a_theistnotatheist:
The census ordered was not according to how a census should be taken according to the Law of Moses. So David was breaking God's laws in the way he did it.

gravitybow:
So 70,000 men had to die for that?

See, King David used statistical sampling. This produced an undercount of 70,000 inhabitants. According to the Law of Moses(tm), the census results must equal the true population. Thus, corrective action was taken.

Now, don't ask me why David's baby had to die as punishment for its father's murder/adultery shenanigans.

Oh. I didn't go that far back in my search.

Does a god who created the entire universe in all it's glory really have nothing better to do than worry about the methods a king uses to count his soldiers?

And why kill 70,000 innocent people. If David really had sinned so greivously, why not just kill him? Doesn't reading this story suggest that God may be a vile, unjust and sadistic fiend?

Now then God, temper temper.

See, King David used statistical sampling. This produced an undercount of 70,000 inhabitants. According to the Law of Moses(tm), the census results must equal the true population. Thus, corrective action was taken.

Maybe is was because otherwise the wrong number would have appeared in the Bible, and the Bible would have ended up not being inerrent.

quote:
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* Elisha cursing the children who had teased him about his baldness (2 Kings 2:23-24)

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I get sick of hearing them called kids. The word used meant a "youth" from ages 12-35. They could have been a serious threat, and their words are better taken as a threat(commanding Elisha to "get up from here") rather than a "gentle teasing."

It seems you have not read the verse carefully.

"He [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, 'Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!' And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and thence he returned to Samaria." (2 Kings 2:23-25)

1. NOTHING in the behavior of the "small boys" warranted death.
2. Elisha performed a magical act by adjuring Yahweh to curse the small boys.
3. The ancient Hebrews were extremely superstitious and believed most everything and anything.

rodahi