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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: This is the thread where we talk about Old Testament genocide.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The problem I have with writing off disquiet at the concept of genocide as "21st Century Values" is the implication that we should abandon them, as God doesn't share them - in other words, accept that genocide is sometimes right.
That I cannot do. I'm back to Winston in the chair again. How can I see five fingers when there are clearly four?
Someone explain what the problem is with the concept of God changing his mind....
C
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arse
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Someone explain what the problem is with the concept of God changing his mind....
The Bible says He does not change.
quote:
For I am the LORD, I do not change. Malachi 3.6
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Someone explain what the problem is with the concept of God changing his mind....
The Bible says He does not change.
quote:
For I am the LORD, I do not change. Malachi 3.6
That isn't the same as changing your mind. Or is it?
C
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arse
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Sean D
Cheery barman
# 2271
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
That isn't the same as changing your mind. Or is it?
I agree. Either God is a fibber or he changes his mind viz-a-viz the whole destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah episode.
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postpostevangelical
http://www.stmellitus.org/
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sean D:
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
That isn't the same as changing your mind. Or is it?
I agree. Either God is a fibber or he changes his mind viz-a-viz the whole destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah episode.
[tamgent]
Er...God didn't change his mind about Sodom and Gomorrah did he? In that he said he would destroy them....and did destroy them. Or have I got that wrong?
[/tangent]
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
Even though there are instances where God is presented in the Old Testament as if He changes His mind, the overall teachng is that He never does these things:
quote:
Numbers 23.19 "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"
I Samuel 15.29 “The Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent."
While this is obviously inconsistent, it is no more inconsistent than a God of love who orders genocide.
The Bible is full of these kinds of inconsistencies.
The only way to reconcile them, that makes sense to me, is not to say that God changes, or that He changes His mind, but that His nature is revealed progressively to us in the Bible. Some aspects presented are according to the appearance, while others are more in accord with the way things really are.
God Himself never changes:
quote:
Psalm 102. Your years are throughout all generations. 25 Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. 26 They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. 27 But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
God does not change, but His nature is revealed in bits and pieces throughout the Bible, and the picture is not always a clear one. The image presented in the prophets, however, is generally clearer than the one presented in the earlier books. And in the New Testament it is clearer and more consistent still.
[ 19. July 2004, 14:58: Message edited by: Freddy ]
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The image presented in the prophets, however, is generally clearer than the one presented in the earlier books. And in the New Testament it is clearer and more consistent still.
Which is strange, because God "changes his mind" in Jonah (prophet) whereas the quotes you have about him not changing his mind are from the law and the history books. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
To my mind, context is the key here. God presents his actions in different ways in different places to make a different point. IMO, there is an underlying truth about God's foresight that ties them together.
I'd go into it, but someone will accuse me of "squaring the circle" or some equally complimentary description if I do, and I think a record of my opinions on the whole thing is buried somewhere downstairs.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Well...
Off the top of my head... Didn't God have a discussion/haggle with Abraham about how many people would be an acceptable number of good people that would prevent sodom's destruction?
Didn't God have compassion on Ninevah because they changed their ways?
Did not Jacob wrestle with God (what was that about again?)?
Doesn't God say somewhere 'Come let us reason together'? (sorry I don't do memory verses)
Doesn't God get angry with Job for asking stupid unanswerable questions, then look down and see a frightened lonely little man... then feel sorry for him?
After the golden calf incident, does not God say
'right I'm going to destroy the whole lot of you now' and does he not only get talked out of it by Moses?
Does not God keep repeatedly ask Israel and Judah to return to him, to come back, to be good. If he knows they wouldn't why does he bother?
Let us consider the alternative. If we do not believe that God changes his mind, then why do we bother praying for change? Is God heartless?
I think there is plenty of evidence of the Almighty changing his mind. Again I say, maybe the eye-for-an-eye and the destruction-of-enemies thing looked like a good idea at the time. Then God realised the long term effects and changed his mind.
C
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arse
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Which is strange, because God "changes his mind" in Jonah (prophet) whereas the quotes you have about him not changing his mind are from the law and the history books.
That's why I said, "generally." Yes, context is the key. Still, it is an inconsistent picture - and that is the topic of this thread.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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leonato
Shipmate
# 5124
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Someone explain what the problem is with the concept of God changing his mind....
C
As I said earlier the problem with God changing is that this requires a change in time, and so a temporal God, who cannot be an omnipotent God.
This, though, refers to changes in God's nature and his law, rather than to God "changing his mind". Thus it does not make sense, to me, that God could command genocide one time, and decry it later as this requires God to change his nature.
I find the idea of God changing his mind disturbing as it seems to anthropomorphise God; he becomes too human and indecisive and, again less than omnipotent and omnicognisant. Is this more our human means of understanding God rather than the true God?
In reply to Cheesy's examples:
quote:
Didn't God have a discussion/haggle with Abraham about how many people would be an acceptable number of good people that would prevent sodom's destruction?
Yes, but there was no change of mind: God saved all the worthy and destroyed the unworthy just as he said.
quote:
Didn't God have compassion on Ninevah because they changed their ways?
Yes, but the Ninevites changed, not God.
quote:
After the golden calf incident, does not God say
'right I'm going to destroy the whole lot of you now' and does he not only get talked out of it by Moses?
Ditto, Moses got the people to change.
quote:
Let us consider the alternative. If we do not believe that God changes his mind, then why do we bother praying for change? Is God heartless?
Do you pray for God to change? I thought we normally prayed for God to help US change.
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leonato... Much Ado
Posts: 892 | From: Stage left | Registered: Oct 2003
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
I find the idea of God changing his mind disturbing as it seems to anthropomorphise God; he becomes too human and indecisive and, again less than omnipotent and omnicognisant. Is this more our human means of understanding God rather than the true God?
I think that this is exactly the point.
We anthropomorphise God - which is an inherently inacurate conception of Him.
However, if He was not anthropomorphised at all, we could have no conception at all of Him. So this is our dilemma. We of necessity have a picture of God that is not quite right, because a truly accurate picture is beyond our grasp.
What is so difficult about the idea that at some points in the Bible He is more anthropomorphised, and so less true to His actual nature, than at other points?
Also, I don't think this is necessarily just our human means of understanding Him at work. It is also that He presents Himself in ways that make sense to us in our limited understanding.
Such as that if we pray to Him He will change His mind and help us:
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
Do you pray for God to change? I thought we normally prayed for God to help US change.
That's right. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I think that an extension of this whole idea is the answer to Wood's question.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
...Do you pray for God to change? I thought we normally prayed for God to help US change.
I pray for change and that the change start with me or include me.
corpusdelicti, thanks for your post, but I respectfully disagree with most of it. In all of the examples, it is God who changes his mind, not the people.
We (- ie my experience inside evangelical churches) are constantly told how we need to 'get right' with God and how sin separates us from him.
Now, I know that is a sideissue, and for the record, I believe our sinful nature makes God sad. But the biblical narrative, it seems to me, makes it perfectly clear that the exact opposite is true. God meets the sinful in their sinfulness. Before they have changed.
Let us take the Sodom example. It is a strange story, I'll admit. But the fact is that initially God was going to destroy the whole place and everything in it. Then abraham says 'but God if there are some good people, then that isn't very fair is it?'. And so on.
Abraham clearly hadn't been regularly attending Sunday School. Every Good Christian Knows
that you don't argue with God.
Similarly with the other examples. God says 'I'm rit pissed orf and I'm going to blast you off t'face of t'planet' and the people and/or a representative say 'oww please don't God, you nice big person you. We'll be good, promise...' And God says 'Oh alright then, I'll give you another chance I suppose. Make sure you're good until teatime.'
Freddy, what I think you are saying is that we create a God in our own image. We make him take on all our foibles and accept all the things we accept. Which is undoubtably true.
But in this case, we are left with several unpalatable options. First, God destroys whole tribes of people - leading to the horrific idea that he might ask us to do it too. Second, the bible is an inaccurate vessel for communication between us and God (note, no I don't mean inerrant and am not trying to exhume the dead horse). Personally, my problem with this idea is deciding that some of the bible cannot be trusted so we can ignore it. Which reinforces our own perception of the deity. The only third option that makes any sense is that God has changed his mind.
God can give and take away, God can exert exactly the correct restorative justice for crime, God can preserve his elect. But God cannot feel what it is like to be a man and to be on the wrong end of that kind of justice. God - somehow, bizarrely - needs to learn the lesson that humanity given the chance will bugger things up. He won't just go to the line of what is just, he will step over it.
So God says, ok guys forget that. Here's another idea..
C
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arse
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
But in this case, we are left with several unpalatable options. First, God destroys whole tribes of people - leading to the horrific idea that he might ask us to do it too. Second, the bible is an inaccurate vessel for communication between us and God (note, no I don't mean inerrant and am not trying to exhume the dead horse). Personally, my problem with this idea is deciding that some of the bible cannot be trusted so we can ignore it. Which reinforces our own perception of the deity. The only third option that makes any sense is that God has changed his mind.
OK. I'm with you here. It's right to stay distant from reinforcing our own perception of the deity.
I don't say that parts of the Bible can't be trusted and can be ignored. Nor do I say that the Bible is an inaccurate vessel. I believe that the Bible is God talking, the inspired Word of God. My church, however, is all about interpreting biblical metaphors, so this works well for me.
So I understand that the third option is one that makes sense. I just find it doesn't make sense for me.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
As I said earlier the problem with God changing is that this requires a change in time, and so a temporal God, who cannot be an omnipotent God.
Eer... I think you've just demolished the Incarnation there, Corpus.
As for the relevance of the 'Middle Eastern hyperbole' thing: 'it didn't happen' or 'it did but God didn't command it' are not the only alternatives. What I was thinking towards with my post was more on the lines of 'Yes, the Israelites on entering Canaan killed a lot of folks, but it wasn't half as many as the writer/compiler of Joshua said.' This enables us to accommodate Judges, and the fact that at least one of the peoples they failed to wipe out, are still around today.
What we're left with then, is
a) a people who killed when invading a territory. Well, people we know rather well still do that today (including killing civilians, women and children), and claim that they're on a mission from God. If we're going to criticise OT killings (which I personally would), let's be consistent and question the invasion of Iraq too (not to mention what the CIA did in Congo, Chile, Nicaragua etc over the past 40 years...).
b) a writer/s who wished that they killed more, and put that wish in the mouth of God. I have no problem in saying that writer had a very partial view of God. Some aspects of that view were right: eg thinking that the Jewish people had a better idea of God, and generally a better morality, than their surrounding pagan nations. Some aspects were not so right: eg thinking that the best way to preserve their unique culture and idea of God, was to wipe out the surrounding nations.
I don't have a problem with this because I worship Jesus - I don't worship the Bible.
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Esmeralda:
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
As I said earlier the problem with God changing is that this requires a change in time, and so a temporal God, who cannot be an omnipotent God.
Eer... I think you've just demolished the Incarnation there, Corpus.
I don't think the Incarnation means that God changed.
The change was only as to how He presented Himself to us. We are the temporal ones, not Him.
So He acts in time with regard to us, but He is not a temporal God.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Esmeralda:
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
As I said earlier the problem with God changing is that this requires a change in time, and so a temporal God, who cannot be an omnipotent God.
Eer... I think you've just demolished the Incarnation there, Corpus.
I don't think the Incarnation means that God changed.
The change was only as to how He presented Himself to us. We are the temporal ones, not Him.
So He acts in time with regard to us, but He is not a temporal God.
This is, of course, a very good point. Maybe the God-outside-of-time option is one invented by the startrek generation Freddy....
C
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arse
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
A good question to ask is what makes us question the morality of the OT genocides in the first place. The "obvious" answer is that it is our modern Western values--but what shaped our Western values in the first place? Where did we even get the idea that God is Love? Christianity, of course. To a large extent, then, a reason we question the morality of one part of the Bible is because we affirm the morality of other parts. And the center of the latter morality is a Jesus who, as it has been pointed out several times, quite freely went "against the text".
It is worth noting that Esmeralda's and Father Gregory's takes on the matter predate the 20th century. I suspect that Father Gregory's take probably precedes the Enlightenment that arguably birthed what we recognize as Western values, though I'd rather that he confirm or disconfirm that himself. The idea that one has to be a professional theologian or biblical scholar or a "liberal" to go against the text is wrong. Conservatives can and do this as well.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Maybe the God-outside-of-time option is one invented by the startrek generation Freddy....
Heh-heh. But no.
God has been seen as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent for a long time. It is an axiom of Christianity that we worship Him Who is and Who was and Who to come, the Almighty and Everlasting God.
These qualities demand an existence outside of time.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Abraham clearly hadn't been regularly attending Sunday School. Every Good Christian Knows
that you don't argue with God.
C
Every Good Christian who has had the Psalms ripped out of their Bible apparently. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Cheesy, where does this mangled neo-evangelical "theology" come from?
[ 19. July 2004, 21:55: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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leonato
Shipmate
# 5124
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy
Let us take the Sodom example. It is a strange story, I'll admit. But the fact is that initially God was going to destroy the whole place and everything in it. Then abraham says 'but God if there are some good people, then that isn't very fair is it?'. And so on.
Perhaps you need to reread Genesis 18 as I have just done. God does not say he will destroy everyone. Abraham asks him if he will destroy the righteous with the wicked, and God says no. God saves the only righteous people there and then destroys the wicked (and isn't that a rather different view of God from the genocide orderer a few books later - no saving the righteous there).
So no change of mind there then.
quote:
Originally posted by Esmerelda:
Eer... I think you've just demolished the Incarnation there, Corpus.
Er, In the beginning was the Word... I said God's nature did not change, not that he can't work in different ways at different times.
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leonato... Much Ado
Posts: 892 | From: Stage left | Registered: Oct 2003
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Abraham clearly hadn't been regularly attending Sunday School. Every Good Christian Knows
that you don't argue with God.
C
Every Good Christian who has had the Psalms ripped out of their Bible apparently.
Cheesy, where does this mangled neo-evangelical "theology" come from?
Ah-ha. Does that mean you agree with me, Lep
C
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arse
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
God saves the only righteous people there and then destroys the wicked (and isn't that a rather different view of God from the genocide orderer a few books later - no saving the righteous there).
No. Because, as you'll recall, that involved a grand total of 6 people IIRC, including one who is turned to a pillar of salt.
So not that different.
Cheesy - I don't agree that God changes his mind. But the nature of our relationship with him means we can (and must) question, argue, even rail at him sometimes. I cannot be doing with pious evangelical theology which uses the potter and clay analogy to mean we hide our struggles from God.
Anyway. Tangent.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Son of a Preacher Man
Shipmate
# 5460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by corpusdelicti:
Perhaps you need to reread Genesis 18 as I have just done. God does not say he will destroy everyone. Abraham asks him if he will destroy the righteous with the wicked, and God says no. God saves the only righteous people there and then destroys the wicked (and isn't that a rather different view of God from the genocide orderer a few books later - no saving the righteous there).
So no change of mind there then.
This is an interesting story. First God says he'll destroy the city, then Abraham gets him to say he won't destroy it (including all the wicked) if there are only 50 righteous people there. Then Abraham talks God down to 10 - he'll spare everybody if Abraham can find 10 righteous people. Of course, he can't. So maybe God never did change his mind - he knew there were not 10 righteous people there, and was just letting Abraham have his say so that he could think he could influence God?
Posts: 218 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Son of a Preacher Man:
So maybe God never did change his mind - he knew there were not 10 righteous people there, and was just letting Abraham have his say so that he could think he could influence God?
Or perhaps God was making a point about the universal fallen-ness of mankind, and in fact the only ones who escape are linked to the covenant - thereby showing faith in God's promises as the only way to escape his judgement.
This thread is miles away from where it started. And I am beginning to feel like it is an obsession for me. So, once and for all I am done with it. It's really helped me think though - so thanks all.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
Luigi,
A couple of points in reply a previous post of yours. I’ll respond to your post setting out your own views separately.
I said:
quote:
Joshua, read straight, has nationalistic value. Israel was constantly being lax and rebellious against the political-religious leadership of the time (there being no difference between politics and religion). It was a good message on both counts: if you obey God you will win battles; if you don’t, he will give you over to captivity.
To which you said:
quote:
I’m afraid I don’t buy this. This whole ‘if you’re a good guy you get rewarded and if you’re a bad guy you get punished’ doesn’t hold water. I’ll could just mention the holocaust or point to the number of faithful Christians who have not been protected by God throughout history.
But wasn’t that how they understood it? (I wasn’t suggesting that I understand it that way.) God gets fed up with Israel’s infidelity, whoops, they get given over to the Philistines for seven years because he’s changed his mind and he’s not going to protect them. It looks to me like interpretation after the event (as does the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) but it’s still a good message for the tribe. If they have no explanation of natural events or lost battles it is going to cause dissent and disarray.
You said:
quote:
I think putting words in God’s mouth *is* invention. This deception is deeply problematic because it is so misleading.
Is it? I am quite happy to accept that Joshua believed that God had given him the message but did he hear whole paragraphs? If I write, “God gave me wonderful Christian parents” that wouldn’t, I hope, sound too odd to our ears. It’s the truth and not a lie but I don’t believe God looked at the potential me and selected parents who would produce me.
I’ve been delving into this question of “God said to X” and the closest to an explanation I can find is that it was taken for granted. Neither the existence of God nor the fact that God speaks in perfect biblical Hebrew to individuals is ever questioned in the OT. Isn’t it possible that they were more sophisticated and less literal than we might give them credit for? Did they really think that God was boxed up in the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy of Holies any more than we think God exists only in churches or wafers? I very much doubt it myself but I am open to any contrary evidence.
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Weed
Posts: 519 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Let’s consider how founding stories seemed to operate in the ancient world.
Many founding stories were stories told to tell of how the community emerged. And they seem to have been told to produce coherence within that community. Now many of the founding stories seem to be based on violence and disguising the role it had in producing peace and unanimity within the community. The role it appears to have had has been massive – the more I read in this area the more I was convinced.
I can see I will need to read Girard but I can accept that for the moment. I can see the ten commandments as having the underlying purpose of producing peace within the community and curbing violence.
quote:
Now just suppose that almost all the ideas that emerge from the OT are also present in other cultures. (We just happen to be more aware of the founding stories in the Judeo-Christian tradition.) The idea of a god (gods?) who will be on the side of those who worship him; a god who will give good harvests to those who bring animal sacrifices for him to consume, was just too attractive to the most of the ancients for them to ignore.
Yes. One maybe trivial-sounding comment I would add is about the importance of the sky to ancient peoples. When you live as we do with electric light and when for many of us most of the stars are too dim to compete with the reflected light of towns and cities it is difficult to appreciate just how awesome the movement of the sun, moon, stars and those totally unexpected phenomena that we now recognise as, for example, clouds consequent on volcanic eruptions (fire and brimstone) can be. You are at the constant mercy of the environment and need the most powerful god(s) on your side.
quote:
Of course when God, no matter what you call him, doesn’t always make your tribe the most powerful, the weather systems still seems to be alarmingly unpredictable no matter what your religious practices, then you have to up the ante and sacrifice children from your tribe, or the deformed, some of your enemies etc. Hence the reason for the incredibly widespread practice of human sacrifice in the ancient world.
Yes.
quote:
Just suppose that this sort of sacrificial logic was present in almost all ancient people – control of the Gods was an imperative for the vast majority of people groups. Therefore the practices and ritual s were almost always just variations on a theme. Of course if these practices troubled them in the same way they do us – and they had, I believe, consciences that potentially found these practices equally repugnant - then this would mean that the rituals would be questioned.
Therefore the role that these founding stories had to play was to hide the problematic parts of the story from the tribe. They had to be told in such a way that the barbaric practices that needed to become ritualised, had to be disguised or euphemised. They had to avoid troubling the conscience of the participants.
Yes, I’m beginning to see the force of this argument. First Abraham realises that God doesn’t want him to sacrifice his own child (ie doing away with all child sacrifice). Then the separation of the priests from the rest, the precise rituals, the shedding of blood which was that mysterious thing that equated to life, were all distanced from the people. (Bit like catholic practices today.) When I read Leviticus straight through earlier this year I was sickened by the depth of detail about the offerings that were to be made. Out of interest, I found several sites where the Tent had been recreated according to biblical instructions. This page is a useful starting point. My first reaction was: how small.
quote:
Now suppose that the OT is every bit as immersed in the same sacrificial logic and consequently the stories are in many ways almost identical. However, there is in my view one key difference and this difference means that certain things emerge from the OT scriptures that don’t emerge as clearly from other founding stories. (Incidentally, I don’t think it matters that much what they called their God, the question is how accurate was their perception of God.... Did their perception of God mean that love of God and love of neighbour were in opposition?)
So the OT tells much the same stories but the key difference is that the opposition between the two great commands becomes increasingly obvious because of the way in which these stories are told. Put simply this is how the leitmotif of the OT emerges – the debunking of sacrificial logic is its key theme.
Do you see what I am saying so far? I realise this is very sketchy and I haven’t even spoken of the role of founding murder stories but I think this will do to start with.
I think so, but there are too many ideas which I haven’t pulled together yet to be able to see the whole picture. They had a clear commandment, direct from God, that they were not to kill. That was in tension with their own natural inclinations to violence. Their own violence could only be legitimised by a further overriding instruction by God to kill their enemies. They placate God by making sacrifices in a ritualised way and a way that is in fact much more civilised than that carried out by surrounding tribes who still practice child sacrifice. They already have the idea of the scapegoat, which carries on into the NT. Sacrifical logical still prevails up to and including Jesus? Er, er … Too many loose ends and my head is still stuck in Joshua and the very early days whereas I think this makes more sense as you progress through the later prophets. I am interested to see you continue the argument when you have time and I'm open to correction on anything I've got wrong or misunderstood.
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Weed
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
I'll try to respond to your specific points later little weed but for now perhaps I should add this just in case it isn't clear - after all some may be thinking that I am going off on a tangent. This thread being about the fact that God seemingly orders Israel to wipe out an entire people group. As JJ Ramsey says above it is something about Jesus and his teachings that undermine the view that there is no problem with this. How do you love a two year old as if they were your own and willingly slit her throat? I would have thought even some of the diehard conservatives - for want of a better term - would see the problem with this.
Violence served a three fold purpose in the ancient’s world - as far as I can tell.
1. To defend the tribe effectively, it was often perceived as the only possible solution - sadly.
However perhaps these two purposes were even more important:
2. To buy off God so that he sided with your tribe. This of course links with a very superstitious mindset - and in my view Christianity is the slow and very gradual debunking of this way of thinking. It walks away from a punitive understanding of God. It walks away from a superstitious understanding of God. It walks away from a violence endorsing view of God but it does so very gradually and very imperfectly. Three steps forward, two steps back.
3. To produce peace and unity within a tribe. Is any mob more united than when it stones someone and in the immediate aftermath? This does not in my view justify the violence.
Now my point, as I think you are starting to realise, is that the stories that nourished these violent practices, and the rituals that prepared for these acts, had to disguise the problem to their consciences.
Girard's point is that the writers of the Bible were uniquely poor writers of myth, if the purpose of myth is to hide the problem - the writers of the Bible were really not very good at it. Because the voice of the victim emerges from the text and that should never happen for the myth to work effectively.
You must metaphorically hide the eyes of the victim so that you cannot see his humanity – his value, his being made in the image of God. You must drown out the cries of the victim both in the ritual and in your story telling. The Vikings drummed their shields to drown out the cries of the girls who were sacrificed when the chief of the tribe died!
My point is that even the more liberal posters to this site want to justify the genocide in some way. ‘Well at least there were some good messages that you can get out of it.’ Or ‘perhaps a full blown genocide didn't take place.’ Ironically holocaust apologists seem to go for 'the Jews deserved it' or 'it probably didn't happen to the same degree as is being claimed' also. Put simply even the liberals are trying to lessen the impact. My view is…. let the text scream at us in all its appalling barbarity. Because if we don’t let it do this, we fail to realise the potency of these stories.
The genocide is wrong and it shouldn’t to be explained away. Perhaps the reason why the pre-exilic prophets were so much more compassionate in their take on God, is because the text, whilst appallingly negative, pushed them in the right direction. In fact maybe it was the fact that it was so wrong, was what produced the forward momentum in the OT. ‘Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.’
You will find many examples of violence ordained by God AND violence committed by God in many, many ancient texts. I presume that few Christians would believe that God lights the flame in the Hindu ritual of Suttee. Of course both examples of violence are human violence that has been sacralized IMO.
So to summarise much of the OT is the most repugnant text imaginable. And it is because it is so repugnant we need to hear that text, we need in our canon because to see the appalling abyss of human violence. I disagree with virtually every word that is written in Leviticus and yet it is one of the most important books in the Bible.
Incidentally you are spot on about Leviticus, quite obviously the high point of sacrificial logic in the OT and of course Hebrews is the high point of sacrificial logic in the NT. In the gospels there is very little sacrificial logic indeed there is quite a lot of debunking of sacrificial logic. As far as I can see there is only one verse in Matthew that is really a problem to this way of thinking, in all the synoptic gospels.
Luigi
PS (There is a great deal of the OT text I would go against. I don’t buy the idea that God as happy for dissatisfied husbands to demand the stoning of their wife just because they had no evidence of their virginity. I don’t buy the idea that God wanted people who pick up stick on a Saturday to be stoned. I don’t buy the idea that if a woman who was menstruating was comforted by their husband, then he had to sacrifice an animal – you can imagine how women who had trouble with their periods would have been marginalised. So the idea of going against the text cannot be just done at our convenience we need a leitmotif and the above is the only leitmotif that gets close to dealing with all the different problems that arise from the Biblical text – without throwing it out.)
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J. J. Ramsey
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# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Girard's point is that the writers of the Bible were uniquely poor writers of myth, if the purpose of myth is to hide the problem - the writers of the Bible were really not very good at it. Because the voice of the victim emerges from the text and that should never happen for the myth to work effectively.
You must metaphorically hide the eyes of the victim so that you cannot see his humanity – his value, his being made in the image of God. You must drown out the cries of the victim both in the ritual and in your story telling. The Vikings drummed their shields to drown out the cries of the girls who were sacrificed when the chief of the tribe died!
My point is that even the more liberal posters to this site want to justify the genocide in some way. ‘Well at least there were some good messages that you can get out of it.’ Or ‘perhaps a full blown genocide didn't take place.’ Ironically holocaust apologists seem to go for 'the Jews deserved it' or 'it probably didn't happen to the same degree as is being claimed' also. Put simply even the liberals are trying to lessen the impact. My view is…. let the text scream at us in all its appalling barbarity. Because if we don’t let it do this, we fail to realise the potency of these stories.
The genocide is wrong and it shouldn’t to be explained away. Perhaps the reason why the pre-exilic prophets were so much more compassionate in their take on God, is because the text, whilst appallingly negative, pushed them in the right direction. In fact maybe it was the fact that it was so wrong, was what produced the forward momentum in the OT. ‘Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.’
You know, I think that you just went "against the text" in a very Christian fashion.
A thought: Maybe it was God's allowance of our free will that allowed the stories of genocide to be there in the first place, but His inspiration that caused them to be so poor at shielding the voice of the victim?
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
Just a quick comment on revelation - Little Weed. Did God reveal himself specially to Israel or not?
My take is those who got God right, saw what could have always been seen. You don't need someone to think they have had a prophecy from God before you come to the conclusion that killing is wrong.
When I think of how many people have believed wrongly that they have heard from God and then I think about how God may have been speaking to us since the beginning of human history though the lips of the victimised, the voices of the marginalised etc. I come to the conclusion that all humanity has heard God speaking at his/her most powerful. You see God has always revealed himself to all cultures, humanity's problem is that we have been deaf, or more accurately we have sought to silence that voice.
So the Bible being God's word is not about God telling the Israelites what he wants / requires and leaving the rest of humanity in the dark. It is the story of a voice emerging that has been there in all cultures since the beginning of time.
I believe the Bible is inspired more on the level of which books have been included in the canon. I don’t believe that the exact words attributed to God by writers, as being God's words, are his words even when it clearly says thus says the Lord.
Hope the picture is becoming clearer.
Luigi
If I understand you correctly JJ Ramsey - then I agree with you
[ 20. July 2004, 22:47: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
We're all just too nice and protected and civilized and incredibly ignorant and unimaginative whilst projecting our niceness back 3500 years.
Ancient man was barbaric, depraved, brutal, obscene beyond belief. Bosnia. Rwanda. Auschwitz. Nanking. Jim Jones. Manson. Bundy. Gacey. All of our remote, media nightmares were the NORM. Were everyday experience for everybody. Not just marginalized, remote victims.
One in thirty people is a psychopath. 3%. If there is a genetic component they have been selected for their survival value ... The Vikings have been mentioned. Pagan monsters. Devil worshippers. Psychopaths were rewarded. Berserkers bred.
(Anyone here read "Luther Blisset's" Q? It's enough to make one Catholic. Was the Reformation worth it?)
As is very well documented. Historically, not just Biblically. The Cambridge Ancient History even loses it when talking about the cruelty of the Assyrians. We are so very modern. So very out of touch. So recently and so contemporarily: Darfur.
God. Man. Serpent. Here we are. All. Still. All of the religions of the period were the worship of demons ewpowered by the depraved 'mysteries' (read what the Greeks got up to in their Eleusinian rites anyone?). Up until the fall of Rome and then some. Human-Satanic synergy.
How frightfully unmodern!
If it all "ain't necessarily so", then, but for the Incarnation, God is man now trying to communicate with his own externally idealized meaningless self. Our internal existential weather, to paraphrase Russell.
The Incarnation is so persuasive by its outrageousness that it's the only thing we agree on. Which I suppose makes us Christians!
Without the Incarnation rationalism as brilliantly and seductively expounded above, by Freddy (who is of course utterly illogical about the aorist God requiring timelessness), lincz, Luigi, Wood, Little Weed, Seeker963 (I do feel the edge of your pain and I am sorry, but Heaven is not Hell: as Freddy understood), Esmerelda (SHEMA!), et al is Dawkins' Hammadryad worship.
Without the Incarnation we follow Voltaire and in then face of meaninglessness invent God with no justification but our meaningless, evolutionarily contingent dispositions. All we have to do is evolve 'more' and we won't need what we don't have.
And if it is so, God scythes - minimally, barely, rarely, lightly - through massive, terminally toxic, contagious, depraved, insane, sick, Satanic, i.e. Satanically led, inspired, fed, organized, possessed opposition to ensure His incarnation for their salvation.
But hey, 'I' could be wrong. As long as we all agree about the Incarnation. 'I' could even be wrong about God being in process. And all you nice, clever, young, so very young, rose tinted liberals could be absolutely right. The old bastards too.
But then we'd STILL be left with a very odd, Zen, evolution God who just doesn't give a mystical bowel movement about pain and suffering.
Which is unfair on Him, so you could be right, after all He is omnipathic and He did incarnate for 33 years. The creation has been in agony for half a billion plus. But OK.
But what is the pain for? The agony? The unremitting, endless, meaningless suffering of a nice, liberal, rationalist God's creation?
Of course all of the revolting pain and evil and vileness is OUR fault? For there is no Devil. Evolutionarily necessary?! The outworking of free will? FOR GOD'S SAKE?!
I'd like an answer please. I really would.
That is any where as credible, as real, as perfect, as pure, as righteous, as gracious, as the God of the the Bible.
Or is it elitist, esoteric intellectualism and I couldn't possibly understand? Or I lack ahimsa-love?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Freddy
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# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
I believe the Bible is inspired more on the level of which books have been included in the canon. I don’t believe that the exact words attributed to God by writers, as being God's words, are his words even when it clearly says thus says the Lord.
So, after criticizing all my talk about metaphor, here you are basically saying what I was saying all along.
I agree, if you mean what I think you mean.
What does "inspired more on the level of which books have been included in the canon" mean? I would assume that it means that God inspired the acceptance, preservation and distribution of the books that contained His message. That's what I think too.
Whereas I agree that what Moses heard from the mouth of Jehovah was not necessarily really from Jehovah Himself. It was, as my denomination understands it, a message accommodated to Moses and those who would read what he wrote.
Yet it is inspired on the level of canon, because these stories contain what God wishes us to know.
My denomination would say that the message is held symbolically in what Moses wrote - but I know that this is not what Luigi is saying.
Still, I agree that revelation is, or was, much more universal than Christians tend to believe.
The Philistines and Egyptians received messages from their deities much as Israel did. They did not just make them up, there really were messages happening. But their "gods" were evil spirits, with nothing like the power that Moses' Jehovah wielded.
This accounts, I think, for the apparent contradictions in the biblical record. It especially accounts for God's seeming commands to commit genocide, when the truth is that this could never really happen. And yet the record is still holy and inspired by God for a good purpose. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
But what is the pain for? The agony? The unremitting, endless, meaningless suffering of a nice, liberal, rationalist God's creation?
Of course all of the revolting pain and evil and vileness is OUR fault? For there is no Devil. Evolutionarily necessary?! The outworking of free will? FOR GOD'S SAKE?!
I'd like an answer please.
I think the key is that natural things, by their very nature, are opposed to spiritual ones.
Evolution therefore demands pain, because this is implicit in the concept of competition for survival. ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
Or, to put it another way, if there was no imperative to self-preservation, then what would be the point of unselfish love?
The pain is our fault only in the sense that the alternative is always available to us. But as long as we remain natural beings, focused on a material world, pain is always an essential part of the picture.
This is one reason why God is presented as He is in these biblical stories. We are materialistic, and we can only comprehend a God who carries some of these same features. So pain and agony are part of the story. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
Freddy - I still don't think we are saying the same things unless you mean something very different by the word metaphor. When I read your posts - often more than once - I frequently felt you were heading in the right direction, and made some very useful points, only for you to suddenly dart off in a direction that undermined the clarity of what you had previously said. I feel the same about the above post.
The stories don't have metaphorical value their value is that when we don't disguise these stories with labels like metaphor they actually start to have a profoundly destablising effect.
All this superstitious stuff about them hearing a (false) God's voice and confusing it for God. No wonder the poor people were confused. The reason you seem to be implying that they should have not done what they did is because they should have listened to the right God. I am saying that I trust the voice of the victim, more than I trust some space head who claims that God told them.
Little Weed - sorry forgot to include in the stuff about Christianity being the religion that seeks to escape superstitious understandings of God, it is also the faith trying to escape tribal / nationalistic views of God.
Finally - could someone translate what Martin is saying for me. It is not a form of English I am familiar with.
Luigi
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Martin PC Not: Ever come across a book called - dig the title! - Postemotional Society by Stjepan G. Mestrovic? His thesis is that the cardinal postmodern virtue is niceness. He also says that we have become a society that's emotionally dead, able to feel only "recycled emotions". In other words, what Disney and Macdonalds tell us to feel. That's why, he says, we are sold "Happy Meals", an emotional package without refrerence to food-content. And he calls Bill Clinton a "Barney and Friends President" because it's OK to bomb the crap out of bridges in Belgrade, but to put troops on the ground and get them coming home in bodybags is not "nice". Likewise, Milosevic was "nice" - sophisticates, sentimental, enjoyed a Scotch - whereas Izetbegovic was "prickly", and not nice.
I think there's a polemical edge to what he's saying, which over-eggs it a bit - I'd be intrigued to see how he critiques the Bush presidency, though again it should be easily done on the basis of the 'recycled emotions' he (and Tony Blair) stir up.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Just a quick comment on revelation - Little Weed. Did God reveal himself specially to Israel or not?
The Sunday School child in me says of course he did. The young adult says, “Something wrong here and I don’t know what. I’ll concentrate on the gospels.” The older adult comes back to the OT and says, “Weed, you’ve got to go with your understanding of God revealed through Jesus and these bits aren’t God speaking. It’s wrong. So sue me.” The even older adult is led to Girard and says, “Ah ha. I think we definitely have something here.”
quote:
My take is those who got God right, saw what could have always been seen. You don't need someone to think they have had a prophecy from God before you come to the conclusion that killing is wrong.
When I think of how many people have believed wrongly that they have heard from God and then I think about how God may have been speaking to us since the beginning of human history though the lips of the victimised, the voices of the marginalised etc. I come to the conclusion that all humanity has heard God speaking at his/her most powerful. You see God has always revealed himself to all cultures, humanity's problem is that we have been deaf, or more accurately we have sought to silence that voice.
Yes, I am beginning to see that now. One of the problems, I think, is hearing the voice of the victim in the early prophets such as Joshua because it is so gung-ho and perhaps there are clearer places to start. I like the view in your last sentence which instinct tells me is right but I have found difficult to justify before. For me God’s message has to be the same throughout time and outside time, which is why I find the “changing his mind” or “trying a new approach” so unsatisfactory.
I am also deeply convinced that the revelation in Jesus makes sense of the world as we see it and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most non-Christians I meet are happy to accept that he was a truly good man. Indeed, many passionate atheists I know actually follow his teaching in practice much more faithfully than many Christians.
Besides thinking about your previous post, I have also just read two articles from the link Psyduck gave a while ago. (Having started the day by reading Martin PC Not's post I decided they couldn't be much more difficult.) The main page is Girard Links. The first article I read (chosen simply for the title) is Reading Rene Girard's and Walter Wink's Religious Critiques of Violence as Radical Communication Ethics, particularly the second half of the article. The second article is Are the Gospels Mythical? which I found very helpful indeed.
quote:
So the Bible being God's word is not about God telling the Israelites what he wants / requires and leaving the rest of humanity in the dark. It is the story of a voice emerging that has been there in all cultures since the beginning of time.
I believe the Bible is inspired more on the level of which books have been included in the canon. I don’t believe that the exact words attributed to God by writers, as being God's words, are his words even when it clearly says thus says the Lord.
Hope the picture is becoming clearer.
I remain cautious but I can see how it’s a very productive perspective.
Must read more!
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Weed
Posts: 519 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
But what is the pain for? The agony? The unremitting, endless, meaningless suffering of a nice, liberal, rationalist God's creation?
Of course all of the revolting pain and evil and vileness is OUR fault? For there is no Devil. Evolutionarily necessary?! The outworking of free will? FOR GOD'S SAKE?!
I'd like an answer please. I really would.
Martin, I don't always understand what you're talking about but I admire the passion with which you say it. And the depth with which you feel the suffering of the world.
I don't know if you're attributing the sentiment 'There is no Devil' to me, but I believe strongly that there is. And my Christadelphian in-laws, who are much more conservative than me, don't believe in a Devil. So liberalism does not necessarily = no Devil. Anyway, I don't see myself as a liberal theologically; I'm an Anabaptist, which is pre- not post-evangelical.
The suffering, the pain, the agony are there because human beings are fallible, and because there are spiritual powers of evil at work in the world (in that respect, Freddy is right). God allows this because the alternative would have no room for genuine love. Compulsory goodness is not goodness; compulsory love is not love.
PS. Oh, and thank you if you were including me among the people who were 'so naive and trusting and so young '. I'm 51. Bet you're younger than that.
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
Posts: 17415 | From: A small island nobody pays any attention to | Registered: Jun 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
All this superstitious stuff about them hearing a (false) God's voice and confusing it for God. No wonder the poor people were confused. The reason you seem to be implying that they should have not done what they did is because they should have listened to the right God. I am saying that I trust the voice of the victim, more than I trust some space head who claims that God told them.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that there is no such thing as the kind of divine revelation described in the Bible.
"Superstitious stuff"? "Space head"?
But I'm not saying that they should have listened to the right God. I'm saying that God appeared to them in a way that they could accept and follow. You appear to be saying, not that the one who appeared to them was not God Himself, but that no one actually appeared to them - that divine revelation is actually a more subtle and universal thing.
I would say that this is the easy and obvious way out of Wood's dilemma.
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
The stories don't have metaphorical value their value is that when we don't disguise these stories with labels like metaphor they actually start to have a profoundly destablising effect.
Then I'm wondering what you meant when you said that they were inspired on the level of what books were included in the canon. I thought that you were saying that although they may not have been literally accurate, they nevertheless carried God's message.
Maybe we do mean different things by metaphor. I understand the term to mean that a story or a saying has a meaning beyond what is in its literal words. It also means that although a story or saying may not be literally true, its message may nevertheless be true and applicable. If I say that we "have a long row to hoe", none of us is likely to point out that we have no hoes and there is no row. Everyone understands the metaphor and symbolism inlvolved.
As far as I am concerned, Israel's struggles are a metaphor for our spiritual struggles, and, in a sense, God's struggles with evil in this world.
If this is not what they are about, then what do you mean by their inclusion in the canon being inspired by God?
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Little Weed - don't know where to go next.
Do you want a really good example of poor myth making in the OT?
Do you want me to point to the greatest 4 verses in the OT which deconstruct sacrificial thinking?
Do you want to explain how violence is sacralised in, for example, the case of the Hindu ritual of Suttee (easiest to see example because it is so recent 2002)?
Or do you have one of your own questions to ask?
Luigi
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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
If you are still out there Martin. Are you still saying that you still have no problem with God demanding that they annihilate the Amalakites?
Do you believe that it is unproblematic to assert that we should love our neighbour as ourself and we should be willing to slit their 2 year old daughter's throat?
You keep saying that you no longer believe that God asks us to do this - though you have never explained why? Was genocide off God's agenda when Jesus was born? Was it suddenly wrong to wipe out entire people groups on Good Friday? Or was it Easter Sunday when all genocidal adts should suddenly stop?
To my mind this is just an attempt to ignore the moral problems by removing it far away from us in time, so that it rather conveniently becomes something that you believe could no longer apply?
All your posts about how God can commit genocidal acts is irrelevant. After all it wasn't about those passages where God, or the angel of death, appears to have lashed out unfairly and indiscriminately, that we were talking about. It was those times when God supposedly told people to do the act. Perhaps he was so tired he couldn't do it himself. Or perhaps I should say that he couldn't arrange to do what happened in Kings 19 himself!
It is the problem that God was telling humans to take so many 'innocent' lives for no consistent reason that there is a problem. Expecially in the light of how in other places he seems to insist that taking other humans lives is wrong in many, many circumstances.
Luigi
[ 21. July 2004, 22:38: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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J. J. Ramsey
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# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Little Weed - don't know where to go next.
Do you want a really good example of poor myth making in the OT?
Do you want me to point to the greatest 4 verses in the OT which deconstruct sacrificial thinking?
Do you want to explain how violence is sacralised in, for example, the case of the Hindu ritual of Suttee (easiest to see example because it is so recent 2002)?
Don't know about Little Weed, but my answers are yes, yes, and yes.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Little Weed - don't know where to go next.
Do you want a really good example of poor myth making in the OT?
Do you want me to point to the greatest 4 verses in the OT which deconstruct sacrificial thinking?
Do you want to explain how violence is sacralised in, for example, the case of the Hindu ritual of Suttee (easiest to see example because it is so recent 2002)?
Don't know about Little Weed, but my answers are yes, yes, and yes.
All of the above, please! Thinking about this yesterday I began to see how all sorts of things could fall into place and for the first time I felt some optimism instead of being depressed and upset by this thread.
I don't want to lose the momentum of the argument but on the other hand I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to start a new thread at this point?
I'll pass the buck back to Wood to decide.
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Jolly Jape
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Posted
Esmeralda, you wrote quote:
Oh, and thank you if you were including me among the people who were 'so naive and trusting and so young '. I'm 51.
Ah, 1953, such a fine vintage!!
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
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Luigi
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Little Weed and JJ - will post an example of poor myth making later today.
Don't really know how this forum works so have no idea whether it would be a good idea to start a new thread or not.
It seems to me that I owe Freddy a response and I was thinking of posting something on why Jesus' teaching and OT genocide are so difficult to harmonise. It has been referred to a number of times but hasn't really been explained fully - or at least not that I can remember.
(On the question of harmonising the text - I dare say the middle bit in 'day in the life' by the Beatles could be called harmony, but the truth is it ain't harmony, it is intentional dischord.)
I've also been frustrated by the fact that large amounts of this thread have defended OT genocide as if committed by God, which is a very different question to why God demanded that the Israelites do the killing for him - Wood's initial question. (As I suggested in my above post to Martin.)
Indeed defending the fact that God can kill who he wants to just highlights the problem with God commanding humans to do it. I would have thought this was especially problematic for those who are still in that evangelical received text mindset.
Will post later
Take care
Luigi
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Freddy
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
It seems to me that I owe Freddy a response and I was thinking of posting something on why Jesus' teaching and OT genocide are so difficult to harmonise.
Not sure how that relates to what I was saying. But thank you anyway.
My comment on that topic, however, is that Jesus' teachings and OT genocide are complete opposites, with no harmony whatever. The only harmony between them is a symbolic one. That is, the OT genocide symbolizes putting an end to evil and replacing it with good, whereas Jesus' teaching actually IS or IS ABOUT putting an end to evil and replacing it with good.
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Indeed defending the fact that God can kill who he wants to just highlights the problem with God commanding humans to do it. I would have thought this was especially problematic for those who are still in that evangelical received text mindset.
I completely agree.
Thanks for your contributions, Luigi. They are most interesting.
I have really enjoyed this thread. Little Weed, Leprechaun and others I have very much appreciated your points. I need to bow out of the discussion at this point because I am going on a little trip. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
[ 22. July 2004, 09:40: Message edited by: Freddy ]
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
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Luigi
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Perhaps I could have some guidance from Wood here. I think there is some unfinished business on this thread - e.g. the issue of just why some of us perceive a problem with affirming the rightness of OT genocide and following Jesus' teachings has been mentioned but not really explored – it remains to be seen if any want to read anymore on this.
There is also the sub-issue of how much God has revealed himself to all people groups since the beginning of human history. Which I will probably post on later to Freddy.
However JJ Ramsey and Little Weed (at least - possibly more) would like to know more about sacralized violence - why and how violence is made sacred and the sacred is made violent. This would also mean exploring how sacrificial logic is debunked in the OT well before we get to Jesus. Another unexplored theme is how the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures were such poor writers of myth i.e. they disguised the problematic aspects of their stories of violence very poorly. (Put simply... it would be good to explore some Girardian thinking - especially now Psyduck is back.)
So what should I do? Let this thread deal with the most directly related issues and start a new thread on sacralized violence. In which case I may need to copy at least a couple of posts from the past page so that those coming to a new thread have some sort of understanding of what we are going on about.
Wood what do you think? Is this thread evolving into this closely related subject quite happily? Or what.....?
Luigi
PS if there are any others still reading it would be good to hear from you.
[ 22. July 2004, 18:24: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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Esmeralda
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Hi - still reading, but thinking I don't have much to contribute, until I've gone and read Girard! I do think there's another related issue here, however, which is what value God places on the individual.I have addressed this, though perhaps not directly enough, in starting the thread 'Does God like us?'.
And a third related issue is the whole question of original sin, which has come up obliquely here, and is being explored on another thread on this board. In particular, are we all, unless we've consciously assented to Christ, automatically under the wrath of God and deserving of death? I don't think this is the only way of reading the Scriptures, such as Romans; but it is a piece of evangelical orthodoxy that it's dangerous to question.. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
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Luigi
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Posted
Well Esmerelda - does what has been said so far make sense to you? I would have thought you'd be pretty sympathetic to his thinking.
Luigi
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Luigi
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Little Weed, JJ and Esmerelda sorry for the delay will answer your question soon - lost first post on computer ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Meanwhile this is what I wrote earlier in response to Freddy.
Freddy - don't know how long your trip but here’s my response anyway.
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
It seems to me that I owe Freddy a response and I was thinking of posting something on why Jesus' teaching and OT genocide are so difficult to harmonise.
Not sure how that relates to what I was saying. But thank you anyway.
Actually the two were unrelated I wanted to do both things. The second wasn’t really a response to you but others on this thread.
However, wanted to say something on the subject of the ancients hearing from God. quote:
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that there is no such thing as the kind of divine revelation described in the Bible.
"Superstitious stuff"? "Space head"?
But I'm not saying that they should have listened to the right God. I'm saying that God appeared to them in a way that they could accept and follow. You appear to be saying, not that the one who appeared to them was not God Himself, but that no one actually appeared to them - that divine revelation is actually a more subtle and universal thing.
First I don’t believe that God appeared to them in a way that they could 'accept and follow'. This whole idea that God told the Israelites that they were to annihilate an entire people group because they would accept it and follow it is unsustainable from my point of view. Surely you can see the problem with this POV.
I don’t particularly want to come across as cynical and I fully accept that God can speak to humans through their inner voices, dreams, prophecy etc. However, it seems to me, that humans have been hearing voices since the beginning of (human) time. Humans have believed they have heard from God and I think more often than not this has been an act of self-deception. I think this is true no matter what you believe – few Christians would say that every human being who claims they have heard from God actually did – many would be unconvinced by Joseph Smith’s, Muhammad’s, claims.
My point is, how do humans know when they have heard from God? Some Christians may ask: is it in line with the Bible? Or some others might ask: is it in line with Jesus? Or even: is it in line with my tradition? My point is that the ancients had no way of doing either. So the whole idea that revelation is discernable through someone claiming that they have heard from God is not that useful. My point is that even when you think you have heard from God, how do you know it isn’t just self-deception? My argument is that the most reliable voice throughout history has been the victim. If we are to avoid setting the two most important commands in violation of each other, we need to listen to the victim.
Is this clearer?
Luigi
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Custard
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Posted
Back after some time off. Apologies to backtracking a few posts - I thought I sohuld try dealing with the whole mind-changing thing.
I think part of the problem is that we tend to treat God's statements in a very propositional way. I'll try and explain, but in my current jetlagged state will probably make very little sense.
There is a stanrdard distinction in evangelical throelogy between God's sovereign will and his revealed will.
A lot of God's statements, particularly those concerning destruction, are operating in a way parallel to the revealed will rather than the sovereign will. This can be seen in Jeremiah 18
quote:
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD . "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
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