Malachi151

According to Paul it was all an allegory

Craigart14

You've brought up an interesting point. As a college professor of English, I struggle to get students not to impose their own moral values or religious beliefs on texts from other times and cultures. However, we often hear Christian leaders claiming that the Bible is 100% literally true, with no contradictions or errors of fact, AND that science is wrong, always wrong, but God never changes. On top of that, we have Christian leaders insisting that Jesus is the answer to all social problems, AND they're getting federal funding for faith-based prisons that don't work, faith-based sex education programs that don't work, faith-based drug counseling that doesn't work, and so on. Under the Bush administration, the rules have been relaxed so that churches can offer such programs using counselors that have no training or certification.

God, of course, does change. Jesus is quite different from the vengeful, jealous Yahweh we see in the Old Testament. For one thing, he doesn't seem to hate pork. For another, he says that "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath," while Yahweh had a man stoned to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath.

Given that fundamentalist leaders, who now wield a lot of political power in the US, claim a: that the Bible is literally true; b: that God never changes; c: that Christian morality is the only morality; d: that our legal system arises from the Ten Commandments; and e: country should be governed by Christian laws, doesn't it seem fair and reasonable to point out that a-d are factually incorrect? (I think e is untrue also, but it's a question of opinion rather than fact.) Doesn't it seem fair and reasonable to point out that many of the "eternal" laws of God are barbaric, and that even the most fundamental of the fundamentalists would not want to live by Old Testament law? Even Fred Phelps, the Kansas Nutcase, won't go all the way; he has said that though he would have homosexuals executed, he would not insist on the execution of drunks.

If we accept the idea that the Bible was written by human beings doing the best they could in a primitive, violent, superstitious world, then we have no trouble dropping the primitive laws that no longer work (which all societies have done), and we have no business judging those human beings by modern standards of morality. But if we claim that the Bible is the eternal word of an unchanging God, we have an insoluble contradiction because we KNOW that many Old Testament laws are untenable and that the God shown in the Bible changed drastically from the God who told the Israelites to stone to death non-virginal brides to the Christ who saved the life of the woman "taken in the act of adultery."

In short, we address the Bible literally because they--and by "they" I mean most of the leaders of the religious right--do. We evaluate Biblical morality alongside modern morality because they want to impose Biblical morality on modern life.

Craig

Malachi151

Craigart14. Agreed somewhat. We can address it that way when trying to specifically address their viewpoint to them, but to take that viewpoint upon yourself makes no sense.

Unfortunately, it is Christians to defile their own scritpures, as I like to point out to them.

If we don't view the Bible as the "word of God", "timeless and perfect", etc., etc., then it is quite easy to see much of it as progressive for its own times and within the cultures that the works were written.

If we have to view it in the literalist Christian way, then we have to revile it as a horrible and backwards piece of trash, which we are forced to rebut and criticize.

This is the irony. The scriptures are much more readily appreciated as the works of man than they are as the supposed work of a god.

Cege

Genesis 23 tells of Sarah's death. Genesis 25 tells of Abraham taking another wife, named Keturah, who bore him 6 sons.

1 Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. 3 Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah.

Amaleq13

This is simply disingenuous pap that utterly ignores the text. Elisha calls down a curse and it is apparently immediately fulfilled with absolutely no suggestion that what Elisha did was wrong.

"And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." (2 Kings 2:24, KJV)

After this story, Elisha continues to be treated as a righteous prophet of God with no admonitions against his requests for God to do violence to others. In fact, another story is told later where Elisha's bones have the power to revive a man from the dead (2 Kings 13:21). Your faith simply has no basis in the actual text.

If that is true, why don't the stories about Elisha say that instead of consistently revering him as a righteous prophet of God? Why do they, instead, offer examples of God causing harm to others at his command without any indication that it was wrong?

"And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha". (2 Kings 6:18, KJV)

Malachi151

It is very clear from the Jewish scriptures that doing "bad things" to people was only considered a "bad thing" if they were done to people within your own group. Hurting others that were outside your group was considered righteous.

It gets even more tricky in the story about Moses and the 10 Commandments, where the commandment "thou shalt not "kill" (or murder) is given, and then, immediately after getting the commandments, Moses orders the followers of Yahweh, to KILL all of the people who worshiped the golden calf.

storytime

Well, I think "hate" serves a "good" purpose in reason. Such as hating your ignorant bible interpretation about Ishmael that you use to inflict death on innocent Muslims. It wasn't that long ago that the same ideology through misguided interpretation placed the black people in America as slaves, and cursed. Now, if your God says Ishmael was blessed, then where is your right to call him cursed? Where is your right to kill the sons of Abraham that are called blessed?

Sarah wanted someone other than a person from Damascus to inherit the wealth of Abraham. So she used her handmaid Hagar, who your bible story also calls "wife to Abraham". She performed her duty as wife and she was rewarded and both she and Ishmael were called blessed.

Ishmael lived in the wild, the wilderness, and so was called a "wild man". Where you get terrorist from this is your own confusion.

Abraham had many "wives". After Sarah's death, Abraham took Kenturah as "wife" and produced more children and of which were not to be part of Israel. How do you explain these other children of Abraham not receiving "the promise", and why would you think they would have needed a promise? Ishmael didn't need a promise. Have you put some thought into these by-gone traditions in their customs?

sugarhitman

Ishmael blessing was to become a great nation, however he was not the child of the promise (the true blessing). And as far as blacks being enslaved due to the misinterpretation of Noah's curse of Canaan, all one had to do was actually read the bible to know that blacks are descended from Cush, not Cannaan. But the bible clearly said that Ishmael's hand would be against EVERYMAN and vice versa. Did you also know that Islam converted by the sword? And that they along with the west were involved in the slave trade?



Fact is the people who "worships God in truth and in spirit" are the true spititual descendants of Abraham, thus making him the father of many nations. These are those who believe in Jesus Christ, who comes from every tribe on this earth. Islam and the rest....are not those "who worships God in truth and in spirit." There is only one way.... Jesus of Nazereth :wave:

sugarhitman

Oh what harm have you done by not qouting the very relevent part to this story. Well since you won't I shall. After Elisha prayed to God to blind the Syrian armies (who had come to war against Israel by the way)

"So it was, when they had come to Samaria, that Elisha said, 'Lord open the eyes of these men, that they may see.' And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and there they were inside Samaria! Now when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, 'My father shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?

But he (Elisha) answered, 'You shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and bow? SET FOOD AND WATER BEFORE THEM, THAT THEY MAY EATAND DRINK AND GO TO THEIR MASTER.'

The purpose of this blinding and receiving back of sight, was to show GOD'S MERCY. Therefore this cannot be called a curse, because the intended purpose was TO SHOW KIDNESS TO ANOTHER, AND NOT THE WISH FOR HARM I.E. CURSE.

If you spent most of your time trying to learn about God rather than to accuse Him. Perhaps He would give you sight. :wave:

sugarhitman

And again not everything wrong done by men of God are always met with dicipline or even a rebuke by God *in the texts* but we know that they are sins. Such examples include Noah's drunkeness, Jacob's wrong doings, incest between Lot and his daughters, Abraham's lying to Pharaoh about Sarah not being his wife, Jephthah's sacrificing of his daughter to the Lord. These are but a few of the examples....Elisha is just another example