Paperstreet

Yet they judge the Jews by saying they aren't worthy of going to heaven.

Spaz

I heard somewhere once a long time ago that the holocaust was god's punishment for the jews for killing jesus, or something, obviously somebody was dumb as a brick...

Calzaer

Hey Magus! Still waiting!

(Why do I get the feeling he's not going to touch this with a 10 foot pole?)

lpetrich

Furthermore, a lot of the massacres in the early parts of the Bible may be described as part of

The Final Solution of the Canaanite Question

Which is actually commanded (Deut. 7:1-6):

1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. [1] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles [2] and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

(NIV; copied from The Bible Gateway).

lpetrich

There's more. Consider these stories about the origin of certain ethnic groups; stories that make great reading to one's children.

Here is the curse of Ham, Genesis 9:20-27:

20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded [1] to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,

"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."

26 He also said,

"Blessed be the LORD , the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem. [2]
27 May God extend the territory of Japheth [3] ;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his [4] slave."

(NIV, from The Bible Gateway)

And right after the story of Sodom and Gomorrah comes this juicy one on the origin of the Ammonites and the Moabites, two tribes that lived on the east side of the Jordan River (Genesis 19:30-38):

30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father."
33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
36 So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab [7] ; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi [8] ; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

(NIV, from The Bible Gateway)

lpetrich

In fairness to the Bible, there are parts of it that protest ethnic bigotry, as Dr. Isaac Asimov had pointed out in his essay "Lost in Non-Translation".

The Book of Ruth's central character is a Moabite woman who is presented as being very good. This is contrary to what s implied by Genesis 19:30-38 and by Deut 23:3-4:

3 No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD , even down to the tenth generation. 4 For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim [2] to pronounce a curse on you.
(NIV, from The Bible Gateway)

Likewise, the Book of Jonah is more than some story about someone who survived being swallowed by some sea monster. He was sent to Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, to get its inhabitants to repent their sins. Which they do(!) Which makes Jonah very sore, since he wanted for God to punish them instead of letting them off the hook.

The story is pure fiction, since neither the Assyrians themselves or anyone else in the Bible mentions this incident.

But the message here is that Assyrians should not be presumed to be evil beyond redemption.

Turning to the New Testament, the story of the Good Samaritan was meant to imply that Samaritans were not irredeemably evil. They were Jews of the former northern kingdom, and other Jews tended to consider them heretics.

To sum up, the message is that disliked people like the Moabites, Assyrians, and Samaritans can be good people.

mike_decock

How is that not ethnic bigotry? Those black people, morally inferior as they are, can be good people too, right?

-Mike...

Monkeybot

I read a theory (and this was in a book review in the New Republic, which is unfortunately not available online) that Judaism has often been seen as a particular affront to Christianity; here are people who witnessed Jesus, who have the exact same scriptural tradition as Christians (more or less), and yet who still don't believe he was the Messiah. If the Jews are right, the Christians' interpretation of Yahweh is utterly wrong, and vice versa. Early Christianity wasn't merely in competition with Judaism -- it had to supercede and supplant it.

It might be easy for a medieval Christian to write off Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism as worship of strange pagan gods; but the same is not possible with Judaism, since technically, they're both worshipping Yahweh.

Is this making any sense?

Bree

A clarification:

I edited the title of this thread to remove Magus' name. IMO, it's very hard to lure someone (especially a theist) into a discussion, especially when you post a "YOO-HOO" in the thread title - it's like an ambush waiting to happen. Even if that was not your intent, I'm sure the person at whom the thread was targeted at could feel that way.

If you'd like Magus - or anyone else - to pay special attention to a particular thread, please send him or her a PM.