crazyfingers

So I’m reading the bible – KJV.

I'm in Exodus. I notice that god tells Moses to do something and then god brings the frogs or the lice or the burning hail and Pharaoh is about to let the Israelites go. But then “The Lord hardens Pharaoh’s heart” so that Pharaoh then doesn’t let the people go.

This happens repeatedly. Pharaoh is about to let the people go but then god causes Pharaoh to change his mind to not let the people go. The result is another cycle of more death and destruction.

Why would god do this? Why not simply change Pharaoh’s mind to let the people go in the first place? Why would god cause a pile of death and destruction in order to get Pharaoh to let the people go but then, just when Pharaoh is about to let them go, cause Pharaoh to change his mind and not let them go?

This is truly strange. Do Christians have an explanation for why their god would behave so irrationally?

Kachana

Why did God interfere with Pharaoh's free will!?! I'm angry about this, God took away the most precious gift he gave us, so precious indeed that the benefit of having it is held to outweigh the chance of infinite pain in Hell. God should be ashamed of himself.

kwigibo

bi-polar disorder <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

sidewinder

I think it's explained in the text that all these things are done to show the Israelites the glory and strength of their God.

Godless Dave

Because he loves us!

IvanK

That's probably at least partially correct. I'd guess that whatever the original shape of the story was, it was probably edited around the time of the Babylonian capitivity when the priests were struggling with the idea of how strong their God could really be seeing as His City, Jerusalem, had been sacked several times and His People, Israel scattered. Their answer was that not only was their God the God of Israel, He was the only God there was. So if anything bad happened to His People it was because He willed it, usually in order to punish them for insufficient faith or rebellion.

Ergo, it wasn't that Pharaoh was punishing the Israelites because he was a bad man; God was using Pharaoh to punish the Israelites so that in turn He could show His divine mercy toward His People (by causing them to wander aimlessly in the wilderness for forty years until He led them to the only spot in the Middle East that has no oil reserves).

kwigibo

in mysterious ways...

Beelzebub

I was always taken by the part in Exodus where Moses requests to see God. God decides that to reveal himself in all his glory would be too much, so he only shows Moses his "hinder parts". Could this be the first recorded mooning?

Kosh

God is simply a "plot device" in "The Greatest Story Ever Told..."

NOGO

He wanted to show the world some of his best tricks. Wiping out humanity with a flood was not enough. He also wanted to show us how to kill all the first-borns of a nation. This was necessary because how else was He going to institute the passover for the Israelites to observe. This by the way is another case of punishing the children for something the parents did. He could have wiped out the Egyptian army instead of the children (which He did anyway later) and that would have freed the Israelites. Now, that makes too much sense for this God.