quote:

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"This is what the LORD Almighty says... 'Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'" (1 Samuel 15:3

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quote:

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38 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,[g] let him have your cloak as well. 41And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers,[h] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
A Hellion comments.

It's kind of obnoxious to use the Ship as analogy for the Bible, but there you are, Lyda... the Psalm is a Hellish cry for not just justice but vigaresh*. Jesus's words are a Purgatorial breakdown of why vengeance and 10-fold repayment don't work.

Having said that, I myself would not have a problem if that particular (biblical) thread were Oblivionated.

*Vengeance plus interest.

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This is not the thread "Dash all your little ones against a rock!" I completely understand the matter of feelings expressed in the psalm. Poetry is a proper place to express feelings. I posted on that thread that I'm actually glad that wasn't cleaned up and out. Feeling anger and hatred is human, just not a nice part of being human.

To me, someone in Hebrew history ranting about their overwhelming anger and sadness at the horrors they endured is not a matter of Divine teaching contradicting Divine teaching even if scripture is God Breathed. God ordering a massacre of the enemy, then Christ teaching how to we are to treat our enemies entirely differently is such a contradiction, IMO.
 

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Posted by Simon (# 1) on :
 
Yes, I'm with Lyda on this. It's one thing for a poet to give vent to his feelings of revenge (in Psalm 137), but something else for a political leader to give an order to the military for genocide in the name of God. If you believe that every time the Old Testament has that formula, "The Lord said", it really is God speaking and not just some manipulative leader claiming it, then there's a huge amount of explaining to do. It would be good to hear someone with a conservative viewpoint justifying "God's command" to destroy the people of Amalek.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Sorry got my verses confused.

{after re-reading properly) In which case, yeah, Lyda, you've got it. I tend to read it as a military leader telling his soldiers what he wants them to hear, but taking him at his word makes it a very dangerous verse.

[ 02. August 2009, 03:13: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by wehyatt (# 14250) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Simon:
It would be good to hear someone with a conservative viewpoint justifying "God's command" to destroy the people of Amalek.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Simon:
It would be good to hear someone with a conservative viewpoint justifying "God's command" to destroy the people of Amalek.

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Marcus Honeysett, a "conservative" Christian blogger, outlined a few thoughts on the subject on his blog, which I agree with: "What about the Amalekites?". It attracted some attention from atheists blogs, which (unfairly and misleadingly) declared that he was "defending genocide".
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
I'm sorry but your level of conservatism won't do at all for this task, wehyatt. The moment you said, "While I think that the simplistic view of God presented in 1 Samuel 15 is not accurate...", you wandered into liberalville. Tch, tch.

According to "plain readers" of the Bible, that is. I think you make quite a bit of sense.
 

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Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
It attracted some attention from atheists blogs, which (unfairly and misleadingly) declared that he was "defending genocide".

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If the complete destruction of an entire nation isn't genocide, what is? And if he's not defending it in that link, what is he doing?

Saying "oh, they were evil and had been for years" doesn't justify ordering their complete eradication to the last living thing. Especially as the Amekalites could presumably have said exactly the same thing about the Israelites...
 

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Posted by BillyPilgrim (# 9841) on :
 
That is indeed IMO a terrible and frightening verse. Those among us who are not wedded to inerrancy may chose to ask whether the genocide actually occurred, and may conclude that if it did it was retrospectively justified by the author of the book in question.

[tangent]I remember singing Verdi's setting of Psalm 137 in the Royal Albert Hall (in the original Welsh) , and thinking "If I were a Welsh-speaking Babylonian, I'd start running now"![/tangent]
 

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Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
Marcus Honeysett, a "conservative" Christian blogger, outlined a few thoughts on the subject on his blog, which I agree with: "What about the Amalekites?". It attracted some attention from atheists blogs, which (unfairly and misleadingly) declared that he was "defending genocide".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
And yes, rachel, I realise this is partly responding to a question you asked me about 15 years ago...

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I know... and you to some extent seem to have found a new answer, whereas I'm aware I have returned to the same old questions.
 

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Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on :
 
Again, not a conservative here. Just making observations that I'm hoping might be helpful- because this is a difficult passage.

Always remember it functions as a story, and people die in stories. No-one gets upset when they do. If you see the Bible as CCTV, you will have more of a problem.

Killing was the modus operandi at the time. If you were a small people, fighting for survival, attempting to absorb or accommodate your enemies was a bad idea. When the chance came, they would wipe you out. Compare Exodus 1. Even thought the Israelites had come voluntarily, and had no grudge against the Egyptians, the latter were worried enough to order the slaughter of male babies.

Sometimes enemies can be fought by people in offices firing smart bombs at unmanned radar stations. Much of the time it has historically been Total War- destruction of the civilian power base as a military means. Commanders in the field have frequently decided that the civilians of the enemy power should be attacked in order to save the lives of their own fighting forces. In recent times we saw Dresden, Hiroshima, the bombing of the Ba'ath party headquarters.

Now the morality of each of these is debatable. But take that kind of military thinking, and transfer it to the kind of survival tribal warfare the Israelites were engaged in. Then completely destroying an implacable enemy makes a kind of military sense. Given the morality of the times. In a story. In a story. That's part of a bigger story...
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Okay, your target has arrived. Conservative theologically--an inerrantist, actually. Bite me. (Seriously, I hope not)

I'm not going to pretend this verse or its like don't bother me. They do. Of course they do.

And I could trot out a whole lot of rationalizations / explanations / mitigations, but truly, it wouldn't make any difference to you. Or in the end, to me.

So what do I do with it?

Well, (deep breath), I trust God on it. (cop out! cop out! they snigger)

No, really. There are a few things that are just never going to be answered to my satisfaction on this earth, and this is one of them. It bothers me. It bothers me a whole lot.

But I know God (or rather, he knows me). I've always known him to be faithful and trustworthy and merciful and true. And so I trust that there IS an explanation for this verse, and a good one, even if I don't know what it is.

I hope some day I'll find out.
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Sarah G:
Again, not a conservative here. Just making observations that I'm hoping might be helpful- because this is a difficult passage.

Always remember it functions as a story, and people die in stories. No-one gets upset when they do. If you see the Bible as CCTV, you will have more of a problem.

Killing was the modus operandi at the time. If you were a small people, fighting for survival, attempting to absorb or accommodate your enemies was a bad idea. When the chance came, they would wipe you out. Compare Exodus 1. Even thought the Israelites had come voluntarily, and had no grudge against the Egyptians, the latter were worried enough to order the slaughter of male babies.

Sometimes enemies can be fought by people in offices firing smart bombs at unmanned radar stations. Much of the time it has historically been Total War- destruction of the civilian power base as a military means. Commanders in the field have frequently decided that the civilians of the enemy power should be attacked in order to save the lives of their own fighting forces. In recent times we saw Dresden, Hiroshima, the bombing of the Ba'ath party headquarters.

Now the morality of each of these is debatable. But take that kind of military thinking, and transfer it to the kind of survival tribal warfare the Israelites were engaged in. Then completely destroying an implacable enemy makes a kind of military sense. Given the morality of the times. In a story. In a story. That's part of a bigger story...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
...Though that still leaves the question: Why the livestock?

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• You're not going to profit from this war, it's not "business as usual", no taking spoil
• It's all a sacrifice

quote:

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Originally posted by Custard:

Understanding the Amalekites a bit does help - they were the nation who had set themselves totally and irrevocably against God and Israel. Even as late as Esther, Haman (who seems to be descended from Agag, king of the Amalekites at the time of 1 Sam 15) is busy trying to exterminate all the Jews. No reason is given for his absolute hatred of them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Okay, your target has arrived. Conservative theologically--an inerrantist, actually. Bite me. (Seriously, I hope not)

I'm not going to pretend this verse or its like don't bother me. They do. Of course they do.

And I could trot out a whole lot of rationalizations / explanations / mitigations, but truly, it wouldn't make any difference to you. Or in the end, to me.

So what do I do with it?

Well, (deep breath), I trust God on it. (cop out! cop out! they snigger)

No, really. There are a few things that are just never going to be answered to my satisfaction on this earth, and this is one of them. It bothers me. It bothers me a whole lot.

But I know God (or rather, he knows me). I've always known him to be faithful and trustworthy and merciful and true. And so I trust that there IS an explanation for this verse, and a good one, even if I don't know what it is.

I hope some day I'll find out.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the famous rachel:
My problem with your approach is that the only way one can decide whether to trust someone - God in this case - is to learn about their character. If we take the Bible as a good source of information about God's character, then we pick up a very mixed picture of him. I certainly wouldn't want to place my trust in the deity in this verse.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm sure in this case the phrase would be "make a cherem of", aka "devote to the Lord" or "devote to destruction." It carries the idea of "nobody's going to use or profit from X again" and can be applied to good things and to unclean things as well. Not like the usual sacrifices, which had to be clean and perfect.

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quote:

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My problem with your approach is that the only way one can decide whether to trust someone - God in this case - is to learn about their character. If we take the Bible as a good source of information about God's character, then we pick up a very mixed picture of him. I certainly wouldn't want to place my trust in the deity in this verse.

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True--and yet it's different when the deity in question gets up and comes alive off the page, so to speak. Then you're not dealing with just the troubling verse, but you've got the whole rest of the Bible, the experiences of other Christians ancient and modern, and your own interactions with him. Which gives you a much fuller and clearer picture of what he's really like than focusing on a single passage or even a few dozen of them. More data is always better.

The conclusions I've come to from all of this are that God is good, that he is holy (and cannot abide evil, loathes it with the passion of ten thousand burning suns), that he is equally passionate about people for some odd reason, and that it really, REALLY matters to him what we choose and think and do.

That a lot or maybe all of this springs from love, but not the sweet sickly kind--rather a fierce whole-hearted commitment kind of love that can be more tender and unfathomable than a mother with a sick baby but at other times more blazingly furious than your dad's after you've taken the car out without permission and smashed it all to hell (hospitalizing your little brother in the process). But for all that, you know that if you hold fast, weather the storm (and repent!) you will eventually be reconciled to him, because he does in fact love you--heck, he wouldn't be so angry with you if he didn't, and you hadn't endangered what he loves (you and the bro).

I feel like I ought to try to paint the other side, the much more comforting loving, merciful, etc. side, but frankly I don't think I could do it. That's even farther beyond my comprehension, and way beyond my writing. And that is what I'm left with in the end--that someone is passionately in love with me and with all of us, that he won't sit on his hands and let us all go to hell in a handbasket or any other device of our own choosing, and that if and when threats of punishment don't work (usually), he is willing to put his own life on the line to haul us out and bring us back to himself.

Under those circs I'm just not prepared to sit in judgment on his actions half-understood by me--better off trusting him. Otherwise it's like a bee analyzing Niagara Falls.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
LC, what was "loving" (to the Amalekites) about what was done to the Amalekites?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I never said that was loving. I said I was going to trust God about it.
 

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Posted by Simon (# 1) on :
 
So are we saying that God didn't love the Amalekites?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying I'm going to trust him about it.
 

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Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
LC, let me get this straight - are you saying, "I'm going to trust him about it"?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Oooh, tough one. Let me think about that one.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
Because I don't have a theological need to make this text come out right, I treat it as an outrageous example of our sinful human natures, which even try to rationalize genocide by inventing a divine benediction upon it.

That said, I think that in itself is why this is a useful text for us today: It's a mirror that holds up to us our own dark, ugly, atavistic urge toward tribal aggression, something that still lurks just under the surface of even the most self-perceived sophisticated and cosmopolitan of us.
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
That said, I think that in itself is why this is a useful text for us today: It's a mirror that holds up to us our own dark, ugly, atavistic urge toward tribal aggression, something that still lurks just under the surface of even the most self-perceived sophisticated and cosmopolitan of us.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
True--and yet it's different when the deity in question gets up and comes alive off the page, so to speak. Then you're not dealing with just the troubling verse, but you've got the whole rest of the Bible, the experiences of other Christians ancient and modern, and your own interactions with him. Which gives you a much fuller and clearer picture of what he's really like than focusing on a single passage or even a few dozen of them. More data is always better.

The conclusions I've come to from all of this are that God is good, that he is holy (and cannot abide evil, loathes it with the passion of ten thousand burning suns), that he is equally passionate about people for some odd reason, and that it really, REALLY matters to him what we choose and think and do.

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quote:

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"How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.

I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.
(Hosea 11:8-9

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quote:

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7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves [b] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

10 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: 11 "I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions." Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Carys:
It's not 1 Sam 15:3 that I have the biggest problem with but verses 9 and 11:

quote:

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7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves [b] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

10 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: 11 "I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions." Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.

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Not only does God command the wholesale destruction he repents of making Saul king when he doesn't do as he was told. Though the fact Saul doesn't seem to have acted out of mercy but out of a desire to keep the best bits makes that slightly less hard to deal with; if God had got annoyed at Saul for being merciful, I'd've had really, really big problems, but is stands I'm still quite worried.

Carys

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quote:

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Originally posted by archangel0753:
It's an ongoing debate in the OT without any resolution , even after the Exile.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
It is of course worth remembering that, being sinful ourselves, we don't have the faintest conception of what an awesome thing God's holiness actually is.

If I had even the foggiest idea about God's holiness, I rather suspect I'd feel a lot worse about my own sin and the ways I reject God. I don't know if I'd feel happier about the deaths of the Amalekites, but I'd feel a lot less inclined to argue that I didn't deserve the same.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
This is as close to a "justification" as I dare get. It's similar with the more frequent use of the death penalty in a culture where prisons just aren't possible (and what ones may exist probably have high mortality rates anyway). Fighting non-total war can mean total war later on.

Survival is a seriously ugly business sometimes. We're very lucky that we live with enough resources that sharing and live-and-let-live is comparatively easy (though we still struggle with it, and often achieve this state of being by exploiting people who can't reach us directly).

Though that still leaves the question: Why the livestock?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sarah G:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
[qb]
But hang on a minute. Weren't they all supposed to be dead anyway?

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quote:

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Originally posted by bush baptist:
The text doesn't say that it's God's command anyway -- it says Samuel says it was God's command. Judges got things wrong, kings got things wrong, from time to time prophets get things wrong -- why assume that Samuel got everything right?

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quote:

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Originally posted by bush baptist:
The text doesn't say that it's God's command anyway -- it says Samuel says it was God's command. Judges got things wrong, kings got things wrong, from time to time prophets get things wrong -- why assume that Samuel got everything right?

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quote:

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If we treat all the nasty bits of the old testament as being [only] the product of human beings… we certainly make our lives easier, but we also essentially chuck away quite a lot of text!

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Well -- true.




But pursuing the possibility I raised, last-ditching, just to see if it can work...

at least the text doesn’t say that Saul was turned away specifically for not killing the innocent, just for his reaction to Samuel's instructions. And in his disobedience to Samuel’s (mistaken) instructions, Saul showed both his lack of mercy, in killing all the despised, and his cupidity, in reserving the valuable commodities, including Agag. (And his unwillingness to take responsibility, in claiming that it was the people who urged him to keep the sheep etc -- what a weasel!)

Saul’s actions in response to the instructions did show his unfitness to be king. And Samuel might well have spent a sleepless night, knowing that the whole event was wrong, but unable to articulate exactly why. And so the "failed to obey" instructions line.

There! given it a shot.

But returning to your interpretation, Custard -- I'm not sure the Amalekites were doomed for what they might have done in the future -- the other texts (Deuteronomy 25:17-19, amongst others) say that it was what they had done in the past. In either case, though, it leaves me glumly thinking about Psalm 78, where the whole history of Israel is said to be " a parable... dark sayings of old which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us."

Dark sayings and a parable that I don't understand.
 

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Posted by TiggyTiger (# 14819) on :
 
I think that's pretty much exactly what's happening here...

Well no, because that would be one person or baby whom you know for sure will be directly responsible for evil on a mass scale, whereas this is thousands of people, many of whom are entirely innnocent. In fact most of them - includig the donkeys and other furry creatures. Of course you know why they kept the sheep? ;-)
 

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Posted by the famous rachel (# 1258) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
Back to the passage though....

v33 makes it clear that the commanded destruction is direct retribution for the actions of the Amalekites - they killed children, so their children will be killed.

There's also the issue in this passage of full deliverance. If Saul does not kill all the Amalekites (as he doesn't), Israel will need saving from them again and again and again (David, Esther, etc) because the Amalekites always hate the Israelites. Partial destruction of the Amalekites only means partial deliverance and peace for a while. Full destruction means full and permanent deliverance.

If Saul had obeyed God, future wars and slaughters would have been averted.

I guess the question could be put like this: If you met Stalin (substitute evil person of your choice) when he was a child, and you knew for certain everything he would become, all the evil and harm he would do, and all the people he would kill, and so on, would it be permissible to kill him to prevent that?

If God commanded it, and if you had someone who did hear God perfectly and reliably (which is how the author of 1 Sam presents Samuel - he is the prophet like Moses from Deut 18...), and you were certain that God had commanded it, would it be right to obey?

I think that's pretty much exactly what's happening here...

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Hmmm...

I think that you're aware that even the Stalin analogy is a more difficult ethical question than you're implying. Also, as TiggyTiger suggests, it seems an inappropriate analogy anyway. Perhaps a better ananlogy would be the Troubles in Northern Ireland. If, in early 1922, someone had killed off all the protestants in Northern island, and their babies and pets, and turned all of the island of Ireland over to the Catholics, we might have prevented a lot of terrorist atrocities. However, that would not make such an action morally right.

The reason I think that this is a fair analogy, is that, as I said earlier - I suspect a significant part of the Amalekites hatred of Israel sprang from Israel's repeated attempts to wipe them off the face of the earth. Israel does not appear to have been blameless in this conflict, any more than either the protestants or the catholics were blameless in the Northern Ireland situation.

The big difference between the Troubles and our passage however, is that unlike in Northern Ireland the passage makes it very clear whose side God is on. That really seems to be the main difference between the two warring tribes here - and it's a rather worrying difference, because God (presumably) created the poor Amalekites, before deciding they weren't the tribe de jour, and getting his favourite humans to wipe them out. I'm definitely back with a toddler-God here, kicking over his blue toy soldiers, because today he likes the green ones better.

All the best,

Rachel.
 

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Posted by Custard. (# 5402) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I think that you're aware that even the Stalin analogy is a more difficult ethical question than you're implying.

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quote:

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The big difference between the Troubles and our passage however, is that unlike in Northern Ireland the passage makes it very clear whose side God is on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
The Amalekites weren't Canaanites - they were descended from Esau (Gen 36:12) and as such weren't one of the nations that Israel was going to attack. It also means that they'd normally be under the protection of the laws in Deut 20, which always allow the possibility of the city surrendering and being allowed to live. Slaughter is only for when they don't surrender...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
In Exodus 17:8, just after Israel have come up out of Egypt, the Amalekites, for no obvious reason, attack the Israelites. In other words, they choose to put themselves in direct opposition to God's plan to bless all nations.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the famous rachel:
I'm not sure the Amalekites are descended from Esau. They turn up in Genesis 14:7 as a tribal group, and I don't reckon Esau has been born at this point. I know that Esau has a son called Amalek, but I'm not sure how he can be the father of the Amalekites, unless there are two lots.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
Could a kind host please delete everything from the second quoted section onwards?

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Happy to oblige

Marvin
Kind Host
 

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Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by the famous rachel:
Your [Custard's] argument really seems to be trying to justify God's action after the fact, working on the assumption that since he's God, this action must be right.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
It attracted some attention from atheists blogs, which (unfairly and misleadingly) declared that he was "defending genocide".

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If the complete destruction of an entire nation isn't genocide, what is? And if he's not defending it in that link, what is he doing?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
Actually, no. In Gen 14, the land of the Amalekites is mentioned as an area, but without any Amalekites around. If Genesis was written during the early monarchy (which there's quite a bit of circumstancial evidence for e.g. Gen 36:1), it makes perfect sense to talk about that area as the land of the Amalekites, in the same way that we might say that the Persians were a civilisation that was based in Iran.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the famous rachel:
Even if I - for now - accept your explanation of the origin of the Amalekites, I'm not sure that this helps. Your argument was that under Deuteronomy 20, the Amalekites didn't need to be slaughtered, they could just have surrendered their property without a fight and been spared. Hence, I guess you would argue that they shouldn't have attacked the Israelites in Exodus 17, because if the Israelites had attacked the Amalekite cities, the Amalekites could have surrendered and been spared. I have two problems with this:

(1) The Amalekites probaby hadn't read Deuteronomy 20

(2) If the Amalekites had read Deuteronomy 20 they probably wouldn't have considered it a fair deal.

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quote:

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Originally posted by TiggyTiger:
I find it a bit odd to be discussing the ethics of ANY genocide!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Custard.:
Deuteronomy 20 is set a good 40 years after Exodus 17...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by TiggyTiger:
I find it a bit odd to be discussing the ethics of ANY genocide!

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Quite.

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Indeed. But if you're going to use the Bible alone as proof of anything, it seems that you should be able to have some valid explanation of such passages.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
I'm just shaking my head at the compulsion to make the Bible "come out right" by engaging in whatever tortured logic makes genocide sound sensible. Y'all really think that "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" makes faith-based genocide okay?

Thanks for making pomo agnosticism sound even more appealing than it is already.
 

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Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kid Who Cracked:
But if you're going to use the Bible alone as proof of anything

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quote:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Y'all really think that "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" makes faith-based genocide okay?

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quote:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I'm just shaking my head at the compulsion to make the Bible "come out right" by engaging in whatever tortured logic makes genocide sound sensible. Y'all really think that "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" makes faith-based genocide okay?

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Originally posted by Custard.:


What we need is to do a bit of work to see if it can be reconciled with what else we know. And that's what I'm trying to do, and I honestly think it can.

I've now got to the point where I'm fairly sure the command is about destroying Amalek identity rather than all of the Amalekites...

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Right.

So is genocide objectively bad, then?

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
So it would have been OK for Hitler to exterminate the Jews if he warned them and called it "corporate capital punishment"?

No, you can't really be saying that. Can you?

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Right.

So is genocide objectively bad, then?

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Originally posted by sanityman:
The policeman argument seems to rely on corporate responibility of a people being the same as individual responsibility for an act of murder (or attempted murder). I just don't see that you can hold the powerless people of a nation to blame for the actions of the rulers of that nation, and therefore I don't think the analogy holds. They're not being justly punished, they're "collateral damage" in today's euphemism du jour.

...Oh, except they're not: they were killed deliberately, and in cold blood. I'm not sure the "nutters" here are the Amelekites.

- Chris.

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Originally posted by Sarah G:

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Originally posted by sanityman:
The policeman argument seems to rely on corporate responibility of a people being the same as individual responsibility for an act of murder (or attempted murder). I just don't see that you can hold the powerless people of a nation to blame for the actions of the rulers of that nation, and therefore I don't think the analogy holds. They're not being justly punished, they're "collateral damage" in today's euphemism du jour.

...Oh, except they're not: they were killed deliberately, and in cold blood. I'm not sure the "nutters" here are the Amelekites.

- Chris.

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But we're not talking here about the modern sort of war fought by professional armies in which minimising civilian suffering is an expected behaviour. We're talking about total war.

There have been periods in history when the former was the main type of conflict. In First World countries today, there is a requirement that non-combatants should not be involved.

But for other long periods, the civilian population has been rightly viewed as an important resource for providing the means to wage war. Where that is the case, military leaders have viewed the destruction of civilian resources as being legitimate. Civilians will be “killed in cold blood”. The Second World War was fought with that as a basic premise on both sides- the Blitz, Dresden, Hiroshima. Attitudes have changed to civilian casualties down the centuries depending on the nature of the conflict being fought.

Indeed, those of us who are not going through puberty will have seen a shift in our lifetimes. With the expansion of use of satellite guided missiles, the attitude to collateral civilian damage changed between the First and Second Gulf Wars.

Now in BC tribal warfare, it was total war. If you left your enemy with the capacity to build the means to wage war, they were going to do so in your direction at some point in the future. And in 1 Samuel 30, the Amalekites did just that, destroying Ziklag.

(More generally, but vitally, I find myself forgetting above that the whole thing functions as a story.)

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Riiiight. So Hitler was an evil nutter, whereas this is "the nice sort of genocide", where a friendly policeman comes along, shoots a guy because he looked like he might have been holding a gun, then guns down all his family, friends, and then - aw, hell with it - just nukes the bastard's whole country into oblivion to be on the safe side. And that's OK because it's just capital punishment on a global scale.

Forgive me if I remain unconvinced.

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So people have the choice either to get out of that nation and change their identity, or to be destroyed.

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Originally posted by sanityman:
Of course, the proportion of civilians dead as a percentage of total war dead has been rising for every major conflict since about WW1, so nothing new there - as you say, we explictly targeted civilians in WW2.

However, what I thought we were talking about was morality, and just stating historical precedent as justification doesn't work. Destruction of opposing tribes may have been understandable or even standard practice, but that doesn't mean it's a moral way to behave any more than I think there's an equivalence between Jesus Christ and Genghis Khan.

The question was: is genocide ever justified, not whether it was commonplace. My point was that individual responsibility is different in kind than corporate responsibility, especially if those individuals have no say in the culpable actions in question. That makes wholesale "capital punishment" immoral.

- Chris.

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Originally posted by Sarah G:
Genocide is a very emotive word that almost seems to demand the reaction, “Of course it's wrong!”. I'm not so sure it's as simple as that. Is there a word equivalent to “killing” that can be used of tribes?

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If I reasonably believe my life is in immediate danger and kill someone as a result, it isn't generally taken as wrong, because it is viewed as self-defence. It's called “killing”, rather than “murder”. I am arguing that Israel's action was the national equivalent of killing, rather than murder.

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In total war, effective war is only waged by including the individuals that make up the civilian power base as one of your military targets. Unless you are fighting very asymmetric warfare, you have no moral choice to make. You must attack the civilian power base, or they will generate military means for the enemy nation.

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(Non-combatant genocide is a requirement of the nuclear deterrent. No nation possessing the bomb has yet declared the possibility of its use immoral. We are in effect as a nation saying genocide could be acceptable.)

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(And again, I forget it is a story)

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God made him who had no sin [i.e. Jesus] to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV

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Originally posted by Leaf:
But Custard, isn't a key part of your idea the voluntary nature of Christ's sacrifice? That he took this upon himself willingly? Surely having the ability to choose, to be a moral agent, is crucial. Is that also true of the Amalekite children and infants? Did they have an option?

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• v1-3 Samuel tells Saul to attack
• v4 Saul musters the men. 200,000 of them (though there are difficulties with Hebrew numbers in the OT). That probably takes quite a long time, and the Amalekites would have heard about it. Standing armies, of course, hadn't been invented.
• v5 Saul goes up to the Amalekite city
• v6 Saul tells all the Kenites to leave the city, and lets them out. The Kenites seem to be living in the same city as the Amalekites.
• v7 onwards Saul attacks the Amalekites.

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Originally posted by Custard.:
So yes, I think the women and children had a choice. They could run away.

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So yes, I think the women and children had a choice. They could die slowly rather than quickly.

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Originally posted by Sarah G:
This was a period when wars worked very differently to nowadays. If you were locked into a war with another tribe, and you got the chance, you wiped them out. They will most certainly do the same to you if they got the chance. Putting your enemies in a position where they can't hurt you again was a prerequisite for survival, rather than a moral choice.

[...]

Now in BC tribal warfare, it was total war. If you left your enemy with the capacity to build the means to wage war, they were going to do so in your direction at some point in the future.

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From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

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Originally posted by Eliab:
So even if the giving of the command can be justified, I don't see that obedience to it ever could. It would always be better to say "Lord, I do not know whether this word is from you, but I do know that you would have me do right, and that to kill the innocent is not right. Therefore I will not believe of you what seems to be evil. There is nothing that could make me certain that the command is yours, and if I am not certain, then I must disobey. If I am wrong, forgive me".

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I think this is the crux of the issue. A God that uses existing human wickedness to further His own ends is very different from an "ends justify the means" God. If this wasn't in the Bible, but instead in some other contemporary history, would anyone even try to justify it?

- Chris.
 

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Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :
 

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Originally posted by sanityman:

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Originally posted by Eliab:
So even if the giving of the command can be justified, I don't see that obedience to it ever could. It would always be better to say "Lord, I do not know whether this word is from you, but I do know that you would have me do right, and that to kill the innocent is not right. Therefore I will not believe of you what seems to be evil. There is nothing that could make me certain that the command is yours, and if I am not certain, then I must disobey. If I am wrong, forgive me".

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I think this is the crux of the issue. A God that uses existing human wickedness to further His own ends is very different from an "ends justify the means" God. If this wasn't in the Bible, but instead in some other contemporary history, would anyone even try to justify it?

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

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Originally posted by sanityman:

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Originally posted by Eliab:
So even if the giving of the command can be justified, I don't see that obedience to it ever could. It would always be better to say "Lord, I do not know whether this word is from you, but I do know that you would have me do right, and that to kill the innocent is not right. Therefore I will not believe of you what seems to be evil. There is nothing that could make me certain that the command is yours, and if I am not certain, then I must disobey. If I am wrong, forgive me".

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I think this is the crux of the issue. A God that uses existing human wickedness to further His own ends is very different from an "ends justify the means" God. If this wasn't in the Bible, but instead in some other contemporary history, would anyone even try to justify it?

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I don't think this stands up logically or morally. If it is true that it is not right to kill the innocent, then it is equally true that it is not right to issue the order to kill the innocent. God can't have a get out of gaol free card because he's God.

Put in entirely human terms we prosecute the person who commissions a murder as well as the one who pulls the trigger. The godfather can't get off by protesting he was only using "existing human wickedness" because the gunman had form.

There was a reference to the Nuremberg Defence earlier on, but this would be like not only rejecting the Nuremberg Defence itself but lauding those who gave the orders.

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I think I explained myself rather badly .

I wasn't suggesting that God condoned human wickedness - merely that he wasn't thwarted by it, but, once it had happened in opposition to his wishes, he would use it to further his purposes that good might come out of evil. I think there's a difference between this God, and a God who commands the evil deeds in the first place.

The crucial thing I was referring to was Eliab's contention that it would not be right to accept such orders (we're back to Nuremberg again!). Which is the bit that matters for us, really.

- Chris.
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
I don't think this stands up logically or morally. If it is true that it is not right to kill the innocent, then it is equally true that it is not right to issue the order to kill the innocent. God can't have a get out of gaol free card because he's God.

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Isn't God saying "do as I say, not do as I do"? And why, therefore, should anybody respect him?

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Originally posted by Eliab:
But, don't we in fact accept that God has, in general, a right to cause death - death of individuals and death of nations? Everyone dies. God, being omnipotent, is involved in each death. He, at least, consents to it.

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Originally posted by the famous rachel on 2009-08-03:
I just can't understand why these verses don't worry people. I've had a quick look at the results of the poll so far, and apparently about a third of those who have voted are not in any way worried by this verse. Why not, guys?

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
So where does this "fragment" fit in with the symbolic meaning of God being a God of love, exactly? I think it fits in better with the 3D shark. Chomp!

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Yes, I see what you mean, but not surprisingly, that's not quite what I had in mind!

I think God's primary goal for each of us is to draw us as near to him as we allow him. What creates the obstacles to that goal is all our tendencies to be selfish and materialistic. Being one of Israel's more pernicious enemies, I see the Amalekites as representing the most selfish part of each of us, and I see God's command to destroy them completely as representing his desire to destroy those worst tendencies in us. He can't destroy them directly because we have to freely choose to do it in cooperation with him. However, we generally don't cooperate completely because we like to keep our core selfishness (King Agag) and all the little bits that seem innocuous to us (the best of the sheep, etc.), thinking that surely God can't expect us to completely stop being selfish!

So the literal story has to do with individuals and divinely commanded genocide, but I see the symbolic sense as having to do with me as a single individual at war, by God's command, with my own hellish inclinations. The purpose of his command is to draw me near so he can give me joy.

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Originally posted by sanityman:
In an autostereogram, the background image is irrelevant, and can be just repeating noise. I'm sure you weren't trying to say that the Bible is a load of repetitive nonsense! ;D

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1. It shows how the emergent image is independent of the "literal" picture fragments and how each series of fragments contributes in a unique way to the emergent image.
2. It shows how the "literal" fragments are still visible even while you are observing the emergent image.
3. It's a way to show that if clever people can do this kind of thing with pictures, then surely God can easily do something analogous with Bible stories.
4. It shows how seeing the emergent image and understanding how it all works explains the otherwise odd anomalies in the "literal" fragments. Also, it's a happy coincidence that the autostereogram uses repetition in a way that is very much analogous (in my view) to the way the Bible uses apparently unnecessary repetition.

1. The symbolic meaning is not all-or-nothing like the emergent image in the autostereogram - it is always imprecise, although there is no inherent limit to how far we can progress in seeing it.
2. The symbolic meaning is highly subjective: What I do see in it is an image of God as I already know him. This subjectivity means that I can't take the symbolic message as authoritative or use it to coerce or even persuade anyone else. If they see the same image, that gives us something to discuss, but if not, I can't point to any particular part to try to prove that I'm right.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
I happen to think that his purpose was to get the people of the time to accept the stories as his holy Word, to preserve them for future generations, and to obey the rules he included in them.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:

1. It shows how the emergent image is independent of the "literal" picture fragments and how each series of fragments contributes in a unique way to the emergent image.

Note that there limits to this analogy:

1. The symbolic meaning is highly subjective: What I do see in it is an image of God as I already know him. This subjectivity means that I can't take the symbolic message as authoritative or use it to coerce or even persuade anyone else. If they see the same image, that gives us something to discuss, but if not, I can't point to any particular part to try to prove that I'm right.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
I think you've just killed the analogy right there.

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Oh dear! And here I was trying to eliminate all the killing!

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This seems to be just how dispensationalists read the book of Revelation - as if a secret message is encoded in all the noise of John's imagination on speed ... or magic mushrooms.

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Either way there is too great a dissonance between what the original readers saw in the text and what we are supposed to see.

I don't expect total congruence between readers then as now but surely there has to be some kind of continuity?

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
I'm puzzled by your choice of original readers as the reference point instead of the author. What the original readers of Old Testament prophecies saw had very little consonance with what Christians see in them.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
IngoB's post in "God told me to do it" a few weeks ago, where he says that Christians "have the final and definite revelation through Christ."

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
Since I believe that the Second Coming has already taken place and involved a new divine revelation, it would make sense that I see no particular requirement for continuity with earlier readers of the Old and New Testaments.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
That is very similar to the JWs and a common example of the sociological phenomenum known as cognitive dissonance.

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An invisible, subjective return just doesn't cut it for me.

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That is quite a common idea. From places like Matthew 5: 17 and Luke 24: 27, 44. Jesus is the fulfilment of all scripture - it is all about him.

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I have yet many things to tell you, but you are not able to bear now. But when that One comes, the Spirit of Truth, He will guide you into all Truth ...

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I have spoken these things to you in allegories. An hour comes when I will no longer speak to you in allegories, but I will reveal the Father plainly to you.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
You disappoint me. I know you're capable of discussing things from a broader perspective than that and I was hoping you would.

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I remember a friend of mine responding a bit like this when our Church History lecturer set us an essay on "What caused the Reformation?" He simply wanted to reply - "God did." Which would have led to a very brief essay.

To discuss some of the sociological and technological changes that led to the reformation does not necessarily call into question whether or not God's Spirit was behind it.

The same is true when discussing the return of Christ. I'm quite happy for all aspects of my faith to be looked at from all sorts of perspectives. Indeed by bringing in the sociological issues I'm deliberately try to encourage a 'wider perspective'.

I'm sorry if this offends you (that is not my intent) but such a defensive reaction is, of course, typical of cognitive dissonance!

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
Yes, I agree about Jesus fulfilling all scripture (we're talking about the OT, right?), but I don't see how that implies that there was to be no further revelation. When I read passages like John 16:12-13:

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I have yet many things to tell you, but you are not able to bear now. But when that One comes, the Spirit of Truth, He will guide you into all Truth ...

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and John 16:25:

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I have spoken these things to you in allegories. An hour comes when I will no longer speak to you in allegories, but I will reveal the Father plainly to you.

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I naturally see them as prophecies to be fulfilled in new revelation. I think I can see how you would consider them to be fulfilled already (i.e. without any new revelation), but are there scriptural indications that they have been fulfilled? Do you see no room in them for the possibility of fulfillment in new revelation? I'd be interested in a quick summary from you (or anyone) if you care to take the time.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Indeed by bringing in the sociological issues I'm deliberately try to encourage a 'wider perspective'.

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I'd be happy to hear about what leads you to your assertion of cognitive dissonance, I just don't feel particularly encouraged from the assertion all by itself.

I'd be more interested to hear what you have to say about continuity because I don't think I'm understanding the term the same way you mean it. My education in mainstream Christian theology and terminology is very limited to say the least, and I'm enjoying the chance to catch up some through the Ship. However, your point about continuity seems to be an important one to you and I don't think I understand it yet. For example, I am wondering if you see any difference between continuity with original readers and continuity with contemporary (or even future) readers. I'm also wondering how much it's an end goal vs. a starting point, or perhaps both simultaneously.

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Jesus fulfils all scripture. This does not necessarily discount further revelation (although cessationists would argue otherwise) but it does rule out further revelation that flatly contradicts previous revelation.

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... but if (and it is of course the big 'if') God commanded the genocide of a people in the past then the new revelation can only change how we view it as opposed to writing it off as a mistake.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
However, your point about continuity seems to be an important one to you and I don't think I understand it yet. For example, I am wondering if you see any difference between continuity with original readers and continuity with contemporary (or even future) readers. I'm also wondering how much it's an end goal vs. a starting point, or perhaps both simultaneously.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
This cessationist view is what is new to me and what I'm curious about. Anyone care to fill me in?

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
This leads us to the idea that divine truth in the lowest degree appears as it does in the OT, like commandments and rules with material rewards and punishments. In a higher degree, it appears more as moral law with spiritual rewards and punishments as it does in the NT. And in a yet higher degree, it appears more as spiritual law or pure theology with no rewards or punishments, just inherent consequences. (Note that I'm not saying the OT and NT present no theology or that the OT presents no moral law - we need morality and theology at every stage of our development.) Higher levels are better approximations, but each level is still only an approximation.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
So to me, the view I've been presenting is not a contradiction of previous revelation, it's a further fulfillment.

When we are very young children, we have to start with the idea of rewards (from our parents) for following the Ten Commandments and punishments if we don't. As we grow older, we can learn that it's more a matter of salvation or damnation whether we obey them or not. But ideally, we eventually learn that following them is just inherently good and to everyone's benefit and not following them is bad and causes us to hurt other people. We're not contradicting our earlier view so much as filling it in with a better and more complete understanding, so that each step builds on the previous one.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Okay, so please demonstrate how you do this with the text in question for this thread - 1 Samuel 15: 3. You appear to be saying that God did tell the Israelites to kill women and children but he changed his mind later. I've probably misunderstood you but I can't see how you are not just saying that subsequent revelation contradicts earlier revelation.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Think of it this way. The command is to destroy the enemy, completely. No if, ands, or buts.

Later revelation says the same thing, but leads you to re-examine who and what the true enemy is.

The two are perfectly consistent. It is also true that the first message is barbaric by the standards of the second. Leading us to understand that Israel did not have a clear picture.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
You appear to be saying that God did tell the Israelites to kill women and children but he changed his mind later.

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I think the disconnect might be that the story as divine revelation is (to us) not about historical accuracy or about accountability of historical individuals. It's about our current and on-going individual relationship with God.

To say that Israel did not understand the real enemy is not to excuse them or explain away their behavior. It's more that the reason why God gave them 1 Samuel 15 in its literal form as part of his divine revelation is that that was the closest they could come at that time to understanding who the enemy of God was. They needed it to be personified before they would accept it as a holy commandment.

I would put it this way (if you'll bear with me).

To give an approximate summary of the truth God wants us to learn (and live by) from 1 Samuel 15, I think the basic message is "You should stop being selfish."

A rational adult who asks "why" can understand how selfishness directly opposes the ability for God to have them participate in the purpose of creation, which is done by helping other people be happy and being able to receive happiness from God as a direct result.

An average thirteen year old who asks "why" is not likely to be persuaded to fight selfishness with much enthusiasm by such a rational discussion. They are more likely to respond to the idea that in the long run they will be miserable if they don't and happier if they do. Or perhaps that they will end up in hell if they don't or heaven if they do (at least in our theology).

I think this shows up in the New Testament in a story like Mark 10:17-31 where Jesus is asked "what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" and his answer includes "Go, sell what things you have." Now I happen to think that this incident probably did actually happen much the way it is described, but the historical accuracy is irrelevant to seeing it as divine a message about the need to give up self for the sake of eternal life. I think the reason it takes the literal form it does is because the people of Jesus' time were just ready to see that the real obstacle to a relationship with God is a self-centered life, although even that astonished the disciples (verses 24 and 26). It seems to me that they were still stuck in the idea that God would enrich you if you followed all the rules and impoverish you if you didn't.

An average four year old who asks "why" is only likely to respond to the idea that playtime can continue if no more toys are taken from other children, but that otherwise it will end. Or perhaps they would respond to the idea of resisting the devil as a personification of their selfishness.

I think this shows up in the Old Testament in a story like 1 Samuel 15, where God is described as commanding the extermination of the Amalekites. I think this story probably has a lot of elements that are based on historically accurate elements (e.g. the main characters), but its role as the literal form of divine revelation is not tied in any way to its historical accuracy. Whether or not it's historically accurate, we can still see in it a message about the need to give up self, as long as we can see the Amalekites as a personification of selfishness. The point is that God included the story in his divine revelation, not that God actually commanded the killing. The story needed to be something that Israel would respond to at the time it was written, but it didn't need to be completely accurate historically in every detail.

So the same truth appears in different forms as it is adapted to the ability of the people who need to hear it. Yet the same, higher approximation of truth can be seen in a symbolic way, even in those different literal forms. I don't imagine it's the kind of continuity you look for, but it is a way to see it all as consistent and free of contradictions as divine revelation.

I look forward to your response.

BTW, thank you for your explanations of continuity and cessationism.
 

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Posted by wehyatt (# 14250) on :
 
It's a bit ironic considering the thread and board this is on, but after thinking so much about 1 Samuel 15, it kind of getting to be one of my favorite OT stories.
 

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Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
To say that Israel did not understand the real enemy is not to excuse them or explain away their behavior. It's more that the reason why God gave them 1 Samuel 15 in its literal form as part of his divine revelation is that that was the closest they could come at that time to understanding who the enemy of God was. They needed it to be personified before they would accept it as a holy commandment.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
How can genocide ever be justified as part of a long-term teaching plan?

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
You seem to be implying that the original readers would have been encouraged to kill more than they otherwise would after reading something like 1 Samuel 15.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
However, I don't think they needed any encouragement at all, given how they seemed to be quite ready to kill each other, let alone a hated enemy.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
I think if God had tried to teach them about having compassion for the Amalekites and forgiving them, they would have rejected God completely instead of accepting such preposterous ideas.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
I also think God accepts from each of us a sincere effort to resist and reject our own individual substitutes for true evil every step of our spiritual journey, because we can no more identify true evil in a perfect way than the people of the Old Testament could.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
If genocide is always evil then your argument doesn't stand.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Sure it does.

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Hey, is wehyatt your sockpuppet or something Freddy? Or is this tag-team wrestling?

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Morality tales from every culture commonly include punishments that go beyond real-life morality. Storybook and cinematic villains generally die in nasty ways, and readers and viewers seldom complain.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Personally, I resolve this dilemma by believing that although these things actually happened more or less the way that they are reported in the Bible, God Himself did not actually order these killings. He merely permitted Israel to believe that He had and permitted it to be described that way in the biblical account. He did this because this was in accord with the cultural expectations of the time, and because the universally understood theme of the triumph of good over evil could be served in that way.

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We always end up here Freddy - I'm glad that God permitted you to believe that about Israel ... if you want I'll tell you what he really thinks though!
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
I'm glad that God permitted you to believe that about Israel ... if you want I'll tell you what he really thinks though!

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Isn't that just the issue? We are three-millennia removed from whatever happened in these stories. You have no way to know what God really thinks or what really happened.

To me the priority is that there is a rational explanation and a good, morally consistent God.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Consistent with what? Your definition of morality?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Why bother with scripture at all then? We call these stories 'sacred writings' because we believe that in some sense they are special revelation.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
How do you see 1 Samuel 15 as revelation in anyway different to Shakespeare or The Beano?

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Originally posted by Freddy:
But these words need to be understood rightly, and the reader needs to draw a message from them that is consistent with the rest of Scripture. The idea that God could actually order genocide is not consistent with what Jesus teaches, even though it is quite consistent with things Jesus says in some of His parables.

The overall message is that good triumphs over evil. The question for the reader is both "Which side are you on?" and "You need to trust the Lord in order to overcome evil in your own life."

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Unless you are saying that Jesus's parables don't constitute part of Jesus's teaching, which would be quite unusual amongst Christians, you are contradicting yourself in one sentence.

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And you have a problem with that?

I am referring to parables such as the following, where the fictional protagonists react aggressively and violently against those who oppose them:

The parable of the Great Supper:

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Matthew 22:6 And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. 7 But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. 8

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Matthew 22:12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and[a] cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

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Matthew 21:40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?”
41 They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, ...44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

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Matthew 18:34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The point is that these little stories, appearing mostly in Matthew, don't seem to reflect a completely loving and gentle mindset.

So is Jesus contradicting His "love your enemies" teachings? That's not the way I read it, but what do I know?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
I'm not saying that we read the gospels entirely in the light of these incidents either, just that there is no secret code planted in the gospels that tells us which bits to accept and which to reject the way you seem to be reading them.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
... there is no secret code planted in the gospels that tells us which bits to accept and which to reject the way you seem to be reading them.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Throughout the course of Christian and Jewish history few have even commented on these things until relatively recently.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
If I believe that they were written by God through human agents, that will lead me to look for a very different kind of resolution than if I don't see God as the real author.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
The way you make a categorical assertion that there is no symbolic meaning of the kind we see leads me to guess that you don't see God as the real author, at least not in the same way we do. Is this the case? From your posts, you seem like someone who has given this a lot of careful thought: how do you see the authorship of these passages? How do you approach an apparent inconsistency like Jesus' teaching about loving our enemies and his parables about violent treatment of them?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
I agree that there is a trajectory throughout the bible (some form of progressive revelation) but it cannot be stored in some secret code - it must be equally accessible to every generation who reads it.

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Psal, 18:25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
26 With the pure You will show Yourself pure;
And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.
27 For You will save the humble people,
But will bring down haughty looks.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Why impose that requirement? The Bible is written in a way that is more accessible to some than others, and to some generations than others. The wise see wisdom in it, the foolish see only foolishness.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
An intelligent person who becomes very familiar with the Bible as a whole will intuitively recognize most of it without even realizing it.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
... this means that God does not encode things in the bible.

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Your post seemed reasonable when I read it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really don't understand. If you have the patience to respond to some more questions, I'm hoping you can explain (and I mean that sincerely). I know this discussion has dragged on to the point where hardly anyone cares to read it, but I think we pretty much have this board to ourselves now and I think the subject is important enough to warrant pursuing it further (if you care to).

You say (or imply) that you believe that scripture is inspired by God. I don't understand what this would mean if there is nothing more to the text than what author was aware of. I imagine you have done plenty of preaching - haven't you had people draw valid insights from your sermons that you did not have in mind when you wrote them? If a brilliant playwright wrote an inspired, serious drama, couldn't the audience draw insights from it that go well beyond what the playwright was consciously thinking of while writing it? Isn't that why we call such a play inspired?

I understand that the biblical text must have made sense its contemporary readers (in general), but if it was inspired by God, then why is it impossible that the texts hold more of a message than the authors were aware of?

Perhaps we mean something very different by God's inspiration. Do you see scripture as being in a unique category, above and beyond works of "normal" human inspiration? If not, then I think that would explain our differences. But if so (and your point about revelation not contradicting itself makes me think we mean something at least somewhat similar), then what does God's inspiration mean if it doesn't mean there's something more to the text beyond what the author consciously put into it?

As for your objection about the message requiring intelligence, wouldn't divinely inspired text contain enough for everyone to keep learning from, no matter how intelligent they are and no matter how much they study it? There are already parts of the Bible that are nearly impossible for readers to make any sense of unless they are very intelligent, capable, and able to devote a lot of effort to the task. Or unless they depend on the efforts of such scholars. This is especially true of things like the visions of Daniel and other prophecies. Wouldn't such texts contain more than the author was aware of? Some texts are easy enough for just about everyone to understand, such as "You shall not murder." But doesn't even that reveal more to the intelligent scholar than to the average reader or to the simple-minded? How about Isaiah? Doesn't that take more intelligence to understand? God may be impartial, but that does not mean the Bible is uniformly meaningful to everyone.

You may be referring to the non-prophetical parts of scripture, but as you point out, Jesus is the fulfillment of all scripture. Doesn't that make all of the Old Testament a prophecy of a sort, one that was not completely understood by its authors? Luke 24:27 says "And beginning from Moses, and from all the prophets, He explained to them the things about Himself in all the Scriptures." Was he not explaining things that the original authors did not have in mind? Or are you saying that there is nothing beyond the author's original thoughts, except for the final fulfillment in Jesus (which I can understand since Jesus brought new revelation)?

I can see why you would believe that a story like 1 Samuel 15 does not contain more than meets the eye. But I can't see why you believe that it's impossible for it to do so. Could the author not have had in mind a literal illustration of God's intolerance of evil, and with God's inspiration then worded it in such a way that it also contains deeper illustrations of the same principle? Not by what you refer to as a "secret code," but by the imagery of the literal story itself?

Also, since you object so strenuously to the apparent contradiction you see between the text of God's command to destroy the Amalekites in verse 3 and the symbolic meaning that I'm suggesting can be also be seen, I'd be interested to know how you reconcile the text with other passages about how merciful and loving God is, and with the New Testament message about loving your enemies.

I hesitate to hit that "Add reply" button, but I am very interested in understanding your views, and I know I don't quite get it yet.

[ 26. September 2009, 05:23: Message edited by: wehyatt ]
 

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Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
Your post seemed reasonable when I read it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really don't understand.

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That's because you haven't got the code.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
You say (or imply) that you believe that scripture is inspired by God. I don't understand what this would mean if there is nothing more to the text than what author was aware of.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
I imagine you have done plenty of preaching - haven't you had people draw valid insights from your sermons that you did not have in mind when you wrote them?

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
I understand that the biblical text must have made sense its contemporary readers (in general), but if it was inspired by God, then why is it impossible that the texts hold more of a message than the authors were aware of?

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
As for your objection about the message requiring intelligence, wouldn't divinely inspired text contain enough for everyone to keep learning from, no matter how intelligent they are and no matter how much they study it? There are already parts of the Bible that are nearly impossible for readers to make any sense of unless they are very intelligent, capable, and able to devote a lot of effort to the task. Or unless they depend on the efforts of such scholars.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
Could the author not have had in mind a literal illustration of God's intolerance of evil, and with God's inspiration then worded it in such a way that it also contains deeper illustrations of the same principle? Not by what you refer to as a "secret code," but by the imagery of the literal story itself?

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
Also, since you object so strenuously to the apparent contradiction you see between the text of God's command to destroy the Amalekites in verse 3 and the symbolic meaning that I'm suggesting can be also be seen, I'd be interested to know how you reconcile the text with other passages about how merciful and loving God is, and with the New Testament message about loving your enemies.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Why impose that requirement? The Bible is written in a way that is more accessible to some than others, and to some generations than others. The wise see wisdom in it, the foolish see only foolishness.

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Yes, but that discrimination is based only on an attitude of heart. some form of 'secret code' means that intelligence is necessary to crack the code.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
An intelligent person who becomes very familiar with the Bible as a whole will intuitively recognize most of it without even realizing it.

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But God is impartial. Personally I don't see any difference in your sentence above to saying, "Any white person who becomes familiar with the bible ..."

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Luke 10:21 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.

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John 9:41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.

Matthew 23:24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

Matthew 16:3 Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
If you get it you will see that God is a God of love, that He is infinitely fair and merciful, and that descriptions of any apparent lack of mercy in the Bible cannot be taken at face value.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Where does Jesus say (or indeed anywhere in scripture) that the statement you make about God relativises all other statements?

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1 John 4:8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

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Hosea 6:6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

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Matthew 12:7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.

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Psalm 18:25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
26 With the pure You will show Yourself pure;
And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The way that you understand God does indeed relativise all statements. Everything hinges on Him.

John points this out when he says:

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1 John 4:8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

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That is, if you don't understand that God is love, you miss the point of Scriptural statements such as I Samuel 15:3. And if you don't love you won't understand that God is love, or what that even means.

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This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Your view of God really depends on you.

The many statements that Scripture makes cannot be reconciled when taken at face value. So either you nullify them by denying their source in God, or you interpret them according to assumptions you make about the meaning of Scripture.

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So there is no such thing as revelation. You are saying that scripture is just a mirror where we see God's image as our reflection?
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
So already you have 'God is light' to put alongside 'God is love'. There is no one simple factor that defines everything else in scripture. Or at least, as you say, God is that one thing, but there is no one defining characteristic for God.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Your view of God really depends on you.

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So there is no such thing as revelation. You are saying that scripture is just a mirror where we see God's image as our reflection?

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I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘ Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’
16 But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; 17 for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
A more complete concept involves understanding that God does not order genocide even though His Divine Word says that He did.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Who says a more complete concept involves this? You obviously don't get it from scripture because you've failed to demonstrate why it must be so from scripture.

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Psalm 18:25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
26 With the pure You will show Yourself pure;
And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
You clearly have objective criteria that you appeal to above scripture - where do they come from?

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Yes I have demonstrated why it must be so from Scripture. It is clearly implied by the quote from Psalm 18:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
The only connection between the deciphered message and the original message is the letters used. However, I am arguing that (for it to be divine revelation with genuine human authorship) there must also be a connection with meaning too.

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Originally posted by wehyatt:
This happens, for instance, when a parent tries to express to their young child how much they love them and the child responds with something like "you mean you love me more than ice cream?"

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
you cannot get from "God says go and kill all those people" to "God does not say go and kill all those people" using this as an analogy. This is a means justifies the end argument. If genocide is wrong (objectively) then I can't see how God would ever command it.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Unless of course your view is that God didn't really say that to them, they only thought he did. But then you have the same problem as Freddy - namely that you could not be certain that the writers heard correctly when they wrote that God is love.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Of course we are all influenced by our backgrounds and our traditions. But if the reason you think God is not genocidal is just because Swedenborg said so then admit to that.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Did He command the extermination of the Amalekites? He couldn't have.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
You don't have to be a Swedenborgian to think that God is love.

The premise of this thread is that it is repugnant to think that God ordered Israel to kill "both man and woman, child and infant." Don't you think that this is a pretty common Christian view?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Sorry guys, I think we've come to the end of the road with this one. We're just going round in circles and I keep recognising the scenery.

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Don't say that. I think we're making great progress.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Did He command the extermination of the Amalekites? He couldn't have.

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For the umpteenth time you are just asserting that. He couldn't have because it doesn't fit with the bits of scripture you like. What criteria do you have for choosing your bits? ... you don't say.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
None of this changes one iota the fact that you still haven't come up with a biblical reason why you accept some parts of the bible and not others. How do you know that the 'God is love' passages are not the ones that are wrong?

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Originally posted by Freddy:
I know that the "God is love" passages are not the ones that are wrong because they are consistent with the nature of God as presented in many many passages.

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Okay, I give up.

If you can't see that you are using a circular argument then there is no point proceeding.
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
If you can't see that you are using a circular argument then there is no point proceeding.

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I don't think that it is all that circular.

I'm just interpreting minority passages, or anomalous passages, in the light of majority passages.

This is not the same as dismissing or discounting them.

I am not saying that the writer of I Samuel was not inspired by God or that what he writes is simply wrong. Instead I am saying that these passages can be taken in a number of different ways, and it is possible to take them in ways that are consistent with the majority.

So while it is certainly more literally accurate to take I Samuel 15:3 as a description of an order to commit genocide, it is also possible to take it as a reasonable command to completely destroy the hated enemy. Which is surely the way the writer viewed it - as have most readers since that time.

And we can just as surely know that the writer had a skewed view of reality. But that doesn't matter for us, because the message for us is mostly that good overcomes evil, as the Bible testifies on almost every page.

The point is that every passage in the Bible must be reconciled with every other, that this is possible without dismissing any passages, and the message is always that God is good, that love is the answer, that good triumphs over evil, and that in the end peace will reign.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Freddy:

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So while it is certainly more literally accurate to take I Samuel 15:3 as a description of an order to commit genocide, it is also possible to take it as a reasonable command to completely destroy the hated enemy.

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Which is still genocide with a more positive spin.

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