REPLY: I see no reason to believe this behavior is NORMATIVE for us today any more than it was for Israel way back when. If I am wrong, then please show us WHY it is normative at any time other than the events in question.

In addition, if God spoke clearly to any of us — as he did to Joshua in this scene — and told us to do something, I suspect we would do it.

Finally, God is going to condemn many to hell for eternity. This will be much worse than momentary pain before death. So in fact you will probably need to also reject much of the teaching of Jesus also.

Blessings.

Rob

I guess the way I think about your difficult comments is to consider that even these children are NOT blameless, but actually intrinsically sinful. That is, their very nature is evil and anti-God. It is just that they have not grown enough to actually prove this fact.

Perhaps if the murder of the unborn was done in the open rather than in abortion clinics, we would all find “blood and guts” a lot easier to swallow.

You’re right. Those laws do come from “a different time and a different place” which is precisely why it takes “a lot of effort” sometimes to study them and understand them in their proper context. I guess that would be my challenge to you with respect to your general approach to the Bible – really take the time to study it before you stand in judgment of it. When carefully studied, it forms a wonderful story line that progressively shows mankind the depth of his sin problem and gradually reveals the hope of a coming Savior, Jesus Christ (Luke 24:25-27). It’s my hope that you’ll come to embrace Him as more than a good example to live by, but as your Savior and Lord as well (Mark 10:43-46; John 3:16-21; John 14:6). I’ve enjoyed the back and forth. I trust that its moved both of us further down the path on our spiritual journey.

Brent

That was an good take on the Deuteronomy verse….I really hope you are right. However even the woman didn’t “cry out” that could have still been rape…but who knows. Thanks for responding so thoroughly to that though…

Well, I guess we just come down on different sides when it comes to the Mosiac law. Taking a step back on these verses it all just seems like a lot effort to justify an old ancient text with alot of laws that seem like they come from out of a different place in a different time – e.g. a whole chapter on ox goring – seriously :)
But we will never know.

Anyways, I’ve got enough for lifetime by trying to live my life like Jesus. I have struggled so much with these issues, my faith in God and the Bible in general. But I keep coming back to the fact that Jesus has called me to a life of love and I am starting to realize that this is where my attention should be paid. Its all that matters for now. Kinda like Keats said:

“Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all you know and all you need to know!”

In my comments, I have never objected to the use of human reason. God expects us to use the reasoning faculties He has given us to ascertain truth. But when evidence leads us to truth that we find uncomfortable, we cannot dismiss it out of hand, simply because we find it uncomfortable. We must wrestle with it and study it and seek to understand it more fully, but at the end of the day, we must submit to it.

With respect to Deuteronomy 22:28-29, you asked me, “Would you force your sister/daughter to marry her rapist?” The first point I would make is that the Bible teaches that Christians today are no longer under the Mosaic Law (Romans 6:14-15; Romans 10:4; Galatians 5:18; Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14), so the question of whether anyone should try to enforce these laws today is really a moot point. Having said that, however, if I were an ancient Jew living under the Mosaic Law, yes, I would have had great difficulty with my sister or daughter being forced to marry her rapist. However, despite what the NIV translation may say, rape is not in view in Deuteronomy 22:28-29. This can be demonstrated by a careful look at the context and the words that are used in these verses and parallel passages.

In the preceding verses (23-27) which set forth case law for a variety of sexual situations, there is a clear and consistent distinction made between consensual and non-consensual sex. If a woman resisted the unwanted sexual advances of a man and cried out for help, then that woman would be regarded as innocent, while the man would be put to death. (This severe penalty demonstrates that the laws of Moses regarded rape as a far more serious crime than even our modern laws do.) If, on the other hand, in response to the sexual advances of a man, the woman did not cry out for help in settings where she presumably could have done so, then the Mosaic Law treated such cases as consensual sex.

The question then is this: Is the sexual activity described in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 consensual or non-consensual? While the NIV translation says that the man “rapes her,” a more literal rendering of the underlying Hebrew would say that the man “grasps her and lies with her.” That might suggest rape or it might not. By the legal standard set forth in the preceding context, the way to determine this question would be to ask whether the woman cried out for help or not. The evidence would suggest that she did not cry out for help, since verse 29 says that the man and the woman “were discovered.” This strongly suggests that the two were caught in the act of consensual, premarital sex. This understanding is consistent with the parallel passage of Scripture in Exodus 22:16-17 which says, “If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.” (NASB)

Far from forcing women to marry rapists, these laws actually provided gracious protection for women. If a man seduced a woman, robbed her of her virginity, and then cast her aside, that woman would have been left in a very difficult position. In a culture where virginity was highly prized, it would have been nearly impossible for her to marry. And in an agrarian society where husbands and multiple children (who could work the fields) were not luxuries, but virtual necessities for survival, the woman would have been consigned to a life of singleness and poverty. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 basically said this to a man: “If you think you can get some cheap thrills by convincing a beautiful young virgin to join you in a quick one-night-stand, think again. You’d better be prepared to take full responsibility for her for the rest of your life.” Again, this regards women with a far greater dignity than our current laws and culture do.

This post is already way too long, but I would just add that the New Testament manuscripts are far more reliable than you (and Ehrman) suggest. For a helpful summary critique of Ehrman’s arguments, see chapter 1 of “Dethroning Jesus” by Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace.

Brent

I didn’t know your comment was addressed to me so I just ran past it initially. I’m so sorry. Now that I’ve read it, I think it’s quite good and quite satisfactory. It works for me!

Thanks for thinking out your answer and writing it for us.

I’m much obliged.

Pax.

I’m not the best at describing all of this but I’m hoping someone else will jump in to help with unfolding it. You might also want to read my comments above and see if any of that makes sense.

here is the reason: Genesis 3:15

– Again, we have passed from the covenant age that was concerned with the preseveration of bloodlines, geneologies and vengence into the new, better covenant that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. What seems abhorant to us on this side of the cross — God’s people executing God’s judgment and vengence on God haters — was God’s decreed will for the nation of Israel under the Old Covenant.

Ephesians 2:12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

The redemptive story here is HUGE. And I don’t think we should downplay the distinction when we talk to doubters and unbeleivers.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

As I stated previously, I’m perfectly at ease with the divine commands and historicity of what happened in the Old Testament. Jesus, after all, wholly affirmed the Old Testament Scriptures.

With regards to John’s statement of “why he used his chosen people to do such atrocities” I should like to flip the question around and ask instead “why did He have His chosen people suffer such atrocities to themselves?”

God is Perfectly Good. God is Perfect Love.

This should read “the warrior’s character is transformed into something that comes into CONFLICT WITH the ethics of God’s Law…”

I was not making a historical argument per se. The basis for such a projection is the common humanity we share with the ANE peoples. War is brutal, and we both agree that ANE war was very brutal. Participating in such warfare no doubt effects the psyche of the participants in damaging ways. Consider the following two scenarios:

1) Righteous Hebrew soldier who takes God’s Law seriously and lives a life of obedience is commanded to stab babies to death. Taking the Law seriously, however, has had the effect of forming a love and compassion for babies. The cognitive dissonance between loving and caring for babies in one context and stabbing them to death in another results in a tortured psyche.

2) Indifferent Hebrew soldier participates in ANE warfare and does not bat an eye at stabbing babies. Such warfare has formed in him a callousness towards life that his attitude towards others incompatible with God’s Law to love others as himself.

In either case, by participating in ANE warfare (stabbing babies), the warrior’s character is transformed into something that comes into the ethics of God’s Law that teach us to value life–the same laws we cite in our defense of the unborn.

Moreover, if people today suffer from such psychological distress after participating in wars that abide by certain rules, it stands to reason that such distress would be greater in ANE “show them no mercy” warfare.

Nothing I have said here should be controversial for the person who “has no problem” with God commanding the annihilation of the Canaanites. One can accept a divine command theory that makes such actions “just” and still feel the force of the argument I’ve made. Most believers do.

Do you?

Thanks for the interesting back and forth. I hope you find it as informative as I do.

As for your explanation of how you came to believe the Mosiac Law is God’s inspired word, I still don’t see why your approach is any less of a reliance on human reason than mine. You say that you believe it because Jesus mentions some of them (by the what about the books he doesn’t – why are those still Godly?)and you find the evidence for Jesus’ divinity very convincing likely by way of the witnesses to the resurrection (per Keller or Lewis).

Well, setting aside the issue of whether any of those reasons are legimate evidences for the divinity of the Mosaic law, you have still used your own reason to get to that point. God never spoke to you directly about that (or did he :) ).

So why is your reason necessarily more honest/better than mine? Again, ancient men did write those books – its the inspired part we take on faith!

I don’t find the 2,000 year old reported eye-witnesses to the resurrection knock down proof for the divinity of Jesus. And I don’t even know what the original manuscripts even said because we don’t have them. And I know that the manuscripts we do have been altered and added to through the millenia of translation (read Erhman). And I know that at one point men decided which books were divine and which ones weren’t, excluding certain books that talked about Jesus.

So based on that I reject the notion that the Mosiac law is necessarily from God and therefore don’t have to justify its evil parts. I mean look at this verse:

“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.” Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NIV

Would you force your sister/daughter to marry her rapist?

Truth Unites:

I have met an orphan myself in Northern Uganda whose parents were boiled alive by this cult. Its horrific.

“Joseph Kony (born 1961) is the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla group that is engaged in a violent campaign to establish theocratic government in Uganda, which claims to be based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony

Can you provide a link substantiating this claim?

And to answer your question, NO, I don’t accept this.

But then again, I don’t accept Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s claim to a divine vision either.

Because Adam O. is an egalitarian and egalitarians like to project and emote.