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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: This is the thread where we talk about Old Testament genocide.
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
It's come up a lot in the last month or so, and I have to say that it's one that I've grappled with a lot over the last few years. Before I became a Christian, it was a big obstacle to my faith; upon my conversion, I simply stopped thinking about it.
I came back to the question a few years ago.
Er, what question, Wood? I hear you ask.
This is it: in several places in the Old Testament (for example, Joshua, and 1 Samuel), God commands the Children of Israel to exterminate people groups. Women, children, animals, possessions. Wipe them off the Earth, He says.
The question that many of us ask is, why? If God is good, and genocide is (as practically any sane Westerner thinks in this day and age) a Very Bad Thing, what's going on? Was it right to exterminate those people? If it wasn't, does that mean that God was telling the Israelites to do evil? Or is the Bible simply wrong on the source of the impulse to exterminate entire nations?
Now I never bought the explanation that the Israelites were right to do it by our standards, that they were purifying the land and protecting themselves from contamination, and that the peoples whom the Israelites were commanded to destroy were unrepentantly evil to a man, woman and cat.
Nope. Don't like it. For one, what does it serve to kill babies? And what about the stuff? Why tear down all those houses, and then build new ones?
On the other hand, I'm unwilling to discount any part of Scripture as simply false (and by "false", I mean manifestly untrue and not of use, as opposed to parables, which while made-up, are in fact also true. If you see what I mean). I think that there are lessons to be found in the body of Scripture about who we are and where we came form, and to abandon it without seeing any value in it at all - not even figurative value - does a great disservice to the text.
So anyway, I thought about this a lot, and I had a couple insights. None of them solve the conundrum for me.
First, about the nature of war. In the 21st-century West, we can fight alongside someone and be their enemy twenty years later; likewise, we hold no grudges against the people of Germany and Japan. I have a German housemate. There are Iraqis living in this country - they haven't been interned or persecuted for that. This is because these days, war isn't personal. I mean, people get killed, but we don't identify the nations who are at war with the individuals fighting, and therefore we can talk to Germans, Japanese, and Argentinians (the Falklands? No, I was thinking about Diego Maradona's hand ball in 1986, actually) without trying to kill them.
In Bible days, when family and nation were closely linked and when the fortunes of a people were a personal matter, war carried on until one nation was beaten. Feuds carried on for generations.
Children would grow up to avenge their people - as indeed the Israelites themselves would (Judges).
To leave a child alive would be to leave alive a potential leader of the enemy, and a continuation of the war. It sounds horrible. That's because it is. But in the age of the Patriarchs, the only way to ensure peace was to end the war, and you ended the war by making sure that no one would ever fight again. There was no Geneva Convention, there were no Rules of Engagement as we know them.
And this makes a point about the changing nature of morality. I think it was something the Israelites had to do. But then they were Bronze Age nomads, living in a culture where most of our givens (the equality of man, the right to self-determination, the right to life) were unknown. What they did was right then.
Not now, but then.
Augustine's Confessions (3.7.13) makes the same point - apologies for the archaic translation , by the way. It was the first one I found:
quote:
Nor knew I that true inward righteousness which judgeth not according to custom, but out of the most rightful law of God Almighty, whereby the ways of places and times were disposed according to those times and places; itself meantime being the same always and every where, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, were righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God; but were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man's judgment, and measuring by their own petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race.
As if in an armory, one ignorant of what were adapted to each part should cover his head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, and complain that they fitted not: or as if on a day when business is publicly stopped in the afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth some servant take a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with; or something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden in the dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all.
Even such are they who are fretted to hear something to have been lawful for righteous men formerly, which now is not; or that God, for certain temporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these another, obeying both the same righteousness: whereas they see, in one man, and one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and a thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so; in one corner permitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden and punished.
Is justice therefore various or mutable? No, but the times, over which it presides, flow not evenly, because they are times.
But men whose days are few upon the earth, for that by their senses they cannot harmonise the causes of things in former ages and other nations, which they had not experience of, with these which they have experience of, whereas in one and the same body, day, or family, they easily see what is fitting for each member, and season, part, and person; to the one they take exceptions, to the other they submit.
Now old Auggie was actually talking about Polygamy, but his point is interesting and partly apposite, I think.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I recognise that they're incomplete and that they have holes. I want to write more, but time is short, so I'll leave it there.
Please, add your own thoughts on this one.
[ 08. January 2006, 22:02: Message edited by: Erin ]
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
I've done some thinking about this lately, Wood, because I had to write Bible reading notes on Joshua about 18 months ago, and I'm a pacifist ![[Frown]](frown.gif) I think your arguments are good ones, but they are necessitated by an evangelical view of Scripture which I no longer hold, if I ever did.
If one takes Joshua as both historical and in some sense still prescriptive for us, then we've got a big problem. However in my reading of commentaries I learned that Joshua may well have been written/compiled during the reforms of Josiah, much later than the supposed events it describes; and that its editorial principle was to justify Josiah's centralizing of worship and destruction of pagan shrines. I also learned that there is no real evidence the battles actually happened as described, or that the conquest was as complete as described.
This makes a lot of sense, but then we are still left, as I said in my intro to the notes, with the fact that this is what the Israelites would have liked to do to their neighbours. And that they invoke the name of God in their genocidal fantasies.
What one Mennonite scholar (Millard Lind in Yahweh is a Warrior ) points out is that the Israelites were specifically told not to have the state of the art weaponry, eg chariots, which their opponents had; and in some cases were even told not to fight, but just to let God win the victory. So one has a kind of 'proto-pacifism' in which it is stressed that the victory always goes to those God has chosen, even if their military might is much less - even, in fact,if they decide not to fight. This is one way of coping with these passages - but then of course one has God committing genocide, which may be even more problematic.
The point I'm personally at now is that these accounts are a tendentious human account of history, or rather the written version of an oral history, by a people who saw God at work in the way they had acquired a certain land and settled there. Perhaps God really was at work, but they could only understand God in terms of their own culture, which was one of inter-tribal war. As humankind progressed, so our understanding of God progressed - or if you want to put it in 'progressive revelation' terms, God was able to communicate the truth to us more fully, because we were more ready for it. The parallel is, perhaps, a parent (or teacher!) who teaches a child different things at different stages as the child becomes ready for them. I guess what Augustine was positing was a version of this.
As a Mennonite it is easy for me to believe in progressive revelation, since Mennonites refuse to read the OT independently of the NT, but read all of Scripture through the lens of Jesus. Not to do so, leads rapidly to legalism and 'folk religion'.
Surely Jesus in his 'It was said of old... but I say to you' statements is giving us a model of just such an approach.
[ 06. July 2004, 17:06: Message edited by: Esmeralda ]
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
Hmmm. Well. There are various (modern) schools of theology that think God is evolving with us, as it were. He was kind of a nomadic based bratty kind of God (OT), and now he's a hippie, peace and love non-genocidal kind of God (NT), to obscenely oversimplify, of course. Not a bad theory, IMO.
Or.
The OT is in large part mythological/story (not in a bad way) and God is described through the Israelites view of things, view of the world. It contains great lessons, and great ideas. Some ideas worthy of emulation and some that are not.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
I am 100% in agreement with Esmeralda on this one. In my tradition we interpret OT "enemies" as our own demons, (understood in the soft literary sense).
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Hmmm. Well. There are various (modern) schools of theology that think God is evolving with us, as it were.
There are indeed. But they have the disadvantage of being completely incompatible with God as revealed to us in the incarnation.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Hmmm. Well. There are various (modern) schools of theology that think God is evolving with us, as it were.
There are indeed. But they have the disadvantage of being completely incompatible with God as revealed to us in the incarnation.
There are indeed. And there are other schools that are completely at a disadvantage because their God appears to be completely evil.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Augustine really was quite good at this sort of thing. And funny. There must be a more modern translation somewhere.
...as if someone put a helmet on their feet and complained that it didn't fit, or whinged about the shops shutting early shut on Early Closing Day...
[ 06. July 2004, 17:43: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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spugmeistress
Shipmate
# 5795
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Posted
Maybe its not so much that God was evolving with us, but that he was always like he is, but due to our lack of evolution he had to adapt his message and plan to the lowest common denominator and do with us what he could. which also goes with the i used to say you could exact a fair and equal retribution rather than the unfair revenge and chaos you had before, but now you have grown up a bit i am asking you to forgive instead. his intentions were always towards the good, and he always did everything he could, but was limited by the understanding, evolution, resources, situation, technology etc. of his chosen people at the time. People do say the only limitation on Gods goodness is our own apathy?
I don't know I'm just thinking out loud here kinda... I always went with the 'protecting the line of Adam/Abraham/David so Jesus could be born' thing before.
luv, blessings & loud ringtones, rach =)
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spuggie (aka rach :)
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
I wrote quite a bit about this on the "God Hardened Pharaoh's heart" thread.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Basically in agreement with esmeralda. Well put.
quote:
Mad Geo's OT option #2:
...The OT is in large part mythological/story (not in a bad way) and God is described through the Israelites view of things, view of the world. It contains great lessons, and great ideas. Some ideas worthy of emulation and some that are not.
A slight alteration of this: Not so much that some stories aren't "worthy of emulation" and simply to be discarded (as Mad Geo may or may not be saying, but it can be read that way), but that the different stories are instructive in different ways. If we identify a troubling story - say, God telling Israel to wipe out a certain group - we should let the story challenge us. As a later record of an oral history, a tradition in the making making sense of itself, how does this build on what came before it? How is it a motion toward the Gospel? Walter Brueggemann once cited MLK's famous quote that "the arc of history is bent toward justice" to describe the "arc of the gospel" as "bent toward inclusiveness" - it's an evolution through history. We can see that projectory already in the OT - but it's not always in the surface of the story. If we come upon a story that can't be reconciled with the Gospel, we can ask questions instead like, "Why did this instruction seem to come from God? Did it? How can I discern God's will in my life from my own sense of justice?" etc...
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
What if when "we let the story challenge us" we do not come up with the same answers?
What if when we "let the story challenge us" we find that the answers X church or even the greater Christian community at large provides are unsatisfying or perhaps even trite?
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
What if when "we let the story challenge us" we do not come up with the same answers?
What if when we "let the story challenge us" we find that the answers X church or even the greater Christian community at large provides are unsatisfying or perhaps even trite?
...and this is precisely why I started the thread.
And that's part of the reason why I don't buy (and have never bought) the solution Fr. Gregory reminds us of (although it has unimpeachable patristic credentials) - no matter how much of a positive allegorical meaning it's given, it's still a story about the destruction of people, even if we decide that's not what it's "about".
Likewise, while I take the point about the possibility of the stories being made-up at a later date, I still find it problematic, since they're still about genocide. Besides, some of the stuff done at those later dates was pretty appalling too. We're just transferring the atrocity and the presentation of it as "right" forward a few hubdred years.
Strangely, my argument has nothing to do with the stories' historicity or lack thereof - the substance of the stories remain unchanged.
I hate to pull out the most overused and abused NT scripture ever, but 2 Tim 3:16 does say that Scripture - however you see it, and I think that it's fair to assume that Paul thought of Joshua as Scripture - is useful for "teaching, correcting and training in righteousness". I believe that it is. I don't for a second think that Joshua has much use as an accurate historical source, but there's got to be a use for it.
I believe that there has to be a justification for these things. They have to have a lesson for us. To look at the deeds of the Israelites with 21st century Western eyes is to see a terrible crime. But if it was really such a terrible crime to them, how come it's not been a problem for Christians until recently?
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Zeke
Ship's Inquirer
# 3271
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
What if when "we let the story challenge us" we do not come up with the same answers?
That's how theologians come up with dissertation topics. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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No longer the Bishop of Durham
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If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? --Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 5259 | From: Deep in the American desert | Registered: Sep 2002
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I am 100% in agreement with Esmeralda on this one. In my tradition we interpret OT "enemies" as our own demons, (understood in the soft literary sense).
Much as it gratifies me to receive your 100% agreement, that isn't actually what I was saying! I don't wish to spiritualise or allegorise the genocide stories; I do think, as per 2 Tim 3.16, that they have something to say to us, but not just by translating the pagan nations into inner demons (I'm not at all sure, in any case, that massacring our inner demons is what we're meant to do with them!).
Probably part of what these stories have to say to us is that even when God chooses to use the world's methods, there is a difference/reservation: ie. the fact that Israel was not to have the latest military technology, viz. warhorses and chariots (read Trident and Star Wars?).
Another part is that we can't 'have our cake and eat it' as God's people: the Israelites could not maintain their difference and still live alongside, intermarry with and trade with the pagan dwellers in the land. I think we can draw this meaning out without spiritualizing; though it needs to be balanced with other Scriptures if we are to avoid separatism.
Maybe another theme is about origins: that it is important to tell the stories of our origins as God's people, even when they are embarrassing (although the writer/s of Joshua were clearly not embarrassed at all).
If these stories are to teach, reprove (you missed that one out Wood), correct and train us in righteousness, might they do it thus:
- teach: they teach us that God preserved and provided for the people God chose
- reprove: they challenge our current orthodoxy which is that we must have better 'defences' than our enemy (God, of course, could not be enough to protect us...)
- correct: perhaps they correct our impression that you have to be 'good' to be God's people. The ancient Israelites did appalling things in God's name, but God did not reject them. It doesn't make the appalling things any less so.
- train in righteousness: well, not every text has to fulfill all four purposes! The injunctions not to take spoils might help us to learn not to compromise inappropriately, perhaps?
It's hard to engage with these texts without spiritualising, because that's the way we've been taught to approach hard scriptures. WWJS? Probably something like: 'Do you think those Amalekites, Perizzites, Hittites etc were any worse than you? Repent, or something worse may happen to you'.
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
Posts: 17415 | From: A small island nobody pays any attention to | Registered: Jun 2001
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hermit
Shipmate
# 1803
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Posted
Hmmmm .... we seem to be assuming that a genocide specifically ordered by God would be a bad or evil thing. My understanding is that willful killing of a human is only evil when a person does it on his own. After all, God could intervene in our own lives and never let any of our bodies die, not even the many children who die now in much greater numbers every year than in any ancient massacre.
It's a purely human emotional need to focus more on a Big Event than the same thing happening every day in smaller numbers!
My own tradition is Catholic and of course St Augustine is part of that tradition ... but other commentaries are also, there's no mandatory interpretation of the OT that I know of, and most Catholic theologians tend to be allegorical and otherwise loose or liberal in their interpretations. But I like to be somewhat conservative myself, and at least try for a somewhat more literal interpretation when possible, since to do othewise would undermine Christ's affirmations of the Torah and Prophets (he didn't affirm all of our OT).
On reading the passage by St Augustine, honestly it doesn't seem all that far from my signature verses, which offer a very good principle to keep in mind when dealing with puzzling or horrifying OT passages(the Isaiah verses I've gone back to, my face will be red if the Pooh quote remains). Not very satisfying for the intellectually inquisitive though, and I might go into more detail on one of the specific genocides later.
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"You called out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness... You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain that peace which was yours." Confessions, St Augustine
Posts: 812 | From: Seattle | Registered: Nov 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
I believe that there has to be a justification for these things. They have to have a lesson for us. To look at the deeds of the Israelites with 21st century Western eyes is to see a terrible crime. But if it was really such a terrible crime to them, how come it's not been a problem for Christians until recently?
Hmmmm. I have a lot to say on this subject, and I'm not going to say it all. Neither (and apologies to sound parsimonious) am I going to put up with some of the vitriol that has been spat in my direction on other discussions about this. Just so you know!
The question about any OT passage ISTM is how is it fulfilled in Jesus?
The answer that many here seem to give - it isn't. Taking a conservative view of Scripture, I don't find that avenue open to me so what am I left with?
Well, it is certainly not fuliflled in Jesus' earthly ministry. In fact he specifically bans the disciples from violently forcing conversion on people, or seeing themselves as instruments of punishment.
Enter the "spiritual" meaning - its about God defeating our enemies/inner demons/sin etc. I think it is.
But it still leaves Wood's question - no matter how it applies - it still describes a mass slaughter! So what - mistake? Inaccuracy? God adapting his self revelation before humanity had "evolved" their post Victorian Fulham morality?
Well no. Because, look into the Gospels and you will find Jesus describe God's anger in terms of some of the OT passages. Look into the epistles and God's complete sovereignty over life and death is explained. Look into Revelation and you will find God sending his angels to pour hs wrath out on the earth.
Teach - God's holiness, and election of his people.
Rebuke - our pally "God is nice and he likes us all in a fluffy wuffy way" theology
Correct -our attempt to box him in to our own definitions of justice and love - which always have us and our rights at the centre
Train - us to take his anger at sin very seriously.
Interestingly, while I disagree with Esmerelda on a lot, our application is the same - "repent, or something worse will happen to you" (an application IMO, that only "works" if the events actually happened in the first place.)
Like I said, I know lots will disagree. Some violently. (Ironically) But please try to keep it polite. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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CommonMan
Apprentice
# 7584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
...look into the Gospels and you will find Jesus describe God's anger in terms of some of the OT passages. Look into the epistles and God's complete sovereignty over life and death is explained. Look into Revelation and you will find God sending his angels to pour hs wrath out on the earth.
Teach - God's holiness, and election of his people.
Rebuke - our pally "God is nice and he likes us all in a fluffy wuffy way" theology
Correct -our attempt to box him in to our own definitions of justice and love - which always have us and our rights at the centre
Train - us to take his anger at sin very seriously.
AMEN! ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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The CommonMan Commentaries
Posts: 41 | From: Deep in the Heart of Texas | Registered: Jun 2004
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
I don't think God's revelation changes. I think scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit and received by fallible human beings in the same way that fallible human beings experience God's inspiration today - i.e. imperfectly.
So it's not God's revelation that changes, but the human understanding of what God is revealing. In Jesus, I think all ideas of "A God who is faithful to me kills my enemies and commands me to kill my enemies" was very clearly laid to rest.
By the way, I have a friend who is a Conservative (as opposed to Orthodox) Jew who also does not believe that their God commanded Israel to kill people of other nations, so somehow that idea has seeped out of her form of Judaism too. But Christians, in my view, can be absolutely sure of this because everything Jesus said and did was utterly in opposition to that kind of tribalism.
If one believes that the bible is inerrant or close to inerrant, than "God changes" is the only way out of a changing understanding of the faithful. By understanding the bible as being inspired by the Holy Spirit and written by holy but fallible human beings who saw through the dark glass of their own humanity, then I don't have to think that God's revelation has changed. Only human understanding.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
What if when "we let the story challenge us" we do not come up with the same answers?
What if when we "let the story challenge us" we find that the answers X church or even the greater Christian community at large provides are unsatisfying or perhaps even trite?
We never come up with the same answers on anything else anyway, and the greater Christian community along with X church constantly feed us drivel. You run that risk with everything to do with scripture. Even the most obvious, the Decalogue, a simple, straightforward list of "don't"s, but we can't figure out to do with the Sabbath...
hermit brings up a good point - God's perspective is quite different than ours, and, God is in control of everything both in this life and beyond it. If anyone could say it was OK to kill someone/some group, it would have to be God, who holds that person/those persons through death into the next life. Maybe for whatever reason, in the OT stories, for certain groups of people to pass from this life into the next was a lesser evil than their remaining in this world. Hard to imagine, though. Including the fact that such a claim also means that it is better for the world to completely lose the memory of their cultural achievements, their language and art, and to lose the prospect of their future generations' genetic and cultural contributions to the world. That's pretty tough to claim, even biblically.
The fact that whoever told & wrote the story, at least, found it necessary to involve orders from God, is surely significant. At the very least, it meshes with the OT's insistence on interpreting everything through God's sovereignty.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Rebuke - our pally "God is nice and he likes us all in a fluffy wuffy way" theology
This isn't hell, so I can't say what I really think about this absolute gross distortion and straw-man of a characterisation. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Shall I characterise conservative theology is the religion of football hooliganism?
If we're going to have a serious discussion in Purgatory, then let's stop raising these strawmen or take your parodies to Hell instead. I know "fluffy liberals" who are trying to love people who abused them and they find their journey anything but fluffy and comfortable and feel-good
Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
[ 06. July 2004, 20:33: Message edited by: Seeker963 ]
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Esmeralda
I agreed with you then added my own bit. I didn't say or imply that it was your bit.
Dear Wood
Of course it's about divinely sanctioned genocide. Because that's unacceptable, the allegorical meaning is then a legitimate development. The allegory never pretends a different provenance.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
...no matter how much of a positive allegorical meaning it's given, it's still a story about the destruction of people, even if we decide that's not what it's "about".
So what is the problem with saying that God did not do these things, but that they are described the way they are for the reasons that Fr. Gregory gives? They have a meaning.
quote:
Originally posted by Wood:
I believe that there has to be a justification for these things. They have to have a lesson for us. To look at the deeds of the Israelites with 21st century Western eyes is to see a terrible crime. But if it was really such a terrible crime to them, how come it's not been a problem for Christians until recently?
They haven't been a problem until recently for the same reason that people cheer when the bad guys get blown to tiny bits in movies. People just accepted that the Philistines were bad, got their just desserts, and that's the end of it.
But anyone who really thinks about it must know that all the Philistines, Egyptians, and Canaanites couldn't possibly have been bad. They were most likely exactly like the Israelites as far as their moral character was concerned.
The simple and eternal fact is that good creates and preserves, and that it is evil that destroys. God never destroys anything. Bible stories rely on the fact that this is not the way that things appear to happen. Why is it so difficult to understand how things really are?
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
I'm very blase, heretical and non-biblical on this one. I think (i.e. subjective, perhaps non-rational, view) the Israelites liked wars (or were forced into them, or whatever excuse people have for killing other people) and thought God was telling them to fight them, when really he was probably on neither side because war isn't a very good thing and he was much more concerned with perfecting his people through obedience to the Law and communion with Him.
However, you have to do the whole "Bible is the Word of God but what does that mean exactly?" thing. That's what the issue is here, isn't it? (As always...)
As much as anyone tries to reconcile divine morality with human morality, there's always a huge difference because God is wholly Other.
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Teach - God's holiness, and election of his people.
Rebuke - our pally "God is nice and he likes us all in a fluffy wuffy way" theology
Correct -our attempt to box him in to our own definitions of justice and love - which always have us and our rights at the centre
Train - us to take his anger at sin very seriously.
Interestingly, while I disagree with Esmerelda on a lot, our application is the same - "repent, or something worse will happen to you" (an application IMO, that only "works" if the events actually happened in the first place.)
So, if the archeology of the Holy Land suggests that the invasion never happened we must all go off and become logical positivists?
Oddly enough, the facticity of the narratives aside I don't think that we are a million miles apart.
Assume for a moment that the Biblical critics are right and that this is an ancestor narrative rather than a work of history. Assume also that said critics are right in assuming that the Joshua narrative is an add on to the Pentateuch (some scholars talk of a Heptateuch). Assume also that the story was composed in the rich, powerful and religiously syncretic Babylonian Empire.
Now the great danger facing the Israelite exiles at this time is to chuck in their religion, or at least merge it with the dominant pantheon and theology. So God causes a narrative to emerge which tells his people that, actually, He is entirely other from foreign gods and that the only response to them is absolute opposition. Naturally, assuming scripture has a human component, this is joined to a certain amount of vicarious smacking people around in response to the conquest of Jerusalem. But the message is clear - God is not mocked.
Of course, in order to avoid a distorted theology you have to keep this in some kind of dynamic tension with the gospels and the NT...
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
"...and you shall call his name Yeshua..." (Luke 1:31).
I'm sure you are right, Wood. With a name like Jesus, there is surely much that we need to understand from the difficulties we now find with the book of Joshua (et al of course).
Perhaps one of the biggest difficulties arises when we think of God as making sporadic interventions in the fate of the Jewish nation. But that view is more deism, and the Jews were theists, not deists. It always surprises me when discussions of Joshua overlook Joshua 5:13-15 -
Q: "Whose side are you on - ours or theirs?"
A: "Neither - I am here to command the army of the Lord"
What does that imply in a theistic context? Whatever else it might mean, surely it is saying that whatever this book is about, it isn't about taking sides.
Maybe another helpful view is the later Pauline strictures on what happens when people depart from doing things kata physin. This is often taken to be a sort of "argument from nature", but I don't think this is Paul's point at all. What he is surely talking about is human flourishing - and the duty of the chosen people was to be the beacon that showed how that could be done. The book of Joshua is the first collision of a people, now gathered under guidance for their flourishing, with those who were not flourishing at all.
Joshua is, I think, generally reckoned to be a somewhat bombastic over-statement of historic events. Fair enough. But later books, especially the prophets, are pretty explicit that the same "wrath of God" kicks in when it is the chosen ones who ignore the rules. Perhaps earlier ages had far less difficulty with the concept than we did because cause and effect were closer and more visible then. With our complex societal structures, insurances etc., we put ourselves at several removes further, so the cause and effect mechanism is more opaque to us.
If all the mayhem outlined in Joshua could be caused by a bunch of ill-trained bronze-age semi-nomads, with second-rate military hardware, maybe we should at least ponder what that means for us with our arsenals of mass destruction. This is not a plea for pacifism - just a strong warning for increased vigilance on our parts.
Ian
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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lapsed heathen
Hurler on the ditch
# 4403
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Posted
How about the Israelites were a tribe who kicked ass back in the day and when questioned about the atrocities they answered "God made us do it". Or how about they needed to muster support for what would be a tough fight so the slogan "God on our side" was dragged out (or first used) sort of OT manifest destiny.
What's this stuff doing in the Bible then? 'cos someone or some nation might need to justify 'stuff' again.
Or is this too cynical for you?.
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"We are the Easter people and our song is Alleluia"
Posts: 1361 | From: Marble county | Registered: Apr 2003
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hermit
Shipmate
# 1803
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Posted
I'm puzzled by several people here claiming that everything Jesus said and did was completely antithetical to the OT God. Nonsense. He's said in John 3:18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
And what's the condemnation? Hell, which Jesus informed us is remarkably unpleasant, so painful that gouging your own eye or cutting off your hand would be a small price to pay for avoiding it. And several of his sayings imply that it's fairly easy to get there.
I don't like that any more than you guys do, but to say that there was nothing of OT Divine judgementalism or wrath in Jesus is just plain wrong. He didn't kill anyone during NT times .... but that might not be the case when he returns.
Now Callan mentioned the archaeological record .... it tends to support the OT in many ways, but it's far from complete. That's a field in which researchers have to jump to large inferences based on some very small pieces of evidence. From what I've read, there seems to have been some hyperbole in the biblical accounts, not total distortion or myth, but then again there seemed to be some of that in the sayings of Jesus also as recorded.
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"You called out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness... You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain that peace which was yours." Confessions, St Augustine
Posts: 812 | From: Seattle | Registered: Nov 2001
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
I was going to say something similar to lapsed heathen. History is written by the victors. If you won it must have been because God wanted you to go to war and win. Why can't it be as simple as that? Can you imagine Christ ever urging the chosen people to kill their enemies? Have we misunderstood his message so badly?
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Weed
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
Given that Kings records David's census as being at the inspiration of God, and Chronicles records it as being Satan's idea we do have a precedent in the Bible for quite radical differences of opinion on why certain things happened.
So that perhaps things understood as being divine commands were not. This seems to be the case as far as the census goes. It also seems to be the case looking over my life. At times I was certain that a course of action was God's idea, yet now I realise that I mucked up.
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leonato
Shipmate
# 5124
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Teach - God's holiness, and election of his people.
Rebuke - our pally "God is nice and he likes us all in a fluffy wuffy way" theology
Correct -our attempt to box him in to our own definitions of justice and love - which always have us and our rights at the centre
Train - us to take his anger at sin very seriously.
Interesting, this seems very similar to what Father Gregory said earlier:
quote:
I am 100% in agreement with Esmeralda on this one. In my tradition we interpret OT "enemies" as our own demons, (understood in the soft literary sense).
We should interpret these sorts of passages as Gods anger against evil and sin, so we should "fight" against them in our modern lives.
This doesn't solve the problem though: it is only how we interpret these passages, it doesn't say whether or not they are historically true.
Did God really order such genocides? If he did could he still do so today? If that is case how can we say that the Jihadist aims of Al Qaeda are wrong?
If there came a time when God stopped ordering genocides, and would not do so now, when was that time? The incarnation?
To me the simplest answer is that God did not order such genocides. It is not surprising that Jews living in a polytheist world where Gods were frequently invoked in war believed that "God commanded it" or "God was on their side". People still believe that today.
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leonato... Much Ado
Posts: 892 | From: Stage left | Registered: Oct 2003
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spugmeistress
Shipmate
# 5795
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
I don't like that any more than you guys do, but to say that there was nothing of OT Divine judgementalism or wrath in Jesus is just plain wrong. He didn't kill anyone during NT times .... but that might not be the case when he returns.
I agree, and yes it wasn't Jesus per se, but Acts does attribute the sudden/gruesome deaths of Ananias, Sapphira and Herod to divine homicide. Not quite on the scales of genocide, but on the other hand, why did *they* deserve it specifically and not the people around them? I have my own views on that, but I think it goes to show there still seems to be a bit of the judgement and wrath in there yet.
luv, blessings & kickass lightning storms, rach =)
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spuggie (aka rach :)
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kiwigoldfish:
So that perhaps things understood as being divine commands were not. This seems to be the case as far as the census goes. It also seems to be the case looking over my life. At times I was certain that a course of action was God's idea, yet now I realise that I mucked up.
Great example. That's right. God did not inspire the census, nor does He inspire our own bad ideas that we mistake for "His calling."
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
only just found this thread.
I agree with Wood....
I guess I always assumed the thing about kids coming back to get people. Maybe it would have made things clearer if I'd said it. Also, where a child is growing up in a society characterised by total rejection of God, they are going to reject him too.
and Lep......
Nice application, but I think you missed out
Praise: that God is just and powerful to save
and spuggie......
it is absolutely true that any progression in understanding of God through the Bible is a development in his people as God reveals more about himself as his people change (e.g. Gal 3:24).
And remember that the Bible passages with the highest body count are in the NT.
and probably hermit to an extent as well.
For someone as contrary as me, that's quite impressive!
I've already said plenty on this on other threads, so will stop for the time being.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
If we're going to have a serious discussion in Purgatory, then let's stop raising these strawmen or take your parodies to Hell instead. I know "fluffy liberals" who are trying to love people who abused them and they find their journey anything but fluffy and comfortable and feel-good
er...methinks he doth protest...I wasn't actually making any reference to liberal theology in that comment, but some of the worst excesses of emotionalistic evangelicalism. I would only fire comments like that into my own stable believe me!
So sorry about offending you. But it really wasn't aimed in your direction.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
I'm puzzled by several people here claiming that everything Jesus said and did was completely antithetical to the OT God. Nonsense. He's said in John 3:18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
And what's the condemnation? Hell, which Jesus informed us is remarkably unpleasant, so painful that gouging your own eye or cutting off your hand would be a small price to pay for avoiding it. And several of his sayings imply that it's fairly easy to get there.
Can someone please explain to me how we've got from genocide to hell?
The original poster said he was disturbed about the Old Testament passages that seemed to give the impression that God condoned, and even recommended, genocide and now people are talking about hell. I think there is a lot of confusion going on here.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
If we're going to have a serious discussion in Purgatory, then let's stop raising these strawmen or take your parodies to Hell instead. I know "fluffy liberals" who are trying to love people who abused them and they find their journey anything but fluffy and comfortable and feel-good
er...methinks he doth protest...I wasn't actually making any reference to liberal theology in that comment, but some of the worst excesses of emotionalistic evangelicalism. I would only fire comments like that into my own stable believe me!
So sorry about offending you. But it really wasn't aimed in your direction.
I'm a "she", please (not that you'd know that from my moniker).
I accept what you say above, but....context.
I didn't see anyone talking about a "soft and fluffy God" until you brought the subject up - making a huge leap in logic there. We were talking about genocide.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Little Weed:
I was going to say something similar to lapsed heathen. History is written by the victors. If you won it must have been because God wanted you to go to war and win. Why can't it be as simple as that? Can you imagine Christ ever urging the chosen people to kill their enemies? Have we misunderstood his message so badly?
Short and to the point. Amen!
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
I accept what you say above, but....context.
I didn't see anyone talking about a "soft and fluffy God" until you brought the subject up - making a huge leap in logic there. We were talking about genocide.
Yes. I was reacting to a discussion I had recently had IRL recently. Sorry.
When I said "our" - I really meant "our" - as in my own constituency of Christians. Apologies again.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Little Weed:
Can you imagine Christ ever urging the chosen people to kill their enemies? Have we misunderstood his message so badly?
I'd really appreciate an answer on this one from the conservative evangelical team.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
Not really on any team, unfortunately.
The one thing I want to emphasise, which I really missed, allowing that wonderfully opaque passage of Augustine to do it for me, is that we believe that God never changes, and yet He allowed - and commanded - the Israelites to do something which no sane 21st century Western Christian could countenance.
Could Christ command people to kill their enemies? Well, it depends. In a world where this was an acceptable thing to do and where it was the only way to ensure peace..? Maybe, yeah.
The genius of Jesus was that, through His divine nature, He showed us that we had to reinterpret our moralities for each age in which we live.
He recognised that the rules for a nomadic society were almost as ill-fitting for first-century occupied Judaea as they are for today; He played fast and loose with the rules, while at the same time stating that He came not to change or alter a single thing. In His Sermon on the Mount, He stresses repeatedly that we can learn from these things, and that we can use them, even if they don't fit our world, since we their purpose is for us to live at peace, first with God, and then with our fellow human beings.
Jesus' example is that we have to rewrite the particulars of our faith for every age in which we live (which we do, which is why we don't accept slavery but are allowed to have mortgages these days, for example) , while still keeping to the central truths. It isn't even about bringing it down to the Ten Commandments; it's about taking the whole lot, and seeing what it's for. Which is harder than taking a set of hard rules and shoehorning them into every age of the world.
God doesn't change. But the world does. God therefore applies different moralities to the same intention: harmony. Which is what Augustine was about in that passage I quoted in the OP, believe it or not.
[ 07. July 2004, 09:36: Message edited by: Wood ]
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Little Weed:
Can you imagine Christ ever urging the chosen people to kill their enemies? Have we misunderstood his message so badly?
I'd really appreciate an answer on this one from the conservative evangelical team.
No. But then he makes it clear in, for example, the letters to the churches in Revelation, and various passages in John that he himself will inflict something much worse on the unrepentant. I think I've said before in one of the discussions about this, that this is clearly with our NT glasses on, not a model for the church today, simply because Jesus says it isn't.
But with the Joshua/Jesus connection, it does seem to be a model of Jesus' actions in the future. Hard as that may be to stomach.
We're not in a "team" by the way. I prefer the description "conservative evangelical Reich".
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Spugmeistress, you wrote: quote:
I agree, and yes it wasn't Jesus per se, but Acts does attribute the sudden/gruesome deaths of Ananias, Sapphira and Herod to divine homicide. Not quite on the scales of genocide, but on the other hand, why did *they* deserve it specifically and not the people around them? I have my own views on that, but I think it goes to show there still seems to be a bit of the judgement and wrath in there yet.
As far as Annanias and Sapphira are concerned, I'm not actually sure that this is so. Acts passes no comment about the rightness or wrongness of Peter's actions, beyond saying that they resulted in "great fear" being visited upon the community. It is certainly possible, and indeed, it is the traditional explanation, that Peter executed God's righteous judgement on A&S for their hypocrisy. But that is not what Acts says, it is an interpretation. An, equally possible, interpretation, is that the story shows the terrible consequences of the abuse of spiritual power, in this case by Peter. Certainly, Peter, as so often in scripture, does not come out of it well. We know he was, by nature, impulsive, and filled with zeal. Effectively, he cursed Annanias. It's understandable, in a way, he was (correctly) angry, but that does not necessarily make his actions right in God's eyes. And what were all those other believers doing whilst they waited for Sapphira to return, whistling Dixie? Why was the house not in mourning, why was Annanias buried before his wife had even seen his body. It is Peter's flawed judgement, his abuse of genuine spiritual power, that is higlighted by these events.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
I'm puzzled by several people here claiming that everything Jesus said and did was completely antithetical to the OT God.
I don't think anyone's said that - just that Jesus' teaching was a progression from OT teaching, and that books such as Joshua might need to be re-evaluated in the light of this.
quote:
.. to say that there was nothing of OT Divine judgementalism or wrath in Jesus is just plain wrong. He didn't kill anyone during NT times .... but that might not be the case when he returns.
I disagree strongly with this 'he let you off first time but boy is he going to kick ass when he comes back' interpretation. Jesus is not the Terminator saying 'I'll be back'! Acts 1 says Jesus will return 'in the same way' or, in some translations, 'this same Jesus'. There is much in the OT about destroying evil, but little or nothing about Jesus coming back to condemn where formerly he overlooked. In fact he himself said 'my words will be the judge', not himself. Also, 'judge' does not necessarily mean 'find guilty'. I would be worried about a human judge who used the word with that meaning..
Wood, I also disagree with your contention that 'God never changes'. The OT is full of examples of God changing his mind (viz Nineveh after the preaching of Joshua, for example), and prophecies which say things like 'I have repented of the evil I was going to visit on you'. The
character of God may not change, but God's intentions and methods certainly can. Read The Openness of God (Clark Pinnock et. al.). There is masses of biblical evidence for this viewpoint.
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
Posts: 17415 | From: A small island nobody pays any attention to | Registered: Jun 2001
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GeordieDownSouth
Shipmate
# 4100
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Posted
This is a timely thread for me as well, and coming from a very similar position to Wood as regarding status of scripture etc and could almost have repeated the start of his OP as my own dilemma.
Its timely as I've just had a brief trip to the balkans and have been reading about what happened during the civil war in Bosnia. Then I came home and have been working through the book of Joshua.
I struggle with the "progressive revelation" bit as it doesn't seem to borne out. I don't believe we're better equipped morally to move from "kill your enemies" to "love your enemies." Genocide of the kind discribed in Joshua is still happening. Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia indulged in the same kid of destruction. Women, children, houses....
The behaviour of the Isrealites in Joshua therefore seems entirely realistic, archeological evidence or not.
(Also the Serbs & Croats are Orthodox and Catholic Christian respecitevely and I'm left feeling more disturbed)
I have no conclusions. I have a thought that if God did want to wipe out whichever ethnic group that I belong to, that is entirely up to him. But that doesn't seem to provide me with any answers.
I don't believe that this is an acedemic argument. In england I'm safe from this kind of behaviour. Many parts of the world are not. I'll be following this thread with interest, and in light of some of the comments going back to Joshua and reading a bit closer.
There seems to be something key and very relevant in this part of the old testament about how we could approach current genocides, but I can't quite unlock it.
I'll repeat again. This is not an acedemic argument about biblical literacy/authority. Its also an argument about what is still happening now.
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No longer down south.
Posts: 689 | From: Birmingham | Registered: Feb 2003
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Esmeralda:
Wood, I also disagree with your contention that 'God never changes'. The OT is full of examples of God changing his mind (viz Nineveh after the preaching of Joshua, for example), and prophecies which say things like 'I have repented of the evil I was going to visit on you'. The
character of God may not change, but God's intentions and methods certainly can.
Sorry - yes, when I said that God never changes, I mean that God's nature and moral character do not change (as opposed to His decisions - although I think Pinnock's thesis isn't watertight). Which I think is what you're saying.
[ 07. July 2004, 09:54: Message edited by: Wood ]
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IanB:
Joshua is, I think, generally reckoned to be a somewhat bombastic over-statement of historic events. Fair enough.
That's pretty explicit in the Bible. It's not even subtext, its text. All these apparent victories, all this land doled out to various tribes and families - yet there they are, living alongsiide the Cananites (& Amorites & Hivites & Jebusites & Perizzites & thisites & thatites & other ites) who they had supposedly wiped out in the previous pages. And there are all their war leaders ("Judges") and later some of their the prophets going on about how they didn't rid of all those various ites.
And the geneaologies are revealing too. Taking them literally there is not the slightest evidence that Caleb and a significant portion of the tribe of Judah ever went near Egypt - the Israelites seem to have picked them up in the desert. (Possibly my favourite set of ites - the Kenites)
Another thing about the ites - some of them are Allowed and some of them are Not Allowed - some can be Israelites if they want, others can be lived alongside, others are supposed to be shunned, and some (very few) are supposed to be done in entirely.
Also they all have symbolic significance as well. That applies also to the big empires and so on you've heard of. Often quite a complex symbolic significance - Egypt is consistently a place of refuge, of safety, but it is also decadent and unspiritual, so symbolically it can be "good" or "bad" in different contexts. And so on.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
quote:
But then he makes it clear in, for example, the letters to the churches in Revelation, and various passages in John that he himself will inflict something much worse on the unrepentant.
In John?
Anyway, I don't believe that there's any parallel between genocide in the OT and Hell. I don't see a single reference to ultimate punishment in the NT that isn't comprehensible in terms of a broken relationship with God. I don't think that genocide in the OT has anything to do with that.
The fates of the nations in the classical prophets from Amos on are certainly theologized in the context of Israel's election - but it seems clear to me that the major theme there is that Israel's election isn't irreversible, and that she can become as one of the nations, cast adrift on the currents of eighth century BC geopolitics. And it gets even more subtle with Jeremiah.
It seems to me that the genocidal passages in Joshua (and much more theologically distressingly in the Saul-narrative) take their rise directly out of the culture of the times, and that on the landscape of the OT they are basically an erratic boulder, left there by colossal processes which no longer shape the theologicl landscape. Put it another way: if your model of God's people is that they are the material on which God's revelation is impressed, then the image of that revelation is bound to be profoundly implicated in the nature of the image you have. If Jesus had been born into the culture of twelfth-century BC Palestine, in which mass-murder of conquered populations was part of the "shit which happens" (though I think we underestimate the horror with which it was regarded even then) - and moreover into a Yahweh-theology which was certainly henotheistic rather than monotheistic - we would never have known that God is love.
Why, when Scripture itself is so clear that the Christ came at the appropriate time, do we have to incorporate clapped-out, genocidal models of God into our thinking just because they're in the Bible? My point is the exact opposite of a position that says that we can safely ignore bits of the Bible. It's that we have to understand Scripture for what it is, and not foist preconceived notions of equal theological value onto it, when Scripture itself clearly doesn't work in this way, and, basically, isn't that. If you take the whole Bible with equal seriousness, you aren't actually treating any of it with the seriousness it deserves.
And moreover, you're missing the point - the Girardian point - that this hideous and repulsive violence is in us all, and that God, in order to love us, has to deal with it. Hence the Cross. The forces that crucified Christ are the forces that wrought genocide in the OT. And still do in the world today. We can't ignore these narratives. God help us if we do. The truth of them is the truth of our fallen human nature. And our hearing the voice of God in the comand to kill is something that we can only begin to get a grasp of theologically when we realize that we've successfully killed God for the same reasons.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
And moreover, you're missing the point - the Girardian point - that this hideous and repulsive violence is in us all, and that God, in order to love us, has to deal with it. Hence the Cross. The forces that crucified Christ are the forces that wrought genocide in the OT. And still do in the world today. We can't ignore these narratives. God help us if we do. The truth of them is the truth of our fallen human nature. And our hearing the voice of God in the comand to kill is something that we can only begin to get a grasp of theologically when we realize that we've successfully killed God for the same reasons.
I think this is kind of what I was trying to reach towards, but didn't quite make it. I find this a fairly satisfying insight. Thank you.
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
quote:
colossal processes which no longer shape the theologicl landscape.
I was writing fast, (that's why my posts tend to be longer than they should ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) ) and can see the obvious apparent contradiction with what I went on to say: quote:
The forces that crucified Christ are the forces that wrought genocide in the OT. And still do in the world today.
I do believe that the cultural significance of what we are calling 'genocide' (sc. in Joshua and Samuel) was lost by the mid-eighth century when Amos began to preach. In a sense, I'm not really happy that we're calling these things - hideous though they were - 'genocides'. They aren't the same as what happened in Nazi Germany (though arguably they have a closer kinship with what happened in the Balkans in the 90s and still lurks there) - though (and this is the constant) they are all culturally-conditioned manifestations of something that is true of us as human beings. Cultural and epochal contexts are crucial to the way these things show themselves, though. It's always worth remembering that it was because the Incarnation happened when it did that we have the Cross as the symbol of our faith.
I'd also like to make it clear that the "You" in the last paragraph is a rhetorical "you", not an attempt specifically to engage with Leprechaun personally. Maybe I'll cross-post with him on this, and if so I apologize if I seem to impute anything to him that he's not saying.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
No. But then he makes it clear in, for example, the letters to the churches in Revelation, and various passages in John that he himself will inflict something much worse on the unrepentant. I think I've said before in one of the discussions about this, that this is clearly with our NT glasses on, not a model for the church today, simply because Jesus says it isn't.
But with the Joshua/Jesus connection, it does seem to be a model of Jesus' actions in the future. Hard as that may be to stomach.
Except there is a difference between judgement and indiscriminate slaughter. The NT model is of God as a judge, judging people for their actions. Descriptions of those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God tend to be descriptions of wickedness. Revelations 21:8 is a good example.
Those massacred in the OT narratives tend to be of a different race, or if that is putting it too contentiously, a different nation or group. Those killed are not only the ones accused of unspecified wickedness but those who had no power in their societies and were, therefore, their victims - women, slaves, children and even livestock (IIRC)! Even if you take a hellfire and brimstone interpretation of the NT, there is still a world of difference between "there is the death penalty with no exceptions for these crimes" and "kill them all, God will know his own".
quote:
We're not in a "team" by the way. I prefer the description "conservative evangelical Reich".
You may regret that comment in a few months time when a thread on PSA is described as degenerating into an argument between the Plot and the Reich.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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