orbed God of love, peace, hate, and violence.)

Steve, don't forget that you, not so long ago, moved away from the traditional view of hell and have put a lot of energy into demonstrating the inadequacy of the traditional orthodox view. So be careful where you draw your lines.

[psimmond]

dizerner wrote: Wouldn't you say that life itself paints a very nasty picture of God? The arbitrary pain of countless victims to the cruel acts of nature or man? This is where I think the "God is love only" people miss the bus. If God were love only we wouldn't have the world we live in.

No, I would not. I have 5 children. They have all gotten hurt in different ways (physically, emotionally, etc.) because I gave them freedom and let them mingle with others. Had I locked them in the house their whole life with no contact to the outside world and told them from the time they were babies that we were the only humans created, I could have protected them from many of the hurts they experienced. Knowing they would be hurt, I still gave them freedom because I love them and believe freedom is in their best interest, in spite of the dangers.

In ancient times, people blamed everything on God, which is why so much blood was shed to appease him and keep him from lashing out. Most modern people have moved beyond this view (although a few Calvinists still try to link every natural disaster to God's judgment.)

[Homer]

I, for one, am in complete agreement with Steve and dizerner. Well said Steve!

Psimmond wrote:

In ancient times, people blamed everything on God, which is why so much blood was shed to appease him and keep him from lashing out. Most modern people have moved beyond this view (although a few Calvinists still try to link every natural disaster to God's judgment.)

I do not believe we can know whether or not God has caused any particular disaster as a judgment. The thing is, if we live in a culture that has become wicked (as I believe is the case with our country) and God brings a judgment on that country, the few good suffer along with the many who promote evil. And in the case of bad things happening to good people, again we can not know whether God caused the bad to occur for some good that we can not see. But I strongly believe in God's sovereignty and that nothing escapes His eye. He may not actively cause any particular bad thing to happen but in every case He at least allowed it; He always has a veto available. In this sense He is responsible.

I read again the scriptures cited in Deuteronomy and my impression is exactly the same as Steve's.

Sometimes I think we value this life so highly that it is all we can see, and that when we get to the other side this life will seem as almost nothing.

[psimmond]

Homer, good points. I also have a high view of God's sovereignty and never want to say that God couldn't have caused (not just allowed) a bridge to collapse or a tornado to strike a certain area because it accomplishes a purpose we know nothing about. (But in the absence of direct revelation from God saying otherwise, my default position is to see God as allowing these events and not causing them.)

Homer wrote: I read again the scriptures cited in Deuteronomy and my impression is exactly the same as Steve's.

Deuteronomy 20 is referring to captives taken from far away cities who would not make peace with Israel. Men were killed and women and children were spared. You could argue this was benevolent but since the men who killed the husbands were the same men taking the widows as booty, I suspect many women would view this as horrific and not benevolent. (And don't forget that foreigners taken in battle were slaves for life.)

The captives in Deut 20 & 21 could be the same, but if so, why do the attractive women need to mourn for their fathers and mothers? (Deut 21:13) In Num 31:17-18, we see that the widows were killed and the virgins spared for the men, so they would have mourned for their fathers and mothers.