Thread: Kerygmania: A Sovereign God Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I have been challenged to get up to date with OT studies and recommended to read Walter Brueggemann.
I have done so. Particularly his book on Jeremiah.
But I cant see anything new. Just a throw-back to an old fundamentalism though expressed in current language. Particularly I cannot come to terms with his insistence of the sovereign freedom of God to act. In crude terms its a bit like the old concept of God as a Puppet Master pulling the strings of personal and historical response as (S)he wills.
Did God really intervene by direct action to bring about the Assyrian destruction of Israel and the exile in Babylon? To what extent is God personally involved in determining and actioning the blessings / curses of Deuteronomy?
Bruegemmann never seems to say so in so many words. But the implication is that God is directly intervening for good or ill. Moreover God acts without regard to anything other than an inscrutable Will.
And I am left questioning if there is indeed any morality underlying this.
Maybe some friends on the other side of the pond where Bruegemann operates can enlighten me.
[ 19. November 2013, 02:00: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
Posted by Custard (# 5402) on
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I think your problem isn't so much with Brueggemann as with the text.
Personally, I figure that if that's what the Bible says, it's what I should believe. You seem to adopt a different understanding. Why is that?
ETA - and anyone who knows me knows I'm not a naive literalist....
[ 16. June 2010, 10:47: Message edited by: Custard ]
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I have a number of difficulties - yes with the text which Brueggemann seems to accept at face value.
One difficulty is with the morality of much of the text. If, as I believe; the character of God is revealed perfectly in Christ, then huge chunks of the text attribute unChristlike actions to God.
Thats just for starters.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Bruegemmann never seems to say so in so many words. But the implication is that God is directly intervening for good or ill. Moreover God acts without regard to anything other than an inscrutable Will.
What, you mean like in the New Testament?
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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It could be that Brueggemann is looking at the text to allow it to speak for itself rather than trying to enforce his own theology on it. His silence may not necessarily mean agreement, but simply that this is the theology contained in the text
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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By all means we should listen first to the text itself.
But can we just leave it there? Ought we not to be asking questions of the text such as "what kind of a God is presupposed in these words?"
[ 16. June 2010, 16:01: Message edited by: shamwari ]
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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maybe he wants you to do the work!
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
By all means we should listen first to the text itself.
But can we just leave it there? Ought we not to be asking questions of the text such as "what kind of a God is presupposed in these words?"
ISTM that asking "what kind of a God is presupposed in these words?" is listening to the text, and that Brueggeman provides answers to precisely that question. The follow-on question to be asked after reading the text and Brueggeman's exposition is, "do I believe in this kind of a God?" or, slightly different but same idea, "did the biblical writers always get it right about God?"
I find it a difficult question to ask, as I try to give the Bible and tradition importance, and yet ask questions that challenge the Bible. On the one hand I think they're important questions, and God knows I'm filled with a gazillion doubts and questions that I can't just quash by saying "that's not what the Bible and tradition say." On the other hand I'm made uncomfortable by my imperfect understanding of the theologians we study in smatterings in EfM, who often seem to be draping an understanding over the divine that seems to use the words and symbols of the Bible, but in ways drastically removed from what they traditionally meant. Is that being true to our faith?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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When I was in theological college (1955 -) the theologian who was all the rage was G/ Ernest Wright whose book "God who acts" was very influential.
Having read Brueggamann on Jeremiah it seems to me that we have here a reincarnation of that theology.
Everywhere the sovereign freedom of the imcomparable God dominates. In other words (non-theological) God can do what he damn=well likes - and He does.
Evensong asked about this in relation to the NT. It is there in Paul where he asserts that God has mercy on those whome he wills and consigns to Hell those whom he wills. Shades of a Calvinistic double-predestination doctrine!
I dont believe that the imcomparability and sovereignty of God allows for a freedom of action which is amoral at best and immoral at worst.
Nor do I believe that God acts unilaterally to impose upon us.
My belief is rather expressed in terms of Romans 1 where God simply allows the consequences of our actions to work themselves out. "God handed them over" is the recurring phrase.
The moral law which invokes retribution and punishment is written into the fabric of the universe IMO; it is always consequence and no less derived from God because of that.
My conclusion? Reading Brueggann is an exercise which leads me to impatience. He proceeds by way of assertion, not moral argument.
And mere assertion is no argument.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Tobring matters up to date
I cringe and inwardly fume at the way people belt out the song "Our God reigns" along with suitably triumphant actions.
If God reigns and is in control then why a tsunami which kills thousands? or an earthquake which does the same? And if God organises the demise of Babylon then why didnt He organise the demise of Mugabe long before a whole nation is plunged into suffering?
Conclusion. Our God doesnt reign.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Perhaps, Our God reigns but is a complete and total bastard?
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Shades of a Calvinistic double-predestination doctrine!
"Shades"? Its the other way round - Calvin (and Augustine, and Aquinas, and Barth, and others) found predesination and the sovreignty of God taught in the Scriptures. Its not something read back into them through a modern lens.
Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
...
Conclusion. Our God doesnt reign.
So, you want a God who is a puppet-master. Everyone on a string, dancing to whatever the master wants, while the sets are made up nice and pretty.
Just because God is sovereign, doesn't mean He decides what color socks I wear today.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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If God is sovereign in the way you imply how do you know that he didnt determine the colour of the socks you wear?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Shades of a Calvinistic double-predestination doctrine!
"Shades"? Its the other way round - Calvin (and Augustine, and Aquinas, and Barth, and others) found predesination and the sovreignty of God taught in the Scriptures. Its not something read back into them through a modern lens.
Of course not. Being in a culture steeped for hundreds of years in medieval law had nothing to do with their understanding or view of the Bible. They were able, with open eyes, to read exactly what the text meant, with no spin or shading from their own cultures, something nobody had been able to do for the 1200 years (at least) before them.
Ever considered owning a bridge?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
If God is sovereign in the way you imply how do you know that he didnt determine the colour of the socks you wear?
How do you know She did? That one can cut either way. Bill Gates is the King of Microsoft, but I don't think he has to choose what color of tie his employees wear, or exactly how any particular bit of code is written. Smart autocrats know how to delegate.
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Being in a culture steeped for hundreds of years in medieval law had nothing to do with their understanding or view of the Bible.
Sorry to be a teeny-weeny bit pedantic but how was Augustine steeped in medieval culture?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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And even then (and I'll grant that mousethief has a good point,) the notion of sovereignty itself is embedded in the bible, even if dudes like Anselm project their medieval ideas of what sovereignty looks like onto these images.
&Kappa&upsilon&rho&iota&omicron&sigmaf does mean Lord with a capital L, and, I think, connotes a certain authority.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Being in a culture steeped for hundreds of years in medieval law had nothing to do with their understanding or view of the Bible.
Sorry to be a teeny-weeny bit pedantic but how was Augustine steeped in medieval culture?
Well, that was a reference to Calvin. Augustine was steeped in Roman law, which gave rise to medieval law. Six of one.
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Well, that was a reference to Calvin. Augustine was steeped in Roman law, which gave rise to medieval law. Six of one.
Gave rise to?
(Obviously there is no point in trying to sell you a bridge. You've got 16 already.)
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Of course sovereignty was expressed in the Scriptures. It was the mind-set of the day. Everything that happened was down to an immediate and direct act of God in pursuance of His purpose.
And they never made a distiction between purpose and consequence.
For what its worth I don't believe that God is almighty in the normally accepted sense of the word.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Do you mean you believe he doesn't have omnipotent power, or that he's decided not to exercise his omnipotence?
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Of course sovereignty was expressed in the Scriptures. It was the mind-set of the day. Everything that happened was down to an immediate and direct act of God in pursuance of His purpose.
Exodus 7:3 "I will harden Pharaoh's heart .."
Exodus 7:13 & 22 "Pharaoh's heart became hard ..."
Exodus 8:15 & 32 "Pharaoh hardened his heart ..."
The Bible is more subtle than you think.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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LR: I mean that God's power is constrained.
For one (s)he cannot act out of character. And I take it as axiomatic that Christians believe the character of God is fully revealed in Jesus. So that gives us a benchmark.
I think that the freedom of will given to humans also acts as a constraining influence. I dont believe that God over-rides that freedom.
If there are constraints they are not imposed by anything outside of God but are self-constraints. In itself that is an act of power.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Of course sovereignty was expressed in the Scriptures. It was the mind-set of the day. Everything that happened was down to an immediate and direct act of God in pursuance of His purpose.
And they never made a distiction between purpose and consequence.
Not sure about that.
2/3rds of the Psalms are laments. They had an idea, but God did not always live up to that idea. The psalms of lament are something of a complaint against God.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Of course sovereignty was expressed in the Scriptures. It was the mind-set of the day. Everything that happened was down to an immediate and direct act of God in pursuance of His purpose.
And they never made a distiction between purpose and consequence.
Have you actually talked to any of these ancients trapped in their primitive mind-sets? Where do you get this from?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I got it from the scriptures.
All the way through the writers attribute every action to God.
Amos says that God sends locusts and famines and eathquakes and God knows what as punishments.
And he is 8th Century BC.
What alternative explanation can you provide? Except to re-iterate the Scripture?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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My angst is this.
Brueggemann goes on ad infinitum about the sovereignty and "freedom" of God. he never explains in practical terms what this means.
One idiot on another site interprets this to mean that God can do what he likes and that extends to approving ( commanding?) the massacre of the people of Ai ( Joshua) and the wholesale slaughter of the Amalekites ( 1 Sam 15) plus the command to Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son.
When Bruegemann is interpreted to mean this then I say to hell with the whole concept.
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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Thing is, I'm not sure it is as simple as you are making out.
For example, in Isaiah 10, the prophet is quite happy to describe Assyria as both a mere pawn in God's sovereign hand and as morally responsible for her actions as a nation.
Sometimes even in the same sentence:
quote:
"Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath...
... When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, "I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes.
Isaiah 10: 5 - 12
What do we do with texts like that?
ISTM that either we conclude that the ancients were simply too stoooopid to see the apparent contradiction here, or that it fitted within their theology and they weren't as reductionistic as we tend to be.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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What is your theology on such "contradictions", Johnny? If God is sovereign and made them do it, how can they be blamed for their actions? If God is sovereign and willed their actions, did they really have any moral choice in the matter?
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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I'm a compatiblist - i.e. that God's Sovereignty and human responsibility are compatible.
Exactly how they are compatible I'm not sure. A famous Baptist once put it like this - I know that railway tracks meet at the horizon but it puzzles me how that it is possible. Since parallel lines really do meet at an infinite distance then God is that infinite presence.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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What Johnny S said.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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quote:
Shamwari: I mean that God's power is constrained. For one (s)he cannot act out of character
Spot on, Shamwari! Or you might have put it more positively: that the omnipotent God of Love cannot be forced to choose to act in contradiction to his essence. As the hymn-writer, Joseph Hart wrote: `This is the God we adore...Whose love is as great as his power,/ And neither knows measure nor end.`
I also agree that his nature was revealed in Jesus Christ, so it follows that we are entitled to question the provenance of OT commands of God that are incompatible with the father who is revealed through the son.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
One difficulty is with the morality of much of the text. If, as I believe; the character of God is revealed perfectly in Christ, then huge chunks of the text attribute unChristlike actions to God.
Here's a conundrum, because if "I and the Father are one" (e.g., John 10:30), then the character of Jesus is also revealed perfectly in God the Father.
To take this seriously is then question whether if, in fact, the actions of God in the (whole) text are not to be taken seriously as the character of the (whole) God - Jesus included. And that would mean that we may need to question our understanding of God and the picture we have built up of him. If it doesn't square with the whole picture of the whole Bible, then perhaps our picture is the one at fault, not the biblical picture?
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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NigelM, sophistry, sophistry! Too clever by half!
If the OT revelation had been adequate there would have been no need for the incarnation, no need for a new testament. You are attempting to put new wine into old bottles.
If you want to press your case, NigelM, then you have to do better- like demonstrating to us how the genocidal and tribal God of much of the OT is seen in Christ if you wish to seriously challenge Shamwari`s position.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Righty-ho, Kwesi!
Firstly, something I should deal with up front -
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
If the OT revelation had been adequate there would have been no need for the incarnation, no need for a new testament. You are attempting to put new wine into old bottles.
What is the backing for equating the “new wine, old wineskins” saying of Jesus with the New and Old Testaments? I've certainly heard it said before, but the context doesn't seem to fit:
quote:
Mark 2:18-22 [NET Bible]– the immediate context:
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. So they came to Jesus and said, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they do not fast. But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and at that time they will fast. No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be destroyed. Instead new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
Taken with the wider context – eating with 'sinners' (Mk. 2:15-17) and picking corn on the Sabbath (Mk. 2:23-28) – this seems to be a comment not against the Old Testament, but against the interpretation placed on it by the religious teachers. It is a criticism of old ways, not a statement regarding the superiority of the (soon to become) New Testament.
I just needed to challenge that assumption because it can colour the view one has of the Testaments – and also of the character of God, I think. I would even go so far as to say that the NT would not have been necessary, were it not for the incorrect interpretations imposed on it by Israel's religious ruling elite. It wasn't the revelation that was inadequate, it was the interpretation.
Anyway, pressing on...
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
If you want to press your case, NigelM, then you have to do better- like demonstrating to us how the genocidal and tribal God of much of the OT is seen in Christ if you wish to seriously challenge Shamwari`s position.
Well, it would be easy to give a proof-text list, like:-
Matthew 25:31-46
Mark 3:29
Mark 4:15-19
Mark 7:6-13
Mark 8:34-38
Mark 9:42-49
Mark 10:1-9
Mark 11:12-14
Mark 11:15-17
Mark 13
Luke 4:1-12
Luke 9:59-62
Luke 10:10-16
Luke 11:37-52
Luke 12:49-53
Luke 24:27
Romans 1:18
Romans 2:2-11
Romans 15:4
1 Thess. 1:10
Hebrews 2:1-4
James 5:1-6
1 Peter 1:24-25
2 Peter 2
2 Peter 3
2 John 1:7-11
Revelation (seriatim)
That is just a dip sample, but it's getting boring and each passage really needs discussing in its context. Two key themes come out here, though: Judgement (and justice) is the warp and woof of God's action; and Jesus saw an important part of his role as being a correct teacher / interpreter of the Scriptures (our OT) - and one who taught his followers to be the same.
A God of justice and faithfulness to his people (perhaps a more accurate description than "genocidal and tribal"?).
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Parallel lines really don't meet at an infinite distance or they wouldn't be parallel, by definition. So it's hard to hang a theological impossibility on that.
Those who say both God is sovereign and humans are responsible for their actions (at least, when they choose wrong) are showing they don't understand either "sovereign" or "free". If God causes everything that happens, then I am not free. If I am free, then there is something that God isn't sovereign over, namely, my free act. Otherwise you are either using "sovereign" or "free" to mean something that they don't mean when normal people use them. It's equivalent to saying God can create a rock so big she can't lift it. It's patent nonsense.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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Is God free to not enact his sovereignty?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Is God free? Must God not act according to God's nature? Can God be said to "decide" anything since God is outside of time? I think the concept of freedom just doesn't apply to God at all. It's a category error.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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Does he not 'forget' your sins?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I don't believe so, no. He forgives my sins. But why do you think that is a decision?
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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OK, take another view of it. In the incarnation, does God not choose in some way to limit himself? In Jesus, does he not choose day and daily to be self limiting? You could argue that it was all inevitable because this is God's nature, but then through various twisty arguments you could also say that God's nature is to be sovereign, but also to self limit this sovereignty for our sake.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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That's exactly what I say. God limits his sovereignty to allow us freedom. Why wouldn't I want to say that?
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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NigelM quote:
A God of justice and faithfulness to his people (perhaps a more accurate description than "genocidal and tribal"?).
NigelM, thank your for your tedious (to you) researched reply! I am not in disagreement with you concerning Jesus` identification with the God of law and justice justice nor his role as judge, and that these facets of the divine nature are evident in the Old Testament. I`m sure we could find others.
My contention is that the character of God in scripture is not consistent, which means either the character of God changes over the course of time or our understanding of God changes. Differences are apparent not only between the testaments but also within the Old Testament. Is it not difficult to reconcile the God of 1 Samuel 15: 1-3, with the God who poses the question at the conclusion of the last chapter of Jonah? The God of Jonah seems more compatible with the God revealed in Jesus than that of Samuel.
Can you persuade me that the command to massacre the Amalekites is evidence of `God`s justice and faithfulness to his people?` I find it difficult to relate it to the God seen in Jesus Christ. Can you suggest to me how we might sort out our differences of interpretation on this matter?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
NigelM quote:
A God of justice and faithfulness to his people (perhaps a more accurate description than "genocidal and tribal"?).
NigelM, thank your for your tedious (to you) researched reply! I am not in disagreement with you concerning Jesus` identification with the God of law and justice justice nor his role as judge, and that these facets of the divine nature are evident in the Old Testament. I`m sure we could find others.
My contention is that the character of God in scripture is not consistent, which means either the character of God changes over the course of time or our understanding of God changes. Differences are apparent not only between the testaments but also within the Old Testament. Is it not difficult to reconcile the God of 1 Samuel 15: 1-3, with the God who poses the question at the conclusion of the last chapter of Jonah? The God of Jonah seems more compatible with the God revealed in Jesus than that of Samuel.
Can you persuade me that the command to massacre the Amalekites is evidence of `God`s justice and faithfulness to his people?` I find it difficult to relate it to the God seen in Jesus Christ. Can you suggest to me how we might sort out our differences of interpretation on this matter?
Doubt I could persuade you of anything, but granted that God's covenant, as expressed in the Torah, is very specifically with the Hebrew people to the exclusion of others, then yes, taking out the rival tribes who are competing over scarce resource shows a great deal of faithfulness and even justice particularly vis a vis the Hebrew people.
The justice in 1 Samuel is retributive. "They did this to you, so now I shall help you get even with them." It's the kind of justice you see when a widow cries out at her husband's murderer's trial for an execution. That's not the same as Jesus' notion of justice, but it sure gets tossed around a lot as "justice" even today. And God is faithful in keeping his promise to them as he delivers what is portrayed as the "just" "retribution." Note that we're not looking at individualistic cultures here, but tribal ones. The tribe is an incorporated entity, not a consensual group of persons.
Jesus just changes that relationship by applying God's covenant to all tribes and nations so that nobody is excluded. Instead of loving just one people, he shows that love to all.
There are a few places in the OT where God hints at having relations with other tribes (sometimes using them as mere instruments to torment the Hebrews per Jeremiah, other times less malevolently as in a brief passage in Amos,) but it's never made so explicit until the gospel-writers and Paul came along.
Now, I do think that the portrayal of God shifts a bit over the text. It may be that by the time Jonah came along (and Jonah is a seriously late text by OT standards,) the old bitterness had dissipated and people were beginning to see the former oppressors in a less hostile light. It's also worth noting that Jonah's Book is loaded with irony and sarcasm. Reading it as a straight up portrayal of God may not be true to the original author.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Bullfrog, thanks for making my point, couldn`t have put it better.
Thank God I was born AD rather than BC! He`s improved a lot.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Bullfrog, thanks for making my point, couldn`t have put it better.
Thank God I was born AD rather than BC! He`s improved a lot.
You see, I'm not so sure She's changed, though I am glad to live in this time, myself.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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posted by mousethief
quote:
That's exactly what I say. God limits his sovereignty to allow us freedom. Why wouldn't I want to say that?
Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you meant you didn't believe in God's sovereignty at all. Crossed wires
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Is it not difficult to reconcile the God of 1 Samuel 15: 1-3, with the God who poses the question at the conclusion of the last chapter of Jonah?
Regarding the issue of the divine mandate to destroy utterly a group of people, it is important here, I think, to put ourselves in the shoes of the readers of the time. The ancient near eastern peoples were – as Bullfrog points out – bound together around (pretty much blood-based) loyalties: family, tribe, clan, nation, empire. One's life was tied intimately to the brothers around about, and in covenant relationship with those above and below one.
This was reflected in the theologies of the nations. Gods were gods for specific peoples. This has its reflection in the Jewish Scripture with the picture of a Heavenly Court. Loyalty to one's family / tribe / nation and so on meant loyalty to the god of that family, tribe, nation. Sneaking off a sacrifice to the god of another family / tribe / nation was treachery. State and Religion were bound together.
It's into this setting that God communicated to creation, and the most relevant model to use was that of covenant with a specific people. That model worked well, because it could be used to explain creation itself, and also God's interaction with humans everywhere and well as with individuals. A great deal can hang off covenant as an overarching interpretive framework for the bible: gospel, faithfulness, sin, justification, eschatology and so on (though it's helpful to use more modern words nowadays!).
There are, of course, two sides to covenant: blessings and curses. Deuteronomy 28 reflects a theme that permeates the whole bible. 1 Sam. 15 has its counterpart in Revelation 20 in much the same way that Genesis 12 has in Romans. Without an understanding of covenant it will be extremely difficult to fathom huge swathes of the bible – and of God, too. A God who is slow to anger, abounding in love, relenting from calamity (Jonah 4:2) will also be a God who has to bring judgement when 'sins are filled up.'
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I find it difficult to relate it to the God seen in Jesus Christ.
I suppose the thing is that Jesus doesn't step aside from the nasty sounding judgement job; he doesn't leave that to the stern OT-type God so that he (Jesus) can get on with loving people. The point is made in John:
quote:
John 5:19-29 (NET Bible)
...“I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. Furthermore, the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgement to the Son, so that all people will honour the Son just as they honour the Father. The one who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent and he has granted the Son authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out – the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation. I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.
Obviously we've got a close functional equation of Jesus with God here. This raises the question about the nature of the judgement. What is it, if not the same thing we read about in the Jewish Scriptures? What else would Jesus have been referring to?
I appreciate it is difficult to sit comfortably with the idea of a God whose character on the face of the text is out of sync with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, never mind "Love one another." I could scissor out the biblical bits that don't fit, but that raises other issues about canon and the specific principles I would have to use as a basis for the scissor action. I could ditch modern values in favour of an 'on-the-face-of-it' adherence to the letter of the text, though that smacks of reader-response reading in the extreme (and plays merry havoc with the concept of a divine author). As far as I can tell, the only other option for a Christian is to take the text seriously as a divine communication in human words and immerse oneself in the assorted disciplines for understanding authorial meaning.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
posted by mousethief
quote:
That's exactly what I say. God limits his sovereignty to allow us freedom. Why wouldn't I want to say that?
Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you meant you didn't believe in God's sovereignty at all. Crossed wires
Well, "sovereignty" and "omnipotence" aren't at all the same thing. A king is sovereign over his kingdom but that doesn't make him all-powerful. God is the rightful king of all creation. In a sense, she could play the world like a puppet show. But in another sense, he could not. Because that's not what God is like. In order to be a puppetmaster god, God would have to be a different god than she is. But God doesn't "want" (that's an anthropomorphic term I hope you'll forgive) puppets, God wants sons and daughters who choose to love him, and each other, freely. So although God has the "ability" to rule the world as an absolute despot, of the kind no human despot could ever hope to be, she "chooses" not to.
But from another angle, also true, God doesn't choose anything at all. God is God, and his nature is immutable. God is always creating the world, God is always giving us the "room" to choose freely, God is always dying on the cross. To do otherwise would be to have a different nature than God actually has.
(This is all probably terribly heretical.)
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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The latter, about the "Crucified God" sounds like Moltmann, or perhaps it's Bonhoeffer. One of those German dudes. I've definitely been told as much by a prof at seminary, though I'll grant that he may qualify as heretical.
ETA: (responding to mousethief's post of the previous page)
[ 20. June 2010, 03:14: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I dont think there is any point in trying to reconcile the command in 1 Sam 15 with Jesus' command to love your enemies.
I work on principle that "God does not change, but our understanding of God does".
And Samuel lived 1000+ years before Christ.
I have no problem believing that Samuel got it wrong in his understanding of God.
As Hebrews says the OT is fragmentary and partial and I accept that; especially the sub-Christian bits of it.
For me Jesus' revelation of God in what he said, did and was, is the benchmark.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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It's not an unfamiliar problem for Christians, shamwari, but one which I think may be because we have been standing in the wrong quagmire. The problem – partly a language thing – lies in the use of that word 'reconcile' here. I see a few issues:-
[1] What is being meant by 'reconcile'? Is it to resolve an issue that is impacting adversely on one's life (where the way of living is being informed by faith)? If so, what options are on the table for so resolving: removing one of the factors in the clash, redefining the terms, or just living with the tension and celebrating the diversity(!)? Alternatively, does 'reconcile' mean to establish a close relationship with? If so, does that mean we should think of this issue as a Venn diagram, with a small degree of overlap and agreement between the opposing factors, but a much greater degree of non-agreement? Or is it something else?
I agree with you that we are not going to 'reconcile' Amalek with Nazareth however we define the terms. But this is because...
[2] It implies an attempt to compare different genres of literature. Narrative (1 Samuel 15) and Teaching (Matthew 5) are two different pieces of literature and will not sit together easily at any time on a pure face-to-face reading. Each needs to be understood on its own terms first before they can be compared with each other – and even then the methodology used needs to be a connector that is compatible with both genres. We need something that can take the input plug of narrative and the input plug of teaching, connect them and provide a stereo output. Achtung! Metaphor!
If 'reconciliation' doesn't work here, then...
[3] Something more like a metaphor is needed. Something that acts as a framework within which to embrace the two differing components of literature here. Having tossed about various options for this over the years, I think 'covenant' provides the very best of metaphors for this operation. It is compatible with the cultural presuppositions of the time, it operates both at figurative and literal levels, it pervades the entire book, it is amenable to a copious number of interfaces, it is translatable to other cultures, and it is sub-unit friendly. It is the international connector plug and socket of biblical literature.
[4] I've studiously avoided issues around canon and faith here because those of no faith would not be convinced by the arguments that “we must find coherence here because (a) God does not change, or (b) God gave us the Scriptures as a block.” Still, for Christians these issues add another layer that has to be dealt with. For the moment, however, I will continue to studiously ignore them! Am happy to take these up for discussion if needed.
So...
I'm arguing for an approach that goes a bit like this:
First, take 1 Samuel 15 in the context of a narrative strand within its cultural environment. See what the writers have done in communicating what they have communicated, using the words they used in the way they used them (there is an element of rhetorical analysis here, as well as semantic structure analyses). Bear in mind the overarching framework – the given presupposition underlying the communication – of covenant. In effect we would be taking two sometimes opposing strands of study seriously: history and faith. It's my belief that the opposition of these two, particularly in western critical studies, has made a quagmire out of what should have been a foundation of rock when it comes to understanding the text.
Secondly, take Matthew 5 in the context of teaching, see what is being reacted against and again being serious about the rhetoric of the writing. See it within the overarching context of covenant and also – most importantly for the NT writings – in the context of the (Jewish) Scriptures being used by Jesus and his immediate followers. These formed the ground upon which the interactions between Jesus and his contemporaries were based.
Thirdly, ask the question, How has covenant impacted on both communications?
It is this last question that propels into view some interesting and often unsighted points. A couple of examples from our current texts: What did God mean by using the word “punish” in 1 Sam. 15:2; and What did God mean by using the word “love” in Matthew 5:44?
I appreciate I haven't got round to answers here to those questions, but frankly, answers in a forum like the Ship are useless unless one can demonstrate the process one is using for getting to them!
Also much more in your post that I'd love to discuss (e.g., the Hebrews point, human points of view in the bible, a changing God...), but I need to wash my hair...
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Nigel: I take your point and am thinking thereon. But I have the feeling that you are 'strining at a gnat....'
The camel in question (AFAICS) is fairly simple. The hebrews believed they were God's chosen people and that God had given them this land.
Therefore it subjection and the elimination of all enemies at all costs was entirely legitimate. If that entailed massacre ( as at Ai ) so be it.
The idea that we should 'love' our enemies ( i.e. seek their best interests) would have been prepostorous. It was even that 1000 years later when Jesus suggested it.
What has changed is the understanding of God and His Will. Unless we are prepared to evaluate the OT in the sense of 'progressive and developing understanding' then we shall forever be doomed to trying to rationalise the incompatible and defend a schizophrenic God.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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I would want to break the sequence of the argument up a bit, shamwari, because I don't think we have the bridges between the various parts in place.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The hebrews believed they were God's chosen people and that God had given them this land.
Yes, let's take that as a starting point.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Therefore it subjection and the elimination of all enemies at all costs was entirely legitimate.
This is the first bridge that is missing. I don't think the biblical evidence would support the jump between the two points. Crucially, the Hebrews were chosen for a purpose and the narratives seem to be a reflection on ways of living under that purpose. Abraham's role, set out in Genesis 12, acts as a signpost here. Dealings with enemies has many flavours in the bible as a result - the herem (the Ban) of 1 Samuel 15 being just one, and a minority one at that. From what we know of the operation of 'Ban' from other near eastern events, it was a rare occurrence, surrounded by judicial formalities and by no means an ad hoc knee-jerk reaction by petulant people on an ego trip. It was invoked in cases of extreme violation, where the violator was given a series of warnings and only in the last resort, when the violator refused to accommodate, was the Ban invoked and then carried out. Otherwise the normal rules of war applied (for which bible makes provision as well).
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
The idea that we should 'love' our enemies ( i.e. seek their best interests) would have been prepostorous. It was even that 1000 years later when Jesus suggested it.
Again, I think we are missing the bridge. There needs to be a definition of that word 'Love', in the context of its usage at the time. I don't think the bible defines it as seeking the best interests of our enemies - it is hedged about with a lot more than that. I fear many Christians have been taught to import a meaning of the English word 'Love' that doesn't not really exist in the Hebrew or Greek usage.
I would also add that Jesus was using the same Scriptures that had been written hundreds of years before his time - which meant that his message was not so much "Here's a new thing for you" as "Here's the proper interpretation for you." Ultimately Jesus supports the use of the herem; the total Ban is still due to be enforced, according to the NT, when God (via Jesus?) judges the world and separates out the good from the bad.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Unless we are prepared to evaluate the OT in the sense of 'progressive and developing understanding' then we shall forever be doomed to trying to rationalise the incompatible and defend a schizophrenic God.
Not sure how we get to this from what goes before. I agree we certainly can have progressive and developing understanding, but that does not of itself demonstrate that what went before was wrong. It would be more accurate to say that the way we interpret the text might lead us to believe we have a schizophrenic view of God.
I would advocate getting back to first principles, seeing how the writers understood the role of the Israelites in creation and how they formulated ways of living based on that. In a way, the 1,000 years of history (or whatever length it was) before Jesus - plus the few hundreds after him - work for us here. That's many generations of thinker-theologians who passed on the text without cutting out inconvenient truths along the way. What the People of God inherited and passed on has stood the test of time. That might imply the hand of God at work (a God who did not arrange for the removal from history of the 'bad' bits when he realised they were inconvenient), or it might imply the recognition of generations of humans who reckoned that it all hung together well enough. Or both, of course.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Nigel: I find your contribution helpful, But my problem is not with the cultural context in which the Hebrews responded to the call to be God;s Chosen. I am very happy to acknowledge that the response was culturally conditioned ( as is ours today).
My problem is more specific. The texts say "The Lord said" - whether to Samuel or Joshua or whoever.
And it is what the Lord said which bothers me. Either we are to love our enemies as Jesus commanded or .....
I agree the word 'love' requires definition.
But I cannot think of any definition of love which would include exterminate and massacre them wholesale.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
What the People of God inherited and passed on has stood the test of time. That might imply the hand of God at work (a God who did not arrange for the removal from history of the 'bad' bits when he realised they were inconvenient), or it might imply the recognition of generations of humans who reckoned that it all hung together well enough. Or both, of course.
Or it might imply that humans are capable of holding two completely contradictory beliefs in their heads at the time time.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
But my problem is not with the cultural context in which the Hebrews responded to the call to be God;s Chosen. I am very happy to acknowledge that the response was culturally conditioned ( as is ours today).
I wouldn't go as far as to say they (or we) were culturally conditioned, as that implies a sense of being locked into a set of responses. Israel had a lot in common with the culture of the other ancient near eastern nations, but there were some significant differences, which leads me to think that their reflection on God was forming them in a way apart from the culture. Not sure what the appropriate term for this is. Their near eastern presuppositions / world-views were being challenged, and they were changing as a result.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
...I cannot think of any definition of love which would include exterminate and massacre them wholesale.
It might be worth exploring here the covenant usage of the terms 'love' and 'hate.' The “Love your neighbour” saying in Matthew 5:43 and 22:39 was most likely drawn from Leviticus 19:18, where the context is relationships with those who are in alliance with you – family, tribe, clan, etc. etc. Love in these circumstances is more akin to “I choose to offer a commitment to you” in the sense of offering a reciprocal relationship to all without discrimination (as in the picture of God causing the sun to rise and rain to fall on both righteous and unrighteous – Matt. 5:45). Be perfect, in the sense of being complete – i.e., thinking strategically and relating to all creation, not just the bits that I like.
Having made such an offer, though, covenant demands reciprocity. The NT as well as the OT offers similar approaches here:
* God's People (so including Christians) have the obligation to 'gospel' the entire creation (Abraham's call, Great Commission, etc);
* They have an obligation to maintain relationships in the face of lapses (love your fellow-traveller, forgive 70 times 7, etc);
* Those who deliberately rebel against the relationship will be judged by God (vengeance is for God to mete out).
There isn't really any difference between 'love' in the OT and 'love' in the NT. I rather think the perceptions of difference are imported from our own time.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Or it might imply that humans are capable of holding two completely contradictory beliefs in their heads at the time time.
What, like believing that England will win the World Cup while at the same believing they can do so without the necessary skills or leadership? I suppose if the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass could believe in six impossible things before breakfast, and pulpits are six feet above contradiction, then congregations are certainly capable of holding at least two contradictory beliefs before they disperse to drink coffee.
Would 10,000 generations of thinkers have held unchallenged the same two completely contradictory beliefs, though?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Nigel: I think your post about exploring the meaning of 'love' in terms of the covenant relationship is worth thinking about.
But I cant see how that in any way answers my statement that I cant conceive of any definition of love which would include the command to massacre your enemies.
Can you conceive of a 'love' which would command that?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Would 10,000 generations of thinkers have held unchallenged the same two completely contradictory beliefs, though?
Who says they were unchallenged? They could well have been, but since they held the reins, their challengers went unrecorded. Argument from silence is perilous.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Would 10,000 generations of thinkers have held unchallenged the same two completely contradictory beliefs, though?
Who says they were unchallenged? They could well have been, but since they held the reins, their challengers went unrecorded. Argument from silence is perilous.
There are quite a few records of challenges to those in power within the OT itself; it reads like a group of people who felt able to disseminate criticisms of their thinking.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Would 10,000 generations of thinkers have held unchallenged the same two completely contradictory beliefs, though?
Who says they were unchallenged? They could well have been, but since they held the reins, their challengers went unrecorded. Argument from silence is perilous.
There are quite a few records of challenges to those in power within the OT itself; it reads like a group of people who felt able to disseminate criticisms of their thinking.
And we have their writings ... where?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Would 10,000 generations of thinkers have held unchallenged the same two completely contradictory beliefs, though?
Who says they were unchallenged? They could well have been, but since they held the reins, their challengers went unrecorded. Argument from silence is perilous.
There are quite a few records of challenges to those in power within the OT itself; it reads like a group of people who felt able to disseminate criticisms of their thinking.
And we have their writings ... where?
The prophets?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I don't think the prophets challenged the contradictory thinking, did they? Maybe I'm not seeing something; I'll admit I'm no scholar on the OT prophets.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't think the prophets challenged the contradictory thinking, did they? Maybe I'm not seeing something; I'll admit I'm no scholar on the OT prophets.
One large one that I recall (vaguely enough that getting the proof texts would be more work than I can do now) that Isaiah still had a belief that the institution of the temple had intrinsic worth where Jeremiah views the whole thing as beyond redemption.
Also shifts in attitudes toward foreigners ranging from "Kill em all!" to "don't interbreed with them!" to "Oh, go marry yourself a nice Babylonian woman and settle down for a while."
Of course, these show different political situations in Palestine, but I think the theology shifted too.
ETA: The right word, though I'm sure I missed another error somewhere.
[ 21. June 2010, 02:55: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't think the prophets challenged the contradictory thinking, did they? Maybe I'm not seeing something; I'll admit I'm no scholar on the OT prophets.
I'd bet we wouldn't find an example of anyone challenging a ruling teaching along the lines of the discussion so far, i.e., “God is Love” and at the same time “God gets his servants to conduct genocide” - but why would we find that? After all, the case I'm making so far is that such a contradictory teaching never existed and therefore the need to challenge it never arose! This is because the Israelites had a covenant understanding of the word Love, which had a different connotation to the word 'love' used in English versions.
I think in any event it doesn't matter for the purposes of the argument whether the prophets made challenges to two completely contradictory beliefs held in an individual's head at the time time or not. The point would be that simply that prophets challenged the ruling teachings – they had a voice in powerful circles and their voice was recorded and past down within the powerful circles. This seems to be one of the distinctives for Israel compared to their neighbours in the ancient Near East. I can't think at the moment of any example from the region where material has come to us demonstrating challenges to the way of thinking and living of those in power, concurrent to the period of their rule. We do have examples of regimes pooh-poohing predecessor regimes, but I am not sure about interactions along the lines of the Israelite prophetic activity.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
...I cant conceive of any definition of love which would include the command to massacre your enemies.
Can you conceive of a 'love' which would command that?
The simplest answer would be "Yes, the biblical one!"
Perhaps we should try coming at this from the other end. How would you define the English word 'love' as it is used in the Bible?
I think this may be where the issue is. It's my feeling that concepts foreign to the biblical view have been imported into the bible on the back of that word and that this is what has been causing so much angst among Christians about the relationship between the OT and NT.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Just to say that a major influence on my thinking on this topic has been what is called "Process Theology".
It seemed to me more favoured in the USA than in UK.
But I feel at home with it.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Ah, OK shamwari. I have to admit it's not something I favoured as it seemed me to raise more questions than it answered. But it is one of the options to consider when tackling the issue of God's behaviour across the ages.
Not sure how we got to this from Brueggemann! His attempt to develop a post-modern, reader-response, approach to reading the text would probably permit a view of God that was developmental. His various works on the Psalms tried to answer the question: What was the function and intention of the Psalms as they were shaped, transmitted, and repeatedly used? In other words, what happened as the text developed (taking 'text' here to include the oral tradition in the background to the written)?
He got rather hung up, I thought, on trying to make his way of reading compatible with form criticism. It couldn't be done - but a lot of ink was spilled in the attempt.
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
...I cant conceive of any definition of love which would include the command to massacre your enemies.
Can you conceive of a 'love' which would command that?
The simplest answer would be "Yes, the biblical one!"
Perhaps we should try coming at this from the other end. How would you define the English word 'love' as it is used in the Bible?
Well, here's one definition of love.
If the English word 'love' is really so inappropriate - failing to embrace massacre as it does - perhaps we need a new bible translation, where the word is left out altogether?
I confess, all the attempts I've seen to reconcile OT atrocities with the God of 1 John 4:16 end up pretty much calling black white to satisfy their high view of scripture. I'm totally happy with understanding the deeds recorded in Samuel in context with their times and cultural milieu, but isn't it easier to come to terms with different books of the bible having different views of God - especially when they're separated by about 200 years (Samuel to Isaiah)?
Pleading semantics to get out of a contradiction smacks of Bill Clinton's famous "it all depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
- Chris.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Well, here's one definition of love.
It's a good one, too - note the "does not delight in evil" phrase; that gets us a step closer to the covenant 'love versus hate', 'love versus evil', distinction that is central to the bible. One cannot exist apart from an clause dealing with the other. Jesus (and Paul) did not express a view of 'love' contrary to Deuteronomy 28.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
If the English word 'love' is really so inappropriate - failing to embrace massacre as it does - perhaps we need a new bible translation, where the word is left out altogether?
Welcome to the wide world of bible translation! That is of course the very issue that translators have to grapple with. It's either replace to define. If there is no other word available that can facilitate the transfer of ideas, then definition / clarification is the only other way out.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
I'm totally happy with understanding the deeds recorded in Samuel in context with their times and cultural milieu, but isn't it easier to come to terms with different books of the bible having different views of God - especially when they're separated by about 200 years (Samuel to Isaiah)?
Well, the point here is that different views of God are not necessarily incompatible views of God. Some of the arguments about 'love' in the bible presume incompatibility. I'm arguing for an alternative view: that it is the reader who has imported a skewed view of the word 'love' (and a deficient view of the worldview of the time), and that it is this that has led to a wrong understanding.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Pleading semantics to get out of a contradiction smacks of Bill Clinton's famous "it all depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
Alas, semantics is everything. That's the nub. My argument is that the issue lies the other way - more akin to "When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." And the word 'love' has become a bedrock of just that in Christianity. The word desperately needs clarifying.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Whatever meaning of love or clarification you may choose I can't see it incuding genocide.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Nigel M presents a convincing case that within the concept of a Covenant between God and the tribe of Israel that his love for them can encompass the extreme prejudice visited on the Amalekites. His critics find it difficult to reconcile the commmand to undertake such an action with the God revealed in Christ Jesus. Nigel's response is that Christians need a definition of love that satisfies both Old and New Testament usages to resolve the dispute, and avoids the sentimentalities that have become associated with the term.
ISTM that the difficulties lies less with a definition of love than with the extent of the Covenant, because that has great implications for relationships between ethnics groups and their relationship to God. Once God's favour extends to the Amalekites then his love for them will be no less than his love for Israel.
For me the problem is that I find it difficult to believe that the extent of God's love have ever been less than universal.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Exactly - favouring one over the other is a lessening of Love. How an we say 'For God so loved the world' if God commands/sanctions/demands that one tribe be exterminated?
It makes no sense and (imo) rises out of a need to see the people/prophets of the OT as infallible when they thought they were led by God.
They weren't infallible , any more than we are.
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on
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Nigel M, thanks for your reply, which have given me a lot to think about. I wasn't trying to be snide abot the word 'love,' but I think Humpty-Dumptyism is a real problem: one can't just arbitrarily decide on the meaning of words. Interesingly, both sides could accuse the other of this: either using the modern word for a completely different concept, or of taking the ancient's use of the word to mean something other than they did.
I believe we have both the right and the obligation to read the OT in the light of the NT. Of course, Jesus was far from all sweetness and light, as your previous list of verses illustrated, but the NT does contain elements which I find hard to reconcile with Samuel's view of God. Your point about compatibility rather than difference is well made, btw. My contention is that Isaiah's view is better than Samuel's, that the notion of God as a tribal god who plays favourites and demands blood was giving way into the vision of Joel (if you will permit me to switch prophets!):"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people."
I sense a danger of becoming purgatorial - for which my apologies in advance - but I could ask if you regard Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" an absolute moral teaching (one that has always held and is true for all parties, including God) or one that is either only appropriate from that time on (a dispensationalist view?), or more realistically applies to us but not to God? It certainly is incompatible with Samuel's actions.
I can see two get-outs: either a form of Divine Command morality which makes morality for us and for God two different things - which is a question for Purg - or a liberalisation in the way we read the bible, accepting that Samuel might actually have been wrong about God's will in that situation, however it has been recorded.
I seem to have stopped talking about the definition of love here, and started talking about morality. Still if Augustine is right, and morality consists of "Love, and do what thou wilt," then perhaps they're not too far apart.
Cheers,
- Chris.
PS: on a slightly more board-appropriate note: how much consistency are we right to demand from the bible? Is it a block given to us by God and effectively 'written' by him, or is it more like a library of different books recording man's encounter with the diving, in which the Spirit may be seen moving; like a family album rather than a constitution, complete with the occasional mad uncle? (hat tip to Brian McLaren for the image)
[ 26. June 2010, 16:03: Message edited by: sanityman ]
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Exactly - favouring one over the other is a lessening of Love. How an we say 'For God so loved the world' if God commands/sanctions/demands that one tribe be exterminated?
It makes no sense and (imo) rises out of a need to see the people/prophets of the OT as infallible when they thought they were led by God.
They weren't infallible , any more than we are.
Are you implying that John the Evangelist was infallible?
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Good to see this discussion, because it is useful in fleshing out the relevant issues.
Some things to clarify:-
[1] The English word 'Love' has been used as to translate Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words. It is probably the closest English word we have to get to the meaning of the those other words, but it is important to remember that it is only the product of a translation process and does not (in common with most words used in translation) have a precise 1:1 semantic match. It is necessary to define the meaning (or perhaps better, the semantic field of meaning) that the word has in common with its host language. It is a linguistic fallacy to import a semantic field from the receptor language and assume that the way we are accustomed to use to word was also the way the biblical writers used the host word.
[2] It would also be a fallacy to assume that the Greek words in the NT carry the same sense of meaning that native-born Greek speakers would have carried about with them when they used them. The NT was written with the Jewish Scriptures in mind (c.f. the sheer quantity of direct quotes and allusions to the OT in the NT) and it is therefore more likely that a translator will find the meaning of a word or phrase in a Hebrew counterpart, rather than a historical Greek one. At the very least, I would argue that onus is on the transistor to show evidence that a meaning is linguistically Greek rather than Hebrew.
[3] The covenant use of the word 'Love' (I'm sticking with the English use here though am sorely tempted to use the assorted Hebrew words as that would assist in setting some concepts to one side for the moment) does not occur in isolation. It is bound together with an opposite. Just as Deuteronomy 28 contains the two responses to covenant – loyalty and disloyalty – so love is bound with its opposites: hate and evil. We can't lever one away from the other in the bible without destroying the meaning. This is the basis for the answer to:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Whatever meaning of love or clarification you may choose I can't see it incuding genocide.
The biblical context suggests that while 'love' is not the same thing as genocide, the two areas of meaning are bound together inextricably, so in a sense, yes, love must include an understanding of what you are calling genocide. Loyalty = love, but the flip side is always that disloyalty cannot produce or mean love. There are sanctions for disloyalty, something both Jesus and Paul knew and taught. They were on all fours here with the OT understanding of God's relationship with creation. Happy to explore this in more detail if needed.
On the subject of genocide, I have always felt somewhat unsure about that word, because (like 'love'!) the word doesn't really capture what is going on in the relevant passages. The Hebrew herem (and here I have to use the Hebrew word because no English word comes close to it) is not genocide as we think of it (images of Rwanda or Kosovo). It was an element of war, surrounded with judicial and religious procedures. It was not a falling upon in the night with no warning. Again, we need to get the right image in mind here. Herem is now reserved to God (hints exist that Jesus will perform it) according to the text. Why did God allow humans to perform it in the early years of Israel? My guess is that it fell within the category of functions, like kingship and sacrifice, that God permitted and regulated for a period but that which were ultimately of no benefit to humans and could fade away without loss to the way the People of God lived. Whatever the reason, it was an accepted part of covenant sanctions in the event of disloyalty to one's overlord. The implication is that Amalek had had the opportunity to repent and return to their creator, but consistently refused and chose to fight. A desire to cut out this part of God's work has to grapple with its successors in the NT.
[4] Although I have tried to stay away from issues of canon and faith, I see that they are now being raised so will attempt to tackle them briefly as a starter. I'll kick off with Canonity here. Like it or not, we have received a set collection of books that have been transmitted down generations and the onus is on us to justify any removal of component parts. We are linked here to the issue:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
It makes no sense and (imo) rises out of a need to see the people/prophets of the OT as infallible when they thought they were led by God.
Not really Boogie. They might or might not be infallible. What matters here is that the worldview within which they operated was the same one as pervaded the poets, the narrative writers, and legal loggers.
I see the prophets acting in much the same way that Jesus did when it came to tackling the normative writings and interpretations that formed a framework for their way of living. Compare, for example, Jeremiah's confrontation with the popular saying, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes – but the children's teeth are set on edge!” (Jeremiah 31:29 – also tackled in Ezekiel 18) with Jesus' confrontation with another popular saying, “Love your neighbour – but hate your enemy!” In both cases the prophet promotes a true meaning of what has gone before, displacing the incorrect one. It doesn't negate what went before, it merely prunes out the distortions. In Jeremiah (and Ezekiel) the idea of a new covenant is not a negation of an old covenant, it is a confirmation of the old. The 'new' is the way of its working, not a change in its conditions. Equally, the series of Jesus' “You have heard it said...but I say to you...” paragraphs is prefaced by his assertion that his role is to confirm the Jewish Scriptures, not negate them (Matt. 5:17).
So, I fear we come back to Canon and dealing with uncomfortable passages in the bible. If we really want to put aside the connection between God and the herem, then we need to do two things:
[A] Firstly, we have to justify the decision to manage out those sections.
[B] Secondly, we have to be consistent. If we remove Amalek from the category of “that which is mandated on God's People for the way they live”, then we also have to remove similar and related chunks from the NT and gospel. My take is that we would end up with little left.
So – turning the question round: What exactly is the justification for not taking the herem seriously for today?
The answer thus far seems to revolve around the use of the English word 'love'. I hope I've been able to point out that this, on its own, is insufficient; it merely pushes the question back one stage: What is the justification for using the English word 'love' as a guiding principle for categorising biblical themes?
Secondly, are we really prepared to abandon huge areas of text to be consistent with our justification (if there is one)? For example, 1 Cor. 13 would have to go because it contains the language of covenant. Similarly, John 3:16 has to go (sorry about that, Boogie!) because it is dependent on those who believe – it's not a blanket coverage. Again, covenant stuff. And so on.
This is overly long – sorry. I will pause and then respond later to Kwesi's point re: covenant.
Whoops! And others who have been posting since...
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
Nigel does us all a favour by reminding us that the meaning of words is crucial.
Hence we need to take account of the meaning of "love" in its different contexts, including the covenant context.
But, for the life of me, I cannot see how any context of the phrase "love your enemy, do good to them that hate you" ( Jesus ) can include the idea that exterminating them via wholesale massacre of man, woman, child, ox and ass and everything else is legit.
Else Jesus on the Cross, as an act of love, might well have called down the legions of angels and obliterated every Roman in sight.
He didnt. Love absorbs, not retaliates.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
Is it just me who is wondering whether part of the problem is translating God's love into human language at all. Love for humans contains a strong level of preference. You here the echoes of "If you love me truly you will love me more than you do ..."
I am also assume God is revealing himself, that it is cumulative for human experience. It seems logical that when our relationship to God was young, we assumed that God's love was like our love in far more ways than we now know it to be.
Particularly we felt that it must entail this idea of being the sole object of desire. So God loved Israel more than he loved the other tribes. That was what it meant to love Israel, and in turn Israel's love for God should be such that they would destroy anything that would stand in its way. That is portrayed by the demand they destroy the tribes, which might lead them to worship other gods. The point is not the destruction of people but singleness towards God.
Hmm I still think 9/10 of it was what they desired God to decree.
Jengie
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
Exactly Jengie. It was what they wanted / expected God to decree.
But I think that Jesus taught God's love was indiscriminate ( as opposed to any idea that God loves one people more than others).
Jesus overturns what humans expect or want.
IMO the OT was preliminary to Jesus. I am not surprised in the least that Samuel thought God wanted the massacre of the Amalekites. It would have been surprising had he thought otherwise.
But between Samuel and Jesus a thousand plus years elapsed. And Jesus, whom we believe to be God incarnate, evidenced a very different belief.
So I say that the command in 1 Sam 15 is what Samuel believed God to require. In the light of God's command in Jesus he was patently wrong. Which is not to blame Samuel. It is to say that he was honestly and sincerely mistaken.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
ISTM that the difficulties lies less with a definition of love than with the extent of the Covenant, because that has great implications for relationships between ethnics groups and their relationship to God. Once God's favour extends to the Amalekites then his love for them will be no less than his love for Israel.
For me the problem is that I find it difficult to believe that the extent of God's love have ever been less than universal.
This is a useful strand of thought, Kwesi – easy to lose sight of the covenant forest for the verbal trees. The impression I get from the bible on this is that, yes, God's covenant is universal. It began that way – a covenant with all creation simply by virtue of his act of creation. I think, too that the writers saw the same principle applied with Noah post-flood (Gen. 9). The rebellion of Gen. 3 and its parallel in Gen. 10-11 suggests, it seems to me, that the Israelite theologians (the good ones!) were grappling with the issue of creation-covenant versus contemporary reality: that there were quite clearly nations / peoples who did not have allegiance with the universal creator God. The solution provided for an offer of covenant. “Return” was the cry.
Incidentally (and I really should stop these tangents) the idea of “Return” implies that covenant was always intended to be universal – it is not a case of God's people taking the good news to people who were not part of God's creation. It isn't “Come to God” as a new thing, it's “Come back to God.”
Anyway and so, Yes, covenant was intended to be universal. Important thing is, though, that the bible qualifies our sue of the word “unconditional.” In fact, I'm not sure the bible ever actually promotes the idea of unconditional love. The love of God is unconditional in the sense that if the Returnee accepts the conditions of return, then God will forgive (which of course also implies there is something to be forgiven) and re-establish the covenant. It's a conditional unconditional love.
In that sense, of course, the the covenant is not unconditionally universal. The offer is universal, but dependent on an act of return. [Pause to allow time for Calvinists to bellow “Arminian!!!”]
So, in brief, God's love is universally offered, but is “to all who believe.” Door open there to less than universal receipt of offer. Thus from there to sanctions for failure to accept offer. Thus from there to herem – offer put, put many times indeed, warnings of what will happen if not accepted, judicial approach to all this, and so on.
We are at the point where we have to question, “Can true love survive is there is no justice?” Indeed, can it ever be true love at all without justice? What is weak love worth? Cue ethical exam questions about watching a man rape your wife and not intervening because that would not be to love him... (anyone else remember those questions?!)
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
I believe we have both the right and the obligation to read the OT in the light of the NT
There's a element of circularity in what we've been discussing here, isn't there? In order the understand the OT we need the NT. But, in order to understand the NT we need the OT!
It's not easy, I know; and I am not sure how one starts on that circle. I think one way would be for Christians to ask themselves when reading a NT passage, “Where did he get that from?”
RE: the Joel 2 passage. Joel puts the Spirit outpouring in the context of the Day of the Lord and this from verse 32...
quote:
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.
...which, of course, sets up the conditional call / offer setting. In that respect Joel is very similar to Samuel. Perhaps we should ask whether Luke (as author of Acts as well as his Gospel) understood anything different when he quoted Peter's use of the Joel 2 passage in Acts 2. I'm not so sure he does, because he also confirms the conditionality of what God was offering (Acts 2:21).
It just seems to me that wherever we look there is a consistency of message and a reinforcement of message in the face of incorrect interpretations.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
I could ask if you regard Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" an absolute moral teaching (one that has always held and is true for all parties, including God) or one that is either only appropriate from that time on (a dispensationalist view?), or more realistically applies to us but not to God? It certainly is incompatible with Samuel's actions.
Actually I am arguing that it is not incompatible, Chris. It presents part of the covenant conditions – the offer - and we can trace that theme through the whole bible. 1 Sam. 15 presents the linked part of covenant conditions – the sanction – and we can also trace that theme through the whole bible.
I think that approach dissipates the need for a moral conundrum over the extent of application. If we do bracket out 1 Samuel from the record, then we are faced with the questions I posted in the last post about the Canon.
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
...on a slightly more board-appropriate note: how much consistency are we right to demand from the bible? Is it a block given to us by God and effectively 'written' by him, or is it more like a library of different books recording man's encounter with the diving, in which the Spirit may be seen moving; like a family album rather than a constitution, complete with the occasional mad uncle?
Wow! What a massive topic!!!! I'll go for a good British compromise – it is in between the two options. God's Word in human words – which is more about the language capability of humans to describe God in the way God authorised them to do so – even if they were not completely aware of that authorisation.
I find helpful the linguistic approach that builds on speech act theory here: meaning lies in paying attention to the words used by the authors in the way they used them. That can apply to both the human writers and the divine.
Another way to look at it – from a theological base rather than a linguistic one – is incarnational. God 'births' the message through the lives of the theologians who studied him so well.
An yet another model: Scriptural angle this time. God has a purpose to his message which, to use the metaphor in Isaiah 55:10f - “...as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will my word be which goes forth from my mouth; it will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
It's possible to marry those three models together – all pay attention to purpose in communication. So – what was the purpose of 1 Samuel 15 from a divine as well as human authorial point of view?
Nigel
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on
:
[ETA: complete crosspost with Nigel M! My apologies, haven't had the time to read it at all, and far too late now...]
It's far too late for me to attempt a full response to Nigel M. If I might just pick out a couple of points that sprang out?
1) You wrote: quote:
Jesus' confrontation with another popular saying, “Love your neighbour – but hate your enemy!” In both cases the prophet promotes a true meaning of what has gone before, displacing the incorrect one. It doesn't negate what went before, it merely prunes out the distortions. In Jeremiah (and Ezekiel) the idea of a new covenant is not a negation of an old covenant, it is a confirmation of the old. The 'new' is the way of its working, not a change in its conditions. Equally, the series of Jesus' “You have heard it said...but I say to you...” paragraphs is prefaced by his assertion that his role is to confirm the Jewish Scriptures, not negate them (Matt. 5:17).
I'm somewhat confused then: are we to love (Gk 'agape') our enemies or hate them? Saying that Jesus is 'removing distortions' here really isn't good enough: he's overturning the original meaning and replacing it with its polar opposite. It almost sounds like your 'complementarian' view of the bible is dictating your exegesis here. If you do believe that the bible is a divinely-dictated constitution, then obviously it must be consistent and be read as giving the same message throughout. However, I don't believe that this is the right way of looking at the bible.
2) your covenant use of 'love' doesn't seem to bear much relationship to the meaning of 'agape' (the word used by Jesus, and also in 1 John) as preached in numerous sermons or in Wikipedia: " divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love." I recognise that Wikipedia is scarcely a theological dictionary, so please give a better definition of 'agape' if that's appropriate.
Jengie: excellent thought. I'm reminded of an essay by CS Lewis where he said words to the effect that the love of God is terrifying because it's so much stronger and more pure than anything we can conceive.
- Chris.
[ 26. June 2010, 22:50: Message edited by: sanityman ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Exactly - favouring one over the other is a lessening of Love. How an we say 'For God so loved the world' if God commands/sanctions/demands that one tribe be exterminated?
It makes no sense and (imo) rises out of a need to see the people/prophets of the OT as infallible when they thought they were led by God.
They weren't infallible , any more than we are.
Are you implying that John the Evangelist was infallible?
He was also as fallible as you or I, but he speaks of the same God Jesus demonstrates. You can't love and slaughter your enemies.
1 Samuel is a part of the backdrop, imo, so I don't worry so much about how inspired or confused those who thought God was asking them to commit genocide. I just don't believe (or need to believe) that he was. Why the need to reconcile scripture which is contradictory on the most important point there is?
There are still people today who say 'God is telling me to kill them all and will reward me in heaven' ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
That doesn't make it so.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
...your covenant use of 'love' doesn't seem to bear much relationship to the meaning of 'agape' (the word used by Jesus, and also in 1 John) as preached in numerous sermons or in Wikipedia: " divine, unconditional, ...
I think the answer to this point may lie in my last post (cross-posted with your last post) in the reply to Kwesi's post (this is getting confusing!), to wit the aspect of unconditional offer of 'love', which can be consciously rejected, leading to sanctions. Happy to discuss further...
On the use of agape in the NT, I would go with my my earlier conclusion that the background lies in its OT context, the linguistic link for which lies helpfully in the various versions of the Septuagint (there is also a theological link between OT and NT – I referred to that earlier).
Perhaps it would help to use Lev. 19 as a test case here, given that it forms the background to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5. Here is the immediate co-text (using the NET version):-
quote:
You must not deal unjustly in judgement: you must neither show partiality to the poor nor honour the rich. You must judge your fellow citizen fairly. You must not go about as a slanderer among your people. You must not stand idly by when your neighbour's life is at stake. I am the Lord. You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him. You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people, but you must love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord. You must keep my statutes. You must not allow two different kinds of your animals to breed, you must not sow your field with two different kinds of seed, and you must not wear a garment made of two different kinds of fabric.
This is addressed to the community of God (“fellow-citizen”, “your people”, your neighbour”, your brother”). This passage does not deal with a universal application to all creation. The neighbour here is not someone outside of the community. Now, this does not necessarily mean that it can't be applied universally, but we would need to justify this. What it does argue for is consistent justice within the community – the three little proverbs at the end seem to be grouped together for just this reason, to point out that you should not apply two inconsistent principles in your way of life. Jesus picks this up in Matthew 6 with his “No-one can serve two masters...” saying. Notice in the above passage that such consistency includes demands for justice: being just, not being partial, “judge your fellow-citizen fairly”, “reprove your fellow-citizen” ... There had to be a process for judgement among the People of God. That was all included in the “love your neighbour context.”
So, agapao (the verbal form of agape) includes judgement in its context where it is necessary. Does this context appear in the Sermon on the Mount, or does Jesus sweep all the aspects of judgement aside? Well, apart from the clear point Jesus made about not abolishing the Jewish Scriptures (Matt. 5:17ff), we also have restrictions on entry into the Kingdom, hell for those show contempt for their fellow-citizens in God's community (5:22, 27-30), reciprocal judgement for false justice (7:1ff), rejection of those who fail to match up to God's will (7:21ff), and so on.
Jesus, it seems clear to me, was offering a sermon on the meaning of Leviticus. What he condemns is not the uncomfortable readings, rather what he does is reinforce the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He sweeps away not the judgement, but the false interpretations of Leviticus. If we wish to apply a tooth extractor to the painful passages in Leviticus, then we would also, to be consistent, have to jemmy out a good 50% of Jesus' teaching.
If I had to offer a translation of agape in Matthew 5-7, then on the basis of the above I would go for something like showing “justice to your fellow-citizens in God's Kingdom.” That seems to summarise the context. The argument as to whether we can extrapolate this across creation (and thus outside of God's community) will have to await another time – but I would just note that Leviticus does also deal with non-citizens in its work (e.g., the immigrants in 19:33f).
Broadening out to tackle the point being raised (Jengie Jon and others) about a developmental understanding of God. Again, let me repeat that different understandings of God do not necessarily mean incompatible understandings of God. I hope I've offered enough evidence to show that the NT teachings were not incompatible with those of the OT. I would need more counter-evidence to consider here, if it can be provided.
It's important also to note that we are dependent on the relative dating of texts, here. It may well be that the events recorded in 1 Samuel were 1,000 years prior to Jesus – or even 500 years prior to Isaiah – but the record may well have dated from the same time as Isaiah. I find it highly improbable that the theologians who had devoted their life to understanding God and who had written and collected together the documents that have passed the test of time, would have been unaware of the existence of incompatibilities. I get the impression from this developmental argument that, surely, by the time of Isaiah at least, they would have cottoned onto the fact that God was now demonstrating a universal love and not a tribal one? Yet they were happy to place the documents on love and justice side by side. They did not see an inconsistency – and I think this is because there was no inconsistency.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog:
Are you implying that John the Evangelist was infallible?
He was also as fallible as you or I, but he speaks of the same God Jesus demonstrates. You can't love and slaughter your enemies.
I think Bullfrog may have been slipping John's Book of Revelation in under the radar here, Boogie. I would certainly agree that Revelation speaks of the same God Jesus demonstrates, and that therefore logically must say that God/Jesus will 'love' and 'slaughter' enemies.
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
There are still people today who say 'God is telling me to kill them all and will reward me in heaven'
I see I need to clarify something else here in case there is any confusion. Herem, like Kingship, is a function defined in respect to God's character. He may have permitted it within certain tightly regulated parameters, but it is not a function that God's People needed themselves. Kings were permitted and regulated, but when they disappeared that did not prove fatal to God's People. Sacrifices were permitted and regulated, but when they disappeared it did not prove fatal to God's People. Anyone wishing to restore herem, or kingship, or sacrifice, to a human function would have to justify it from the bible as being a universally human necessity. I would be highly interested to see what arguments are put forward in so justifying herem!
A better question to ask, I think, it why God did not place herem behind the red line. He did so place child sacrifice. Why would the laws that forbade child sacrifice at the same time permit (albeit in restricted circumstances) herem?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
Nigel M said -
Anyone wishing to restore herem, or kingship, or sacrifice, to a human function would have to justify it from the bible as being a universally human necessity. I would be highly interested to see what arguments are put forward in so justifying herem!
So why do you seem to think they were justified by God in ancient times? (As opposed to the prophets/kings thinking they were justified by God)?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Nigel M said -
Anyone wishing to restore herem, or kingship, or sacrifice, to a human function would have to justify it from the bible as being a universally human necessity. I would be highly interested to see what arguments are put forward in so justifying herem!
So why do you seem to think they were justified by God in ancient times? (As opposed to the prophets/kings thinking they were justified by God)?
If I were to throw out a hypothesis, it might be that God had to start somewhere. You had to build a loving community within a shell before you could break it open and show it to all peoples. This fits well, I think, with the gospel and with the prophetic tradition. The rules that govern "good" or fitting behavior at the beginning of something may not necessarily be useful throughout.
I'm sometimes fond of quipping (and I have yet to see an exception, including the modern ones) that you can't build a nation without wiping out a few peoples. It's always seemed a tad hypocritical for Americans to get morally superior when our own nation was founded with a genocide; and we still profit from stolen lands.
Some might say that God could've hypothetically made another world where nobody had to compete with anyone and we'd begin with the eschaton, but that might be another argument.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So why do you seem to think they were justified by God in ancient times? (As opposed to the prophets/kings thinking they were justified by God)?
The point has been that herem has always been justified by God - that is what the record says. I think the onus is the other way round: what evidence is there that then entire corpus of biblical writers only thought they were justified - presumably incorrectly?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So why do you seem to think they were justified by God in ancient times? (As opposed to the prophets/kings thinking they were justified by God)?
The point has been that herem has always been justified by God - that is what the record says. I think the onus is the other way round: what evidence is there that then entire corpus of biblical writers only thought they were justified - presumably incorrectly?
Tiptoing around a certain dead horse...
For some it's easy. The bible is in some ways a human artifact. These folks were victims of their space and time, just as we are, writing from their own particular context.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
For some it's easy. The bible is in some ways a human artifact. These folks were victims of their space and time, just as we are, writing from their own particular context.
Absolutely no problem with that, Bullfrog; God's Word in human words. I tend to concentrate on this board far more on the human element, because I think this has been a neglected part of Christian reading and has much to offer. Looking at the text as a human product, of course, does not invalidate the possibility that it is consistent throughout. I pray in aid the fact that it has been retained and passed down the generations, that fact that the texts we have demonstrate a high degree of linguistic competence (they are not the product of a "I woz here" chiseling!).
What I am challenging on this thread is the assumption - imported from a western reader-response stance - that the varied texts must have been a presentation of incompatible principles across time. I have not yet been presented with any decent evidence to the support this.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So why do you seem to think they were justified by God in ancient times? (As opposed to the prophets/kings thinking they were justified by God)?
The point has been that herem has always been justified by God - that is what the record says. I think the onus is the other way round: what evidence is there that then entire corpus of biblical writers only thought they were justified - presumably incorrectly?
Yes, incorrectly - in my view.
But who am I ?
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So why do you seem to think they were justified by God in ancient times? (As opposed to the prophets/kings thinking they were justified by God)?
The point has been that herem has always been justified by God - that is what the record says. I think the onus is the other way round: what evidence is there that then entire corpus of biblical writers only thought they were justified - presumably incorrectly?
Yes, incorrectly - in my view.
But who am I ?
And what is the Bible? And who are those ancient people, anyway?
Nigel: I think the trouble is partly that Jesus is thought to have fulfilled the messianic prophecy that someday all the gentiles would worship God in spirit and in truth.
Before that, it was necessary to protect holy Israel from the profane gentiles. After that, it changed and the gentiles were supposed to be welcomed. Whether this means God changed, people changed, or something in God's plan for reality changed, but I think it's hard to read the OT and the NT and come to the conclusion that nothing changed.
[ 27. June 2010, 16:18: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I think the trouble is partly that Jesus is thought to have fulfilled the messianic prophecy that someday all the gentiles would worship God in spirit and in truth.
Before that, it was necessary to protect holy Israel from the profane gentiles. After that, it changed and the gentiles were supposed to be welcomed. Whether this means God changed, people changed, or something in God's plan for reality changed, but I think it's hard to read the OT and the NT and come to the conclusion that nothing changed.
That certainly is the option being touted - but again the universal aspect of the offer appears in Genesis 1 - 12 (among other places), so I query where the evidence is that supports an exclusive to inclusive view? On a narratival reading (the presentation of the history in its order) it would be inclusive - exclusive - inclusive. On a possible compositional reading (date of compilation) it would appear to be inclusive all the way, with occasional focus on the role of Israel in the wider covenantal inclusivity. But an exclusive to inclusive reading appears to completely misread the order of narrative and composition. At the least, it certainly should be questioned. I certainly have some questions!!!
I would, for example, suggest that the messianic prophecy did not appear out of nothing, but that had its root in the understanding that Israel had a role vis-a-vis creation generally. The Garden of Eden lurks heavily in the background.
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on
:
Yes Nigel, sorry about the confusion. I'm afraid I'm off on holiday for a week now, with limited/no internet, but if this is still going when I come back I look forward to seeing what everyone has been saying. In the meantime, best wishes to all,
- Chris.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Yes Nigel, sorry about the confusion. I'm afraid I'm off on holiday for a week now, with limited/no internet, but if this is still going when I come back I look forward to seeing what everyone has been saying. In the meantime, best wishes to all,
- Chris.
Have a great break, Chris! Enjoy...
Posted by Pooks (# 11425) on
:
[Tangent]
Reading this thread has made me think about why so many Christians (myself included) would take the love/nice bit of Christ's teaching as something that is real and reflective of God, (and therefore we should follow), but somehow think of the warning passages as symbolic only therefore can be discarded. Perhaps we see the warning passages as Victorian and out of date or perhaps it's because the warnings are something that we can only read about but can not actually 'do' much about (or more likely we don't like), that's making us having this slightly schizophrenic treatment to the overall message. Personally, I think the danger with this practice is that I probably have ended up with either a distorted or an incomplete view of Christ.
There is much to learn, I guess. Thank you all for making me think. (A rare occurance.) Heh.
[/Tangent]
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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That a passage is symbolic doesn't mean that it's empty, just that it requires a different kind of reading. A lot of what Jesus said and did was symbolic.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
So – what was the purpose of 1 Samuel 15 from a divine as well as human authorial point of view?
I like this way of framing the question, especially against the background of covenant that you keep reminding us of. I would think the divine purpose would have to be contained within the human authorial purpose in some way, but not necessarily in such a way that the human authorial purpose is a complete and exact expression of the divine purpose within. Instead, the human authorial purpose can be seen as relating to God's covenant with the nation of Israel with regard to the promised land of Canaan in the same way that the divine purpose relates to God's covenant with us as individuals and collectively with regard to heaven and the Kingdom of God.
With 1 Samuel 15, the human authorial purpose might be to remind Israel of the need for absolute obedience to God in order for them to be assured of defeating their enemies and enjoying the fruits of the land. Similarly, the divine purpose might be to remind us of the need for our absolute obedience to God in order for us to be assured of defeating our own tendencies toward evil and enjoying the fruits of heaven. The two purposes don't need to be identical. The human authorial purpose can contain the divine purpose just by being in a similar form or shape as the divine purpose, but expressed in a specific historical/social context.
The difficulties come from looking for divine purpose in the textual description of a relationship between God on the one hand and the individual Amalekites on the other. If instead one looks for divine purpose by viewing the Amalekites as a textual substitution for some evil tendency in us as individuals or as a society, there is no conflict to resolve. The human authorial message can be a key to understanding the divine message, but it doesn't have to actually be that divine message.
However, something tells me that other people's mileage will be somewhat different.
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I think the trouble is partly that Jesus is thought to have fulfilled the messianic prophecy that someday all the gentiles would worship God in spirit and in truth.
Before that, it was necessary to protect holy Israel from the profane gentiles. After that, it changed and the gentiles were supposed to be welcomed. Whether this means God changed, people changed, or something in God's plan for reality changed, but I think it's hard to read the OT and the NT and come to the conclusion that nothing changed.
That certainly is the option being touted - but again the universal aspect of the offer appears in Genesis 1 - 12 (among other places), so I query where the evidence is that supports an exclusive to inclusive view? On a narratival reading (the presentation of the history in its order) it would be inclusive - exclusive - inclusive. On a possible compositional reading (date of compilation) it would appear to be inclusive all the way, with occasional focus on the role of Israel in the wider covenantal inclusivity. But an exclusive to inclusive reading appears to completely misread the order of narrative and composition. At the least, it certainly should be questioned. I certainly have some questions!!!
I agree with Nigel.
Even in the darkest and most unfathomable parts of the OT, like Joshua, the reading is inclusive. I read Joshua 2 to say that if the whole city of Jericho had responded to their 'fear of the LORD' in the way Rahab did they would have been welcomed into the covenant community.
Same message in the OT as in the NT, ISTM.
It is an exclusive message (you have to come to God, he won't just leave you where you are) to be sure, but it is always inclusive to any who would come.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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W.Hyatt wrote
"If instead one looks for divine purpose by viewing the Amalekites as a textual substitution for some evil tendency in us as individuals or as a society, there is no conflict to resolve."
I dont get this.
Spiritualising the 'Amalekites' to represent some evil tendency in us, thus making room for them to be destroyed on moral grounds, is opening a Pandora's box.
To my mind genocide can't ever be excused. It is immoral. Full stop. And a moral God would be a monster to stoop to that level. If the Cross of Christ tells us anything it is that the God who was in Christ did not take that line of retaliation against the Romans who could also be regarded as representing an evil tendency in all of us. Are we not supposed to "overcome evil with good"?
I also find the idea that God is defending His Chosen People and being loyal to the covenant established with them as being a reason for permitting the massacre of their enemies very sub-Christian. If not totally un-Christian.
And I find the concept of one favoured nation being given the promise of a land at the expense of those already inhabiting it unacceptable. Is not God the God and Father of all humankind?
There are moral issues raised here which I think originate in the mistaken attempt to prove that the whole of scripture is divinely inspired. I see the OT (and it is the record of a nation's history written up from the point of view of its 'faith') as preliminary to the NT revelation in Christ. I take the revelation of God in Christ to be definitive and all else to be evaluated with respect to that.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Following on:
Do we not believe that all people are "created in the image of God" and therefore to be respected and accorded dignity and worth?
And does not God love all people with the same indiscriminate love?
And, when it comes to the Amalekites ( who were no worse sinners than any other of their time) may I be allowed to misquote -:
Hath not an Amalekite hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick him, does he not bleed? If
you tickle him, does he not laugh? If you poison him, does he not die?
And if you wrong him, does he not revenge?
For me every human being is equal in the sight and favour of God. The more so by virtue of creation and redemption. Hence engaging in wholesale extermination (which the 'herem' requires) is not on.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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Actually, although we have different views about the nature of the Old Testament, I agree with everything else you say in both posts from this point on:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
To my mind genocide can't ever be excused. It is immoral. Full stop. And a moral God would be a monster to stoop to that level. ...
By "textual substitution" I mean that I think that there was no actual divine command for any killing - only an illustration of a divine command to reject evil in ourselves. I'm not sure how you are understanding my post, but I'm certainly not suggesting there's any room for destroying the Amalekites on moral grounds. However much the human author might have been intending to record actual history, I think God used the results as nothing more than a story to illustrate the relationship between obedience and evil - somewhat as an allegory or parable. I don't take it as a description of how God actually viewed the real Amalekites.
ETA: a response to shamwari's post:
quote:
Spiritualising the 'Amalekites' to represent some evil tendency in us, thus making room for them to be destroyed on moral grounds, is opening a Pandora's box.
[ 28. June 2010, 15:57: Message edited by: W Hyatt ]
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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My response is to say that I believe the writer of 1 Sam was recording history and he really did believe that God had commanded the massacre.
Allegorising the passage ( which it seems to me you are doing) resolves the difficulty but, in the context of this part of the OT, I dont think that allegory plays any part at all.
But maybe I am not getting the point you make.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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quote:
Shamwari: My response is to say that I believe the writer of 1 Sam was recording history and he really did believe that God had commanded the massacre.
Spot on, Shamwari! Let's not beat about the bush, Samuel literally meant what he said, and Saul lost his mandate for not fulfilling the command to the letter. Spiritualising an event such as that creates the mentality which leads religious people to assent to atrocities of the most appalling kind, for by demonsing opponents any action against them is not only justified but welcome, indeed, mandatory. Let the crusades, the inquisition, apartheid, and the dispossession of the Palestinians etc. attest.
If I am told that the God of Samuel, who issues a command to commit a war-crime, is also the Christian God, then I have no desire to worship him. The God of Samuel divided humanity between Jews and Gentiles, and people like us were lumped together with the Amalekites, so I guess that God is not looking out for us anyway.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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Wow - there must be something about my original post that I'm totally unaware of. I can agree with both of these:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
quote:
Shamwari: My response is to say that I believe the writer of 1 Sam was recording history and he really did believe that God had commanded the massacre.
Spot on, Shamwari! Let's not beat about the bush, Samuel literally meant what he said, and Saul lost his mandate for not fulfilling the command to the letter.
But I'm really perplexed about how I gave any impression of something even remotely like this:
quote:
Spiritualising an event such as that creates the mentality which leads religious people to assent to atrocities of the most appalling kind, for by demonsing opponents any action against them is not only justified but welcome, indeed, mandatory. Let the crusades, the inquisition, apartheid, and the dispossession of the Palestinians etc. attest.
If I am told that the God of Samuel, who issues a command to commit a war-crime, is also the Christian God, then I have no desire to worship him. The God of Samuel divided humanity between Jews and Gentiles, and people like us were lumped together with the Amalekites, so I guess that God is not looking out for us anyway.
I take it you're saying that I sound like I'm using the Bible to justify ill treatment of other people, but that's the opposite of what I'm doing. My approach to reading the Bible leads me to look inside myself to identify and reject anything that leads me to judge, condemn, or look down on anyone else - I see the Amalekites as representing something inside me that I need to wipe out, not as representing anything in other people that I need to do anything about. I do not identify with some people in the Old Testament stories and not with others - I take them all as representing various aspects of my own mind. It's not for me to concern myself with any else's spiritual state or their relationship with God.
If you (or anyone) could point out how I gave such a negative impression, I would greatly appreciate it because I'd like to be able to avoid doing the same thing again in the future.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I must say that I feel for you in your rejection of the impression you have given.
But, in all honesty, I have to say that it is an impression which is wide open to the kind of objections raised.
I do not think that it is legitimate to 'spiritualise' the difficult (and immoral) OT passages and relate them to internal conflicts between good and evil within ourselves.
Sure there is evil within us (as Paul emphasised in Romans 7) and it needs to be eliminated.
But the OT writers are recording history as they saw it in a quite literal sense. Lets just accept that. To allegorise and spiritualise that is to court the objection which Kwesi raised and with which I agree wholeheartedly.
As he implied in a contemporary context, to allegorise the "Palestinians" as being indicative of an evil within us is to legitimise their ill-treatment if 1 Sam is taken as authoritative.
As Kwesi said; Lets not beat about the bush. Samuel's understanding of God ( 1000+ years before Christ) led him to advocate the 'herem' of Israel's enemies.
We know differently now, in the light of God's definitive revelation in Christ. I am simply pleading for an acknowledgement of something that is historically true; namely that we accept that Samuel's understanding was partial and cannot be justified in the light of Christian understanding.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
As Kwesi said; Lets not beat about the bush. Samuel's understanding of God ( 1000+ years before Christ) led him to advocate the 'herem' of Israel's enemies.
We know differently now, in the light of God's definitive revelation in Christ. I am simply pleading for an acknowledgement of something that is historically true; namely that we accept that Samuel's understanding was partial and cannot be justified in the light of Christian understanding.
Thanks for your response. I completely agree with what you say here and I'm surprised by the idea of applying a similar approach to any contemporary context because that would never even occur to me, let alone as a legitimate thing to do. I have no objection to seeing the Old Testament the way you do, but I'm still puzzled about how allegorizing or spiritualizing can be connected to misapplying the stories it contains. I'm left wondering if my words sound superficially like what people have said in the past to justify their detestable treatment of others because I see no danger in my approach leading me to anything at all similar. To the contrary, it leads me closer to a concept of God as pure and infinite love.
In any case, I apologize for triggering this tangent because I would really like to see the previous conversation continue.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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H Hyatt, let me associate myself with the contents of Shawari's reply, and sincerely apologise for any unfair criticism- I certainly did not wish to imply that you held any of the negative attitudes listed. My object was to keep the focus on whether or not the God revealed in Jesus Christ could possibly have ordered the elimination of the Amalekites. In my view discussions of definitions of love, covenant, and spiritualisation of the story in a number of posts have tended to obscure the reality of the indiscriminate dismemberment and disembowelment of women and children, let alone men and animals, systematically hacked to death by swords and knives etc.. That's what the story is about, and what has to be addressed. It's about blood and guts not semantic definitions and inner spirituality.
Where I would take issue with you is where you write I see the Amalekites as representing something inside me that I need to wipe out, not as representing anything in other people that I need to do anything about. Can I suggest (a) that the Amalekites are not an evil that need to be wiped out, and (b) that the Amalekites are other people you need to do something about, but not in the manner ordered by Samuel? They are the Ninevites who so concerned the God of Jonah, and the Gentiles turned into God's friends in Paul's letters.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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Thank you, Kwesi. That helps me understand how my post came across. I understand your suggestions and agree that they are the way Christ would have us treat all people. I also agree that Christ revealed to us a God who could never have ordered the elimination of the Amalekites. I'm not convinced that I need to give up my way of reading the Old Testament, but you have helped me understand the problems it can cause when I try to argue that it has divine authority.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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W Hyatt, thank you for your gracious reply. I think it important to remember that for Christians it is Christ who is the measure of all things, and that includes scripture, both Old and New Testaments. As Paul reminds us: 'God's secret is Christ himself. He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God's wisdom and knowledge.' (Col. 2: 2a-3).
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Kwesi, re: your view on semantics. Semantics and meaning are crucial here, even though they are by no means the only issue. They cannot be swept under the carpet. This is because:
* Ultimately this thread has been about one's view of God.
* One's view of God is determined by one's view of the Messiah, Jesus.
* One's view of Jesus is mediated by the bible – and therefore by one's view of the bible.
* The bible is wordy.
* The only criterion I have seen on this thread (and elsewhere when this discussion opens up) in support of rejecting certain passages of the bible is that of 'love.'
* Now as soon as that word was used as a criterion, it becomes absolutely necessary to define that word. Failure to do so risks a distortion of meaning – as anyone who has had their words taken out of context will tell you!
* A distorted meaning will lead to a distorted understanding of the bible, ergo of Jesus, ergo of God.
* That, in turn, will distort one's way of living.
Semantics is everything in this context. It will determine the course of faith and life one leads, whether one realises it or not.
Here, it seems to me, it's now either a case of accepting that 'love' in the bible does not mean what you want it to mean, or of seeking a new criterion to use. When this stage is reached the only recourse tends to fall back on something that amounts to little more than gut-feeling: the biblical record on blood and guts doesn't 'feel' right. Is that because we have been brought up in a time of human rights and universal declarations? Is that the presupposition that drives the gut feeling? What is the presupposition? What is the evidence?
Alternatively, one can argue that it is the Spirit that leads us in deciding on the truth. That's a whole new argument, worthy of a thread in its own right, but it only leads us back to the relationship to Jesus and from there to the bible – back where we are now.
I've pointed out that the bible is consistent in its approach on the balance between 'love' and judgement. The criterion of love – and therefore the criterion of God – demands that we take seriously genocide in the NT as well. I have always been interested to see what criterion is used to lever those passages out of the way.
Additionally, as pointed out before, the 'love' criterion fails to answer questions raised about canon, tradition, and community. As you can see, this whole debate involves far more than an approach to a few passages in 1 Samuel 15. The implications run far and wide!
On a separate note, I know that there must be a number of issues that W Hyatt won't see eye to eye with me on over the interpretations and readings I end up with, but we both have in common a belief that the Bible has a consistency across all its pages. This doesn't trump individual human styles when writing, but if the assorted human writers see a common thread across the ages, even if they express it in different ways, then surely that consistency is a factor that has to be taken into consideration when seeking knowledge of God and how God wants us to live?
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
To my mind genocide can't ever be excused. It is immoral. Full stop. And a moral God would be a monster to stoop to that level.
It's a common and understandable argument for rejecting those parts of the bible, but these days everything needs to be justified; full stops don't hack it any more!
RE: the evidential points you helpfully raise.
[1] The cross as an example of non-retaliatory action. The cross means quite a few things, but one of them is the aspect brought out by Luke at Jesus' trial (22:69) - “From now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God”, which puts the whole crucifixion event in line with Daniel's vision (chapter 7) of the setting up of a court of judgement, with God as the senior Judge, and then one like a Son of Man approaching in vindication. It is extremely hard to extract 'love' in action from the purpose of that action – to pave the way for justice.
[2] Overcoming evil with good. Again it's worth placing this in context because although Paul talks about love in this section (Romans 12:9-21) he does so with these comments alongside:
“Hate what is evil”
“Leave room for God's wrath”
However we cut it, we cannot divorce 'love' from judgement. Overcoming evil with good can, in this context, mean not being overcome by evil (which is what Paul says in v.21), but remaining loyal to God and not giving in to any desires to be disloyal. There is a line in the sand that God marks out, across which he will not permit people to cross without sanction. There is room for love, yes, but always within bounds. The bible is consistent about that.
[3] Covenant loyalty and massacre as being un-Christian. Sadly this cuts both ways. If the bible is consistent about linking 'love' with judgement, then surely anything that cuts out the latter part of that equation is, in fact, un-Christian. It may be religious, but it cannot be Christian. As mentioned in earlier posts, the weight of evidence is important here. Which aspect is more biblical? More on this below under the image of God theme.
[4] Land as a gift – taken from the possessor. We probably need to address this in a separate thread, as it is a big subject that risks stalling the current topic. I'm also not sure whether Kerygmania would be the appropriate place for it, as Land is as much a theological battleground as biblical. A biblical response, though (and very briefly) would have to take account of Land – all land – as possessed by God, and the role of humans as God's image in it. It's a good starting point.
[5] God as Father of all humans. Absolutely no issue with this. It's biblical, consistently biblical. On its own, however, I don't see how it can get us to universal acceptance without constraint. Even the prodigal son had to return before his Father met him. The Father in that parable did not travel to the far land to try and convince his wayward son by sheer love to return with him. I can only here refer back to what I said before: 'love' is presented in the bible as a conditional offer.
[6] Arguments against 'love' stem from a false presupposition: that Scripture is inspired. Thus far I have attempted to prove only that the text that has been transmitted down the centuries is consistent. I've deliberately avoided any reference to inspiration, inerrancy or any other inn on the way. This is because such arguments do not cut ice with non-Christians and I have tended over the years to focus more on the missional aspect of biblical defence, rather than the 'churchy.' In any event, the argument that belief in inspiration will colour one's interpretation is, I'm sure, correct. This does not prove, though, that such belief necessarily distorts interpretation. The colour may turn out to be the right pigment all the way through the cloth. It may equally be argued that a lack of belief in inspiration will distort one's interpretation, because, after all, one would not want to see in the text a God who does not conform to one's own image.
[7] The revelation of God in Christ is definitive. I hope I've answered this sufficiently in earlier posts with reference to the fact that God's revelation in Christ includes judgement. All else must then be evaluated with that in mind as well.
[8] Humans are the image of God – and worth dignity. The image of God theme is one of my favourite watering holes! The image of 'image' in the ancient Near East had less to do with dignity (that was merely good manners) and much more to do with the role of ruling under a higher suzerain. The junior ruler was described as being in the image of his overlord. He was to rule as though the overlord was doing the ruling. This snaps into place with the role given to Adam and Eve in the Garden, to rule creation. Paul understood it this way, too, when he described the role Jesus had/has as God's image (Colossians 1:15-23). It wasn't about worth or dignity (God had that anyway), but was about just rulership (for those who continue in the faith, that is).
Of interest here in respect of 'image' (to pick up point [3] above) is the role of the bible in all this. If Christ is the perfect image of God, is our point of contact for defining the way we live (and what we believe), and if the predominant route of access to this Christ is via the record in the bible, then is not the bible the “image of the image” (to coin a phrase)? And if we rely on that bible to gain understanding of the image, then surely we need to ensure we have as correct an interpretation as possible in case we distort the image?
[9] God loves all with the same indiscriminate love. Again, I've answered that in earlier posts. There is a discrimination at the point of acceptance, according to the record. Some return, some don't. Indiscriminate love applies at the point of offer.
[10] Amalek is as equal in God's sight as any other being. Yes, that is consistent with Paul's assertions (neither male or female, slave nor free....), though this has to be seen in the context of God's offer. All are one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26-29) if they belong to Christ Jesus. God does not offer salvation on the basis of partisanship, but does distinguish between those who follow Abraham, and those who do not when it comes to who accepts the offer.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Posted by Nigel M
"Here, it seems to me, it's now either a case of accepting that 'love' in the bible does not mean what you want it to mean, or of seeking a new criterion to use. "
Am I missing a trick here?
It is often said that those who use the criterion of 'love' do so because they want to believe in a 'nice' God. And to remove all the offensive genocidal material.
Not so. There is nothing 'nice' about the Love incarnate in Christ. I would much prefer not being commanded to love my enemies. Nor do I prefer being told to offer an unlimited forgiveness ( 70 x 7). And I dont find it comfortable to know that love absorbs evil into itself (thus transmuting it) rather than retaliates.
The fact that to love is a command to do rather than feel not only removes it from the emotional context, transferring it to the volitional, but makes it that much harder.
That kind of 'niceness' does not fit with my predelictions. If I really wanted a 'nice' God I would look and believe elsewhere.
But the fact remains for me. The 'love' which I see incarnate in Jesus precludes all semblance of eliminating ones enemies by massacaring them.
And why, I ask, does the Bible have to be consistent in its message from Joshua to Jesus? It isn't.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Nigel M's last post crossed with mine.
It raises an issue.
I do not say that love excludes judgement. But Nigel seems to identify judgement with condemnation and punishment which, IMO, is quite wrong.
Moreover there is a sense in which John's gospel (Ch 3) gets to the heart of the matter. He says that there is a judgement but then makes it clear that it is a judgement we bring upon ourselves rather than one inflicted upon us.
And, when it comes to punishment, I believe we are punished BY our sins and not FOR our sins.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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I agree about the 'nice' bit, shamwari; I'm not sure the bible even has a word for 'nice.' I doubt even the most loyal of loyal subjects would ever have described a suzerain as 'nice'!
John 3:16-18 makes the point – in addition to the loving giving of God's Son – that those who do not believe are condemned. Again, the context of love is always shot through with limitation. I would qualify your conclusion that people are punished BY their sin: sin, after all, is inanimate, but the person who deliberately rebels against God (which the meaning of 'sin') is condemned by God. The sin is just the output of that person's decision. I agree 'judgement' is not the same as 'condemnation' (thought the word can mean that in places in the bible). More often the process is presented as judgement which may mean a guilty or a not guilty verdict.
I'm not pulling a doom and gloom message because that's all I believe, but it is sometimes necessary to state something clearly so that it balances an imbalance. The balance is that God sent his Son into the world to make a universal offer. However the outcome is twofold: salvation and condemnation. It's really hard to see otherwise when all the texts are in. This is exactly the same process that applies to herem. The offer is made and if rejected then there is condemnation.
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
And, when it comes to punishment, I believe we are punished BY our sins and not FOR our sins.
And who created that cause and effect world in the first place?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
And, when it comes to punishment, I believe we are punished BY our sins and not FOR our sins.
And who created that cause and effect world in the first place?
The cause-and-effect world in which babies are killed in earthquakes not of their own making? What's your point?
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
And, when it comes to punishment, I believe we are punished BY our sins and not FOR our sins.
And who created that cause and effect world in the first place?
The cause-and-effect world in which babies are killed in earthquakes not of their own making? What's your point?
1. Most of the time we are punished BY other people's sins.
2. God made this cause-and-effect world in the first place so if he made it in such a way that we are punished BY our sins then he is still the first cause.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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As I understand it, Nigel M is resistant to the notion that there is a paradigm shift between Samuel's understanding of God and that of later prophets and the New Testament. In Nigel's view his critics are mistaken because they have an inadequate understanding of 'love', and have an aversion to the harsher aspects judgement.
Even if one accepts that there are circumstances in which it is necessary to bash out a baby's brains against a stone, there remain fundamentaL problems between judgement in Samuel and the NT.
In Samuel 15 the Amalekites of the day are to be punished not for their own sins but for those of their ancestors, and the punishment is collective. In the New Testament the principle is that it is no longer the case that 'the parents have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge'. The notion of individual guilt and personal responsibility underpin condemnation to fire and brimstone, and a saint is not disadvantaged by the failings of an ancestor.
What amazes me about this discussion is that if the treatment of the Amalekites was recounted in any other context than the bible it would not cross any Christian mind to defend such primitive behaviour. If one's approach to scripture leads one into defending what God-given natural justice regards as indefensible, one is entitled to ask whether the problem lies with that approach.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Agreed Kwesi. Similarly, would anyone today get away with pleading "God told me to" when had up on a charge of attempted murder?
Somehow it is acceptable in the case of Abraham.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi
Even if one accepts that there are circumstances in which it is necessary to bash out a baby's brains against a stone...
Are you referring to Psalm 137? If so, I don't think this can be interpreted as an instruction from God. I'm not sure it's even a human intention. I think it is someone venting anger by proposing actions that he does not intend to carry out. It's a simple expression of rage.
Remember that while Samuel purports to be history, Psalms does not.
Moo
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Moo, of course you are correct with regards to Psalm 137. I merely used that phrase because it was appropriate to what Samuel claimed God was recommending re the Amalekites.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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It's worth having a bit of a recap here because the discussion has a habit of drifting. If I have understood the arguments correctly (beginning on page one of this thread), then I think they can be boiled down thusly:-
Assertion one was: Much of the text (the bible) does not reflect the character of God.
In support of this assertion, two supporting assertions were made:-
Assertion two was: The character of God is perfectly revealed in the character of Jesus.
Assertion three was: the character of Jesus is incompatible with much of the text (i.e., the text is un-Christlike).
If assertions two and three are correct, if would follow that assertion one is correct.
This could be set out diagrammatically by way of an equilateral triangle, three corners 'A', 'B', and 'C'. It could be so set out, but I have not idea how to do so with the formatting available here, so this is where the power of your imagination comes in. Now pay attention, Class.
Let's call the apex 'A' and label it “God.” Left-hand corner (as you look at it in your imagination) 'B' is labelled “Jesus” and the third corner 'C' = “Text.” These labels are shorthand for God's character, Jesus' character, and the textual character embodied by the example of 1 Sam. 15.
You won't have failed to notice in your imagination that there are lines joining the three corners: 'A' – 'B', 'A' – 'C', and 'B' – 'C'. In this setting, assertion one above breaks the 'A' – 'C' line to make the point that there is an incompatibility (so, 'A' --/-- 'C'). The same idea applies to assertion two: it breaks 'B' – 'C' (so, 'B' --/-- 'C'). Line 'A' – 'B' however remains unbroken. If the above assertions are followed, then 'A' --/-- 'C' stands on the basis of the state of the other two lines.
I don't think I have had so much fun since Year 6 at school.
One of my queries in this discussion has been whether there is, in fact, evidence to support the 'B' --/-- 'C' line (linking “Jesus” with “Text”).
My counter-assertion is that, on the evidence provided to us in the text, line 'A' – 'C' is not in fact broken. There are a number of ways of getting to this and one of them has been to make the point that 'B' – 'C' is not broken. Following the triangular logic, if 'B' – 'C' stands unbroken, then so does 'A' – 'C'.
Ok. Letting the image of a triangle disappear in the puff of reality, this boils down to the fact that you can't there (assertion one) from here (assertion three). I've no problem with assertion two, so I'll leave that on the shelf.
Basically, the evidence does not support assertion one. The character of Jesus involved far more than was being assumed, and therefore the character of God involved more.
The evidence from the record does support the view that both God (and Jesus) have a consistent approach to creation – one that is maintained throughout the record itself. That record – the entire text of the bible – are the data. It has to be accounted for. Some of the data, in fact a major proportion, deal with aspects of justice and judgement. They are not ruled out of the biblical text at any point, they do not die away, they have to be accounted for. The compilation of the data attests to the fact that generations of thinking people regarded each and every part of the texts as important and coherent. The output was not only consistent internally, it fitted with the external worldview of covenant. Even the words 'love' and 'mercy' fit within that context.
Now note that in all this I have not discussed whether and / or how the herem principle might be applicable to Christians today. That is entirely another subject and another triangle. This discussion is about the character of God. Perhaps another thread is needed about the significance and applicability of the herem passages in both the Old and New Testaments, but before that it would be necessary to accept that herem is indeed compatible with the character of God across the whole bible.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Nigel M, I have faithfully copied out the diagram you describe in your post!
IMO you have complicated a rather simple question: To what extent does the bible reveal the character of God?
Your critics start from a Trinitarian position that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and follow the kind of theology set out explicitly in John's Gospel that the Father and Son are one. (The danger of your triangle, by the way, is that it appears to separate God and Jesus).
It would seem to follow, therefore, that those parts of the bible which tell us about Jesus are the most reliable in describing what God (Father, Son and Spirit) is like. Consequently, the Gospels, principally, followed by the rest of the New Testament are closest to telling us what the Godhead is like. (Personally, I would have certain reservations about Revelation, as it is difficult to interpret, and it was touch and go whether it was to be included in the first place). Moving to the Old Testament, those parts which are most compatible with what we know of Jesus from the NT, such as the servant passages of Isaiah, also command especial respect. (Isaiah 53, for example, was almost certainly a central part of the discussion on the Road to Emmaus, and critical in the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip). It seems not unreasonable to conclude from these examples that the early Christians placed varying importance on various parts of the OT text.
Your critics in this post, therefore, would not deny that there is an essential link between the text, the bible, and our understanding of the Godhead, but would argue that the text is not the integrated unity you seek the present, and that there are parts of the Old Testament which are egregiously sub-Christian and incompatible with the Christian revelation. More charitably, the OT might be regarded as a spiritual journey begun by Abraham leading to the manifestation of God in Jesus.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
:
My simplistic premiss: Jesus is the humanized person of God who ordered the temporally merciless killing of every Amelekite man, woman and child. Who swallowed Dathan and Abiram with the maw of the earth and any who stood with them. Who stayed his wrath against Israel due to Phinehas' butchery of the lovers in the Heresy of Peor. Who drowned the Earth. Who nuked the five Cities of the Plain after negotiating with Abraham. Who assassinated Ananias and Sapphira for being financially prudent. Consumed Herod with worms for accepting grandiose praise. Zotted some poor guy for steadying the Ark. Warned the disciples not to fear being martyred more than fearing Him who can annihilate them forever.
Who abandoned His race to rain as black fat over Belsen.
Is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Gut curdlingly pragmatic. Insouciant with human lives since creating them and letting a supernatural egotist loose on them: Prior to the Resurrection life is cheap.
The Amelekites' next conscious moment is in full family reunion after a bit of a hoolie, with NO hangover in Paradise, along with the final inhabitants of Sodom.
We judge God in our holier than He liberalism and He STILL lifts us ALL up to Himself regardless of what depraved little psychos we've ALL been. Somewhat exacerbated, catalysed by a supernatural psycho admittedly. Cosmic aversion therapy. The next time He says, 'Believe me. Trust me.' we'll ALL wipe His feet with our tears of gratitude,
Human suffering is mind robbing. We all pose for Edvard Munch often. Until we're the thing being looked at.
There is obviously NO other way. Because if there's a God - and their obviously, empirically is - He'd do it nice and nice. But He CAN'T.
Ther is no other way including the way of submitting Himself to our inevitable insanity to clean that slate. In OUR minds.
Love is sovereign. Love goes through the twelve step recovery program of its justice and restitution with us. In the Resurrection. Come Judgement Day. That's called the gospel. That's our job. Tell it.
When the gurgling of Amalekite babies will join with those of a third of one hundred billion souls - the average age of humanity at death being four. Let alone the three quarters of humanity that died before they breathed air.
God DIED for the Amelekite babies He ordered slaughtered.
What's the problem ?
We think we could have done better ?
Jesus !
[ 01. July 2010, 21:22: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on
:
I think your triangle diagram does put the argument into concrete terms for what is a abstract concept. However, I would also add that the connection bewteen Jesus (B) and the Bible (C) is not broken but actually paramount to Jesus' whole character. He was a Jew of the first century and as the Gospels portray him, well steeped in the Torah and did not change 'one dot or tittle'.
The connection of Jesus to God, if not actually 'begotten' or not was essentially an extreme closeness to God, a true reflection of the infinite. That connection per the triangle may be argued as 'true' or 'unbelievable' but it does stand as being as being essential to following in his path.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
IMO you have complicated a rather simple question: To what extent does the bible reveal the character of God?
I think that is the question acting as an umbrella over the holy huddle underneath here. What I see has been happening is that, in order to answer that question, we have had to first locate a criterion or criteria that we can work with to get from the word 'bible' in that question to the word 'God.' We need something against which we can measure the sliding scale of 'extent.' Yes, we've looked at Jesus and also separately at the concept of 'love' as possible criteria. I should clarify that I am quite content with the trinitarian model, but I am aware that not all are. Perhaps using the model of Jesus as the 'image' of God for the purposes of this discussion is more comfortable for some (not sure if that is what IconiumBound was getting at?).
With respect to the four Gospels as a witness to the character of Jesus, the links to our OT go much wider than just a few passages. I'd argue for the pretty much the entire Jewish Scripture corpus available to Jesus and his followers as being part of “all the Scriptures” that Jesus interpreted in, e.g, Luke 24:27 and 44-45, where Luke refers to “Beginning with Moses and the Prophets...” and “the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” To my mind, this was a way of saying the entire collection of scrolls – Torah, Prophets, and Writings. That doesn't necessarily mean each and every verse was plucked out by Jesus for explanation (“Here's one of me on Mount Sinai – and one of me scaling the walls of Hazor...”), but there was a mix of set texts and wider principles.
It seems that Jesus' approach to the Jewish Scriptures caught on and was understood by his followers. Matthew – to take just one of the gospellers – has about 55 direct quotations from the OT, in addition to numerous allusions. I'm sure a canter through an analysis of the OT use in the NT (e.g., Beale and Carson's Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament) would flesh it out quite well. No doubt there are peaks in usage in the NT - Isaiah is a favourite hunting ground, but even Isaiah comments quite a bit on the Torah, so threads are always running.
With regard to the book of Revelation, Jesus himself quotes from Daniel 7 which plays a significant role in the background to Revelation.
All in all, I think it's fair to say on the basis of the evidence that Jesus took seriously all of the Jewish Scriptures. There's no hint that I can see of him dividing and ruling texts; rather he sets about interpreting them all. The OT is compatible with Christian revelation – again, according to the evidence.
I understand that there is discomfort with certain texts. I just can't agree, on the basis of the evidence, that there is a discontinuity in the character of God. To get back to the question: “To what extent does the bible reveal the character of God?” the answer would be “Sufficiently and consistently.”
The issue that arises from that would be, “What then is my stance over against the bible?” Three key options apply here, I think:
[1] Accept it all;
[2] Reject it all; or
[3] Cut out certain parts.
Each option raises yet more questions which would need tackling, e.g.,
[1] How then do I live in the light of this record? How do I apply all those texts that sit uncomfortably with me?
[2] What system am I know going to use in order to know God and how he wants me to live? What justification would I use for rejecting the bible, when faced with Creed and Community?
[3] What criteria do I use for this? How would I justify that criteria?
Anyway – I must pause there, though I would like to come back later when I get a chance to Kwesi's earlier point about the Amalekites being punished for the sins of their ancestors, compared to the later principle combating 'the parents have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge'. That's a good point and I would love to take a look at it.
Nigel
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
My simplistic premiss: Jesus is the humanized person of God who ordered the temporally merciless killing of every Amelekite man, woman and child. Who swallowed Dathan and Abiram with the maw of the earth and any who stood with them. Who stayed his wrath against Israel due to Phinehas' butchery of the lovers in the Heresy of Peor. Who drowned the Earth. Who nuked the five Cities of the Plain after negotiating with Abraham. Who assassinated Ananias and Sapphira for being financially prudent. Consumed Herod with worms for accepting grandiose praise. Zotted some poor guy for steadying the Ark. Warned the disciples not to fear being martyred more than fearing Him who can annihilate them forever.
Who abandoned His race to rain as black fat over Belsen.
Is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Gut curdlingly pragmatic. Insouciant with human lives since creating them and letting a supernatural egotist loose on them: Prior to the Resurrection life is cheap.
The Amelekites' next conscious moment is in full family reunion after a bit of a hoolie, with NO hangover in Paradise, along with the final inhabitants of Sodom.
We judge God in our holier than He liberalism and He STILL lifts us ALL up to Himself regardless of what depraved little psychos we've ALL been. Somewhat exacerbated, catalysed by a supernatural psycho admittedly. Cosmic aversion therapy. The next time He says, 'Believe me. Trust me.' we'll ALL wipe His feet with our tears of gratitude,
Human suffering is mind robbing. We all pose for Edvard Munch often. Until we're the thing being looked at.
There is obviously NO other way. Because if there's a God - and their obviously, empirically is - He'd do it nice and nice. But He CAN'T.
Ther is no other way including the way of submitting Himself to our inevitable insanity to clean that slate. In OUR minds.
Love is sovereign. Love goes through the twelve step recovery program of its justice and restitution with us. In the Resurrection. Come Judgement Day. That's called the gospel. That's our job. Tell it.
When the gurgling of Amalekite babies will join with those of a third of one hundred billion souls - the average age of humanity at death being four. Let alone the three quarters of humanity that died before they breathed air.
God DIED for the Amelekite babies He ordered slaughtered.
What's the problem ?
We think we could have done better ?
Jesus !
There are things about God we don't know but look away from the Amalekites to Hezekiah.
He was attacked by Assyria, God rescued him. He prayed when he was dying. God healed him and extended his life. In this a master plan was combined with a personal touch of love.
I think God is both kind and dangerous.
Jesus.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
The Hezekiah incident is a red herring.
He was heir to the Nathan promise in 2 Sam 7 that Davids Kingdom was unconditionally guaranteed for all time. A dangerous promise which fitted nationalistic aspirations perfectly.
When plague struck the Assyrian army and they packed their bags for home Hezekiah saw in this the unconditiional guarantee fulfilled.
The other prophets stood in the Mosaic covenant tradition which was far from unconditional.
[ 03. July 2010, 09:04: Message edited by: shamwari ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
:
What's your point shamwari ?
To have God on your side is nearly as dangerous as having Him against you ?
We don't like Him. At all. Unless we're King David on a rare good day. When He kills the right people for us.
He doesn't care.
He loves us ALL any way. Every last AmAlekite baby.
How will we ALL feel about Him standing before Him in Paradise ? Knee deep in babies ?
He has killed ALL of us one way or another, whether by continued mortality from Eden, by changing His mind: drowning the world and other quantitatively very rare but qualitatively terrifyingly significant direct interventions and directions.
He has killed us ALL to save us.
Could He have been 'nicer', more 'moral' about it ?
Ohhhh, perhaps He WAS but we just misinterpreted His in/actions ? He's just this Guy waiting for us to evolve to rhetorical perfection. How advanced the great and good of this site are in that! How cool. Sorry about all the pain and madness and blood and and cruelty and oppression and horror and helplessness and mindless injustice guys, shrug. I'm just this Guy.
In other words if He WERE moral in our nice, deluded, liberal, modern, aberrant self image theodicy is at least just as difficult.
How does one reconcile God being prefectly morally nice and our experience ?
Unreal isn't it ? That such a nice Guy is as constrained by evolution as the pagan-Calvinist God is constrained by His meaningless 'Sovereignty'.
Funny how those Gods meet at the top.
Happy Judgement Day.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Is it somewhat surprising that our discussion on the sovereignty of God has not included a consideration of Job?
As we recall, in answer to his wife's command to 'Curse God and die', Jonah says, 'Shall we not receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' (Job 2: 9-10). Now there may be a problem of translation, but there seems to be a clear indication that God, at least from our perspective, is capable of evil. More securely, the book as a whole questions the capacity and presumption of humans to second guess the Almight'y ways.
A defense of the treatment of the Amalekites from this approach would be that those, like myself, who regard it as a great evil are judging God in pride and ignorance.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
I have no idea what you are saying Martin PC - but I can see that you are very angry in saying it.
What is making you so angry, could you be clearer?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
:
You ain't seen me angry Boogie! ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
) I do ion-ee. Inadequacy. Curmudgeonliness. And guerilla fly fishing. Clarity doesn't come in to it: all will be revealed regardless.
Love is Sovereign.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
In Samuel 15 the Amalekites of the day are to be punished not for their own sins but for those of their ancestors, and the punishment is collective. In the New Testament the principle is that it is no longer the case that 'the parents have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge'. The notion of individual guilt and personal responsibility underpin condemnation to fire and brimstone, and a saint is not disadvantaged by the failings of an ancestor.
In a way the fact that there was a generational gap between the Amaleks who harassed the Hebrews in the wilderness by picking off the weak and the stragglers (Deut. 25:17-19) and the Amaleks who were placed under the herem (1 Sam. 15:3) doesn't really take us much further, because we are still faced with the issue that God is credited with being the author of the policy to kill all.
Still, is it the case that the Amalek of Saul's day were punished for the sins of their ancestors without regard to their current stance? If the new generation were 'saints', would they still have been destroyed? There does on the face of it appear to have been a blanket decree against Amalek: Exodus 17:14-16 records a promise from God that he would “completely scratch out the very name of Amalek from the memory of the people” (my paraphrase) and that God had “declared war with Amalek for as long as it lasts.”
Now I know some will argue that these texts were written much later and were probably not rooted in real history, they were theological constructions. Even on this view, though, we are still faced with texts that have survived the critical view of generations of God's People and which allocate responsibility for destruction to God. Anyway, I'm going to stick with the text as is, even if it is 'narrative' time rather than 'historical' time, so this may be the time for others to wander off and dead-head the roses for a while.
Ex. 17 gives us a picture of Yahweh as a warrior-king, something 1 Sam. 15 picks up on with its description of Yahweh as the head of the military forces, a Chief of the General Staff, (Yahweh Tsev'ot), a title that appears regularly in Samuel / Kings and, interestingly, regularly in Isaiah and Jeremiah.
The record is that Amalek had been a thorn in the side of Israel for some time, right down to the time Saul took them on. In fact, they continued to be a problem thereafter. 1 Samuel 14:48 indicates that Amalek had been plundering Israel and that warfare was already under way before the incident in 1 Sam 15. So they weren't saints.
So what about Jeremiah and Ezekiel? Both of them challenge the popular cynicism that if the father of a household puts himself under stress, he takes it out on the rest of the family (Jer. 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18. No doubt a good quip to extract a chuckle from the villagers sitting under the tree in the middle of their village, but also now being used as an argument against what was happening to them politically: “Isn't this just the same,” you can hear them saying, “with God? Isn't he punishing us at the hands of the Babylonians when the real culprits were our predecessors? Why are we getting it in the neck just because God had a contretemps with our fathers?”
May I suggest that the quip the prophets' focussed on was not a summary of the theological character of God in previous times. It was only a popular proverb. What the two prophets are doing is combating the association of that little piece of human psychological observation to God. God is rejecting the claim that he is – or had ever been – a God who judged individuals on the basis of their ancestors' proclivities. In Ezekiel's fuller treatment of the argument, God makes the point that he prefers the wicked to turn from rebellion rather than be killed. This is not presented as a new policy; it is how he is. Jeremiah certainly maintains this alongside the 'Yahweh-as-Military-Chief' image (Jer. 31:35).
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
What amazes me about this discussion is that if the treatment of the Amalekites was recounted in any other context than the bible it would not cross any Christian mind to defend such primitive behaviour. If one's approach to scripture leads one into defending what God-given natural justice regards as indefensible, one is entitled to ask whether the problem lies with that approach.
The problem is not with the behaviour, which frankly has a long history across the ages, but that it is somehow compatible with the character of God. If there had been no such attribution in the biblical record, Christians today would do no more than lump it together with the likes of David's sexual indiscretions as being something to demonstrate the humanness of all heroes.
Incidentally, where did the 'natural justice' argument suddenly come from??!! Surely nature demands we get by “red in tooth and claw”!!!
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Nigel M, are you seeking to deny that the Amalekites were to be eliminated because of the sins of their ancestors, and that the judgement wasn't collective?
You ask the question,' Still, is it the case that the Amalek of Saul's day were punished for the sins of their ancestors without regard to their current stance?' Well, following your maxim, 'I'm going to stick with the text as is,' my answer is 'Yes, that's what the text unequivocally says.' The fact that the Amalekites were causing trouble at the time may enter into the political context but not the judicial pretext.
Your remark, 'May I suggest that the quip [about the parents eating sour grapes....] the prophets' focussed on was not a summary of the theological character of God in previous times,' is simply not tenable. As you, yourself, demonstrate there existed a continuing decree against Amalek (Exodus 17: 14-16), and judgements 'unto the umpteenth generation' were quite a feature of the early books of the OT.
I found your statement, 'The problem is not with the behaviour, which frankly has a long history across the ages, but that it is somehow compatible with the character of God. If there had been no such attribution in the biblical record, Christians today would do no more than lump it together with the likes of David's sexual indiscretions as being something to demonstrate the humanness of all heroes,' both astounding and somewhat confusing. To put genocide on a moral par with sexual indiscretion is quite unacceptable. When you say, 'The problem is...that it is somehow compatible with the character of God,' what do you mean? I would agree it is a problem if you think genocide is compatible with the character of God. Or do you mean genocide is difficult for Christians to defend? If it is, I'm more than happy!
Respecting 'natural justice', I was careful to use the pre-fix 'God-given' . God-given natural justice is based on a knowledge of God which is know to both Gentiles and Jews. (Romans 1:19).
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
:
Genocide is obviously fully compatible with Love.
Love has no problem with it.
We do.
There'd be something wrong with us if we didn't.
So what's special about God committing genocide ?
If He hadn't done that then drowning the world would be OK ?
Nuking the Cities of the Plain would be OK ?
Causing unimaginable suffering and pain and terror and grief to Egypt was OK ?
Plaguing and burning and burying alive Israelite rebels would be OK ?
Assassinating Ananias and Sapphira would be OK ?
Butchering an Asian army of two hundred million will be OK ?
Posted by Pooks (# 11425) on
:
I am rather bemused by the modern sensitivities being displayed on this thread to the wars that were recorded in the Biblical texts. It seems to me that to use the term ‘genocide’ and apply it to these records is somewhat missing the context and the point of what these Biblical texts are about. The purpose of the Bible was and is primarily theological, not moral - although morality does comes into it. The Bible exists for the propagation of faith in Yahweh. Whether the writers rightly or wrongly attributed the atrocities to God or not, their primary concern was to make the theological point that God is sovereign over all and he is faithful to his people.
I find it rather baffling that anyone who thinks the God who sent Jesus - a human being - to the cross to die a brutal death, is a God of love and worthy of praise; can also think that this same God is somehow morally reprehensible because he was prepared to help his faithful people to win wars. Blood was spilled in both cases, presumably the difference is in numbers. But since the argument is based on the moral ground of killing the innocent, I can see no difference in the character of the OT God and the NT one. The way I see it, the Bible has its own set of moral codes. Holiness and faithfulness were two that all things were measured by, which does not necessarily gel with the way we think today. On balance, I think it is better to read the text in its own light rather than impose our own morality into the text and make it into something that it is not.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pooks:
The purpose of the Bible was and is primarily theological, not moral - although morality does comes into it.
Then you will have to throw out the prophets, and the Psalms, at the very least. Proverbs too, I think. All of these are concerned very much with justice -- a branch of morality -- rather than theology. Actually there's precious little theology in Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel --- in fact when you take the Bible as a whole (even the Protestant subset), theology is rather thin on the ground. It's mostly about history (and that's mostly in terms of God's favouritism vis-a-vis the Jews) and justice. Theology comes big into play in the gospel of John and the NT epistles, of course. But when God is described or invoked in the OT, it's very often if not mostly in the context of a cry for (or thanks for, or justification for, or description of) justice or favouritism.
Posted by Pooks (# 11425) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Pooks:
The purpose of the Bible was and is primarily theological, not moral - although morality does comes into it.
Then you will have to throw out the prophets, and the Psalms, at the very least. Proverbs too, I think. All of these are concerned very much with justice -- a branch of morality -- rather than theology. Actually there's precious little theology in Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel --- in fact when you take the Bible as a whole (even the Protestant subset), theology is rather thin on the ground. It's mostly about history (and that's mostly in terms of God's favouritism vis-a-vis the Jews) and justice. Theology comes big into play in the gospel of John and the NT epistles, of course. But when God is described or invoked in the OT, it's very often if not mostly in the context of a cry for (or thanks for, or justification for, or description of) justice or favouritism.
Good morning, Mouse. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I don’t disagree with you if you define theology along the lines of what we find in John’s gospel. I also agree with you that there are many different genres in the Bible. But I am thinking of theology as how people express their understanding of God; people use different genres to do that. The Psalms are full of people talking about God. The OT writers talked about the Lord and the ‘Way of the Lord‘. By the ‘Way of the Lord’ they mean how they were to live each day (i.e. morality) according to their understanding of the Lord and not anyone else. In other words, morality is secondary to the discussion of the Lord, (i.e. theology).
I hope that clarifies what I was getting at.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
I think that morality is subsequent to a discussion about the Lord, not secondary. The two are inextricably linked.
So why not lets just go out and obey 1 Sam 15.?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
:
Why, are we Saul and it's 1000 B.C.?
And you're absolutely right the Lord IS morality.
[ 06. July 2010, 13:14: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
I wouldn't go so far as to say the Lord is morality (in part because I'm not sure what that means), but I don't think you can slide such a wide sabre between theology and ethics in the Bible. God is hardly talked about without talking about morality. "Hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord alone!" theology, is immediately followed with, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, etc." In the decalogue, you get theology (and a big heaping of favouritism), "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," followed immediately with a bunch of rules.
In the Psalms you can hardly stand on a description of what God is like (theology) without being in spitting distance of several pleas for God to act to enforce morality or show favouritism.
There is no shortage of descriptions of what God is like (theology) in the OT. Granted. But there is a metric buttload of pleas for, descriptions of, or exhortations to morality, and pleas, descriptions, and thanks for favouritism. I'm just saying that saying the Bible is mostly theology is overstating it.
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on
:
Well, I'm back, and trying to catch up! I find Nigel M's monster post in response to shamwari above very constructive. If I could just pull out one point, it would be:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
[5] God as Father of all humans. Absolutely no issue with this. It's biblical, consistently biblical. On its own, however, I don't see how it can get us to universal acceptance without constraint. Even the prodigal son had to return before his Father met him. The Father in that parable did not travel to the far land to try and convince his wayward son by sheer love to return with him. I can only here refer back to what I said before: 'love' is presented in the bible as a conditional offer.
In the parable of the prodigal son, was Jesus' point that the father did not start loving the son until he returned? I would rather put it that that father's love for the son remained constant, notwithstanding the actions of the son, but that reconciliation was only achieved when the son returned. I view your point about covenant being one of relationship - which can be broken by the son - not of conditional love, which is somehow 'turned on and off' by the father: an image I find somewhat disturbing. quote:
Can a woman's tender care
Cease toward the child she bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be,
Yet will I remember thee.
- Chris.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
:
Is morality something separate from love ?
Posted by Pooks (# 11425) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm just saying that saying the Bible is mostly theology is overstating it.
Not sure who are you replying to here, but if you were still replying to me, then what I said was the PURPOSE (as opposed to the contents) of the Bible is primarily theology.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I think that morality is subsequent to a discussion about the Lord, not secondary. The two are inextricably linked.
I would agree with you there. Except, of course, if it’s a sequence then it is secondary in a sense. The point that I was trying to make though was that morality in the Bible is subject to an understanding of the Lord (i.e. theology), while the absence of theology in today’s society means that our views of morality often do not conform to the same standard of morals and ethics. To use our standard as the measuring stick, apply it to biblical history, and then claim it’s ’genocide’ is, in my view, missing the point of what the story was about.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
So why not lets just go out and obey 1 Sam 15.?
Ok. Let’s. ...Umm, where are those wicked Amalekites again?
Joking aside, the boring answer surely is because most of us learn to read the text with its context in mind. Sure, there are lessons that we can learn from 1Sam 15, but that is not the same as taking everything that happened in the Bible as a literal command from the Lord to everybody at all times.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Nigel M, are you seeking to deny that the Amalekites were to be eliminated because of the sins of their ancestors, and that the judgement wasn't collective?
No, only to point out the whole of the context, in case it was being missed: The group under the herem were not saints. This is useful because it accords with the way Paul sets out his understanding in Romans – all have sinned. It's not that some of the Amaleks were better than others, or some were ignorant of their actions vis-a-vis the God of all creation, rather it is that no one has an excuse. Same understanding across two Testaments. I know it's an argument that has been waved around to the point of banality, but mere repetition doesn't mean a reduction in the truth of the statement.
The Amaleks were punished for the sins of their forefathers, but they were still committing those sins when Saul set his ambush.
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Your remark, 'May I suggest that the quip [about the parents eating sour grapes....] the prophets' focussed on was not a summary of the theological character of God in previous times,' is simply not tenable. As you, yourself, demonstrate there existed a continuing decree against Amalek (Exodus 17: 14-16), and judgements 'unto the umpteenth generation' were quite a feature of the early books of the OT.
How so untenable? The 'sour grapes' texts do not read as approved theological summaries any more than the saying that Jesus was confronted with about 'hate your enemies.' The saying is a proverb – a mashal – and Ezekiel's complaint is that it is no longer being applied solely to humans, but to what God was doing to the Hebrews and their land. The saying was opposed exactly because it was not an accurate summary of the character of God. Notice how Jeremiah handles it: he tackles this proverb and then refers to something new. What is new? A new character of God? A new way of dealing with the world? No – it is a reinforced knowledge of what had been there all the time. No change to content is referred to.
Just quickly on that ' umpteenth generation' point. Beware of hyperbole – some people will think you are being literalistic! A reasonably common saying in the OT was along the lines of God “punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Three or four generations was the most a man could hope to see of his offspring before he died. Punishment on the elder of the house would impact on those of all ages in the household, and the implication of the statement is that the whole house was in opposition to God. They had refused to accept him. Remember to keep this in the social context of the times (which is not actually different to large swathes of community living in the world today). A family would not wish to make a decision until they knew the way their elder was going to vote. The crucial thing to add here is the balance to the statement, which has God promising faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who accept him. And there, I think, we are entitled to let the hyperbole flow.
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I found your statement, 'The problem is not with the behaviour, which frankly has a long history across the ages, but that it is somehow compatible with the character of God. If there had been no such attribution in the biblical record, Christians today would do no more than lump it together with the likes of David's sexual indiscretions as being something to demonstrate the humanness of all heroes,' both astounding and somewhat confusing. To put genocide on a moral par with sexual indiscretion is quite unacceptable. When you say, 'The problem is...that it is somehow compatible with the character of God,' what do you mean? I would agree it is a problem if you think genocide is compatible with the character of God. Or do you mean genocide is difficult for Christians to defend? If it is, I'm more than happy!
I was distinguishing between those acts attributed to God (or at least, believed by the writers to have been authorised by God), and those which are not. I wasn't bothered to go further and adopt a sliding scale of unacceptability in the 'not from God' category. I think that would probably be a waste of time anyway, as the NT writers did not seem to do this; Paul – to hark back to the Romans point – was content to leave it at 'God is angry at all godlessness' and “...all have sinned and fall short...”
Someone once did a study among convicted offenders to ascertain how they justified their crimes. The common reply was along the lines of, “Yes, I know I did wrong, but at least what I did was not as bad as...” The researcher found out that the convicts uniformly placed child abusers at the bottom of the moral pile. It wasn't too long ago that a criticism of the Christian belief was made that the belief in God sending his Son to die was a classic example of child abuse. So all in all, I think I won't travel down the route of classifying sin according to acceptability!
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Originally posted by Kwesi:
Respecting 'natural justice', I was careful to use the pre-fix 'God-given' . God-given natural justice is based on a knowledge of God which is know to both Gentiles and Jews. (Romans 1:19).
What evidence is there that Natural Justice (NJ) is God-given? It operates on the assumption that God is a hypothesis the user has no use for. There is certainly nothing uniquely Christian about it. It isn't the same thing that Paul was talking about. He refers to creation – the visible and tangible creation – as the basis for his argument that no one is without excuse. The philosophy of NJ on the other hand starts from the a priori “We hold these truths to be self-evident”, in other words, “We haven't a shred of tangible evidence for this, but we're going to go with it anyway.”
It's certainly a third option to add to the list of criteria relating to discerning God's character:-
[1] The character of Jesus;
[2] Love; and
[2] Natural Justice.
We've still got problems with these three, though:
[1] The character of Jesus – according to the textual record – accords with the character of God in the OT;
[2] 'Love' (an English word) still needs to be defined;
[3] NJ is an external concept. One does not have to be a Christian (in fact it helps if one is not a Christian!) to rely on this concept for lifestyle guidance (even the tax collectors do that!). We would need a justification for taking this concept into Christianity for use here, though. It feels anachronistic, especially if we are taking about the developments Hobbes and his followers took. We also have to take into account the knock NJ took under Darwinianism. All rather Purgatorial, rather than Kerygmanial.
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Originally posted by shamwari:
So why not lets just go out and obey 1 Sam 15.?
To add to Pooks' post – I would say that that's the second question – but it can't really be asked until the first one about the character of God has been answered. If one accepts that the biblical record is consistent in its attribution of herem to God, then one can go on to ask that question. I've already mentioned the options available concerning one's stance towards that record and the issues that arise from that stance. Although I did say there were three options (Accept, Reject, Be Picky), I suspect that in the end it will boil down to two: Accept or Reject. I think this because I'm beginning to realise that it is going to be excessively difficult to untangle the 'love' from 'hate' passages in their contexts. Never mind trying to find a justification for doing so...
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Originally posted by sanityman:
In the parable of the prodigal son, was Jesus' point that the father did not start loving the son until he returned?
Probably not, Chris (welcome back, by the way!). I don't think there is an issue with this; the point is just that a decision to return was needed before the Father demonstrated his love in action. The love was universal, but constrained by the requirement of 'Return.'
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Said Nigel M
"I would say that that's the second question – but it can't really be asked until the first one about the character of God has been answered. "
And to my mind it has been answered once and for all and definitively.
God is like Jesus. For Jesus was God incarnate.
And no way did Jesus ( or would Jesus) have approved the elimination / genocide of His ebemies.
QED.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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He does in my Bible.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Is it somewhat surprising that our discussion on the sovereignty of God has not included a consideration of Job?
Sorry Kewsi, I forget about this.
I guess the answer would depend on how one views the reactions of Job for much of the book: is he presenting an accurate view of how to respond to God, is he presenting a wholly inaccurate view, or is he perhaps giving a view of just one side of the coin?
I think the Hebrew word translated 'evil' by some English versions in 2:10 may probably mean only 'trouble', 'calamity' or 'disaster.' That seems to be the understanding of the Greek translators of this passage in the Septuagint. Still, given the close proximity of the Satan in chapter 2, perhaps a link to him as a secondary cause was intended.
Martin makes the point on this thread that one reaction to the difficult passages in the bible is to take the lead from Yahweh in chapters 38-41: "Who are you to question me?!"
Which perhaps should be a fourth criterion...
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
He does in my Bible.
And mine, too!
The Bible shows that Jesus' character is consistent with the God of the OT. That is where the evidence leads. Where is the evidence otherwise?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Maybe I am thick.
But in what way was Jesus attitude towards his enemies consistent with God's command to Samuel?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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And maybe if I could understand what Martin PC is getting at, or where he is coming from, or what standpoint he is arguing from then I could ask an intelligent question ot make an appropriate reply.
I find his posts as unfathomable as the hieroglyphics which conclude them.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Ah well.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Ah well is hardly an answer to someone who is genuinely interested and wants to engage.
But perhaps being a deliberatly opaque non PC person is the object of the exercise.
Ah well
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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It's all right, I understand you perfectly.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Shamwari, the answer to your question But in what way was Jesus attitude towards his enemies consistent with God's command to Samuel? , is contained in Nigel M's premiss The Bible shows that Jesus' character is consistent with the God of the OT. What we and people like us treat as a testable hypothesis Nigel treats as an irrefutable assertion into which the evidence has to be shoe-horned. That assertion, ISTM, is a necessary consequence of an a priori belief in biblical inerrancy. I also share your frustrations with Martin PC's contribution. It's a bit like trying to figure out Daniel and Revelations!
Nigel M, I feel that our conversation is going round in circles without getting anywhere very much. I was not arguing that the Amalekites were saints, though we cannot exclude the possibility that perhaps one or two were and certainly the infants were assuredly innocent, merely to point out that a judge who differentiates between the guilty and the rest is different from the judge who doesn't. Your claim of support from Romans 1 for the slaughter of the Amalekites is highly problematic, because in Romans 2 Paul argues the Jews are just as bad! In that case the God of the NT would have treated Saul and his tribe no less severely than the Amalekites. It really does make a difference when God ceases to be a God of the tribe and becomes the God of all humankind. I don't think you appreciate the significance of that paradigm shift.
I can't accept your refusal to regard some sins as worse, often much worse, than others, and doubt whether you really believe that. Committing genocide is a much more serious matter than swearing or drinking too much (or at all), though, of course, all sinning is wrong. As Jesus, himself, recognised, there is a difference between a mote and a beam. I think your attitude arises out of your need to minimise the crime of genocide in order to sustain your position that OT and NT concepts of God are consistent, which is where we came in............
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Gentle Jesus said:
Matthew 8:11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 13:41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 22:13 "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Matthew 24:51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25:30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Luke 3:9 The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
Luke 13:28 "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.
Revelation. Just about ALL of it.
21:8 ...the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
Admittedly these are personal and not because one happened to be a Sodomian or an Egyptian or Amalekite. If being in a doomed army of two hundred million is personally accountable.
No matter how hyperbolic, symbolic, allegorical.
Happy Judgement Day
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
I was distinguishing between those acts attributed to God (or at least, believed by the writers to have been authorised by God), and those which are not.
I'd still be very interested in any thoughts you're willing to share about the relationship between the divine purpose and the human authorial purpose you mentioned earlier (assuming you don't mind walking into a minefield ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
).
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No matter how hyperbolic, symbolic, allegorical.
Of course it matters!
I use these figures of speech a great deal - I'm a dramatic sort of person - it doesn't mean I'm about to come round and smite your oxen.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Heyyyyyy, I was just kidding.
Satan and all the unregenerate, it's cool, you can come out now.
You guys ! Eh ? What are you like !
Happy Judgement Day.
[ 07. July 2010, 06:46: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
What we and people like us treat as a testable hypothesis Nigel treats as an irrefutable assertion into which the evidence has to be shoe-horned.
It would be too repetitious to go over everything in full again here, so I'll just post the links.
In this post I pointed out the defect in the initial assertion that character only goes one way (i.e., Jesus fully reflects God's character).
Here I set out a sample starting point of evidence in support of the counter-assertion.
Here I noted that sensitivity to context was essential when assessing the evidence. This was developed further here.
Here I pointed out the further weaknesses in the initial assertion.
Here I explained the logical route associated with the initial assertion and here tried to clarify it even further. In this post I extended the logical route associated with the initial assertion. In the second half of this post I recapped, setting out the criterion that had been offered in support of the initial assertion. I repeated there some of the issues that needed to be taken into account with each of them.
In respect of the character of Jesus I have already linked to posts showing how this goes two ways – it must include the evidence from the record that shows Jesus' character and God's character as consistent reflections. I won't bother repeating the links.
With respect to the criterion of 'love', here I pointed the need to define the criterion of 'love.' I clarified this further here in terms of a biblical definition, and further here. I used a test case as an example here.
With respect to the criterion of Natural Justice, I critiqued that for starters in the second half of this post.
I can only repeat that I am waiting for robust evidence in support of the initial assertion, or for answers to my critiques.
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
That assertion, ISTM, is a necessary consequence of an a priori belief in biblical inerrancy.
At point [6] in this post I pointed out the inadequacy of this argument. The argument works both ways and takes the discussion no further forward.
In this discussion I've concentrated on the need to supply evidence based on the publicly available data i.e., the biblical record that anyone and everyone can read for themselves. I have deliberately kept the discussion at this lower more scientific level because I am aware that not everyone reading these threads is a Christian. Even those who are Christian would not be comfortable with assertions based solely on doctrinal bases.
Perhaps we should concentrate in more depth on specific texts to see how they pan out in context. Romans has been offered as an example and although that is rather large one, we can use it as a good base from which to work.
I'm out of time again today, but will come back to this.
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I'd still be very interested in any thoughts you're willing to share about the relationship between the divine purpose and the human authorial purpose you mentioned earlier (assuming you don't mind walking into a minefield.
Definitely! that's a topic I would indeed love to explore – though perhaps it would be better to do so on a new thread given that it is rather tangential to this OP? Would you like to kick it off (if the phrase “After you” is at all appropriate for people entering a minefield...)?
Nigel
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Romans – bite size...
Chapter 1:1-17 is usually taken to be the introduction and as Paul's works follow the standard rules of rhetoric for his day it makes sense to understand his extended introduction as the place where he grabs his reader's attention by setting out the key themes he wants to explore in more detail later.
At the top of this list of themes comes the good news message that Paul had been called and set apart for (1:1). Paul gives a brief summary of the content of this good news message (1:2-4):
* It was not a new thing – it had been promised and recorded a long time before;
* It was about Jesus, the Messiah and God's Son;
* This Jesus was associated as a human with Israel's (Judah's) kingly line;
* This Jesus was also associated with the Holy Spirit by being appointed to the position of Son-of-God-in-power;
* This appointment was made on the basis of his being resurrected from death.
The purpose (aim) of the good news message was “obedience of faith” among all non-Jews (1:5-6).
After this top-line introduction, Paul extends that introduction (1:8-17), culminating in the claim that the good news message is authorised and mobilised by God, it is therefore powerful enough to achieve its purpose (aim). That aim, the “obedience of faith,” Paul now expands upon to say it involved a saving of everyone who believes (both Jew and Gentile).
Paul also makes the claim here that the good news message does something else: it brings out into the open a “righteousness of God.” Paul tags to this a direct quote from Habakkuk 2:4, confirming that the saving to life is dependent on faith.
There are a few technical phrases in there that Paul will develop and explain as writes, but at this point he has simply provided enough information to orient his readers and to tease them a bit with the promise of more to follow.
Of interest to this thread in the introduction is the link to the past, both in terms of the good news message and the person of Jesus; the status of Jesus after the resurrection; and the aim of the good news message in terms of obedience and revelation of God's character.
Before launching into main body of his work to see how he expands on these themes, is there any concern with what has been said thus far?
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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So far so good.
But Paul twists the Habbakuk quote.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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How ?
Romans 1:17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
Habakkuk 2:4 ... but the just shall live by his faith.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Not by his faith but by his faithfulness is the hebrew text. very different.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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How ? We can always find vast gulfs WITHIN words. Why ?
[ 08. July 2010, 22:06: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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The 'faith' connection is textually difficult in Habakkuk as well. The Septuagint translators struggled with it, too; the various versions of the Septuagint do not all agree on how to translate the verse. Paul probably uses his own translation (different to the Septuagint), and the writer of Hebrews gives it another slant. Fortunately for us, I don't think we need to get hung up on the translation too much because I don't think it is of primary relevance to the discussion. It's enough to know that 'faith' in the introduction is one of the themes that Paul will want to expand on later.
Paul's 'gospel' – his good news message – receives a work out in Romans. I can imagine this being the written form of what is presupposed in his other letters, the stuff of his teaching when he arrived in a new town, together with his answers to the regular objections he would have come across when teaching that message. I can appreciate what recent commentators have been pointing out here: that Paul is giving a run down of the Genesis narrative from creation onwards. This is a very Jewish gospel.
From 1:18 to 3:20 Paul puts the background picture in place, and it provides a universal focus on the human character over against God's character. Paul refers to God's theiotes (= θειοτης) in 1:20, which I think is a close enough match to what we are looking for – the character of God: “since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made.”
It's this piece that formed the basis for the point I made earlier about God's creation being a reflection of God's character. It is tangible, evidential. It also make sense to see this as Paul's' understanding of what Genesis 1-3 was saying – all humanity began with God and has no excuse for rebelling from him. It is not a case of people coming to know a new God. Paul wants to knock that argument on the head very early on and hence he starts from the universal beginning. His portrait of humankind is very bleak, but it is consistent with what he would have read in the Jewish Scriptures and is necessary for his argument that God has a right to be angry.
There is a theme of judicial process in this section, too: God 'handed over' (paradidomi = παραδιδομι), which connotes the post-sentence process where the judge hands the prisoner over to the person who would carry out the judgement.
This reads like a very Jewish story in a Greek world, it emanates from the Jewish narrative but is being applied universally. I think it would be fair to say that Paul does not dream up this universality: he takes the good news message to the Greeks (and non-Greeks) because he sees warrant for doing so in the Jewish narrative itself. The warrant appears in part here by virtue of the reference to creation, but Paul will bolster this later when he takes history down to Abraham.
So for this section down to 3:20 Paul has started to expand his first theme (It was not a new thing – it had been promised and recorded a long time before).
Is it fair to say that Paul saw God's character here in judicial terms? He is the Judge and humankind needed judging?
Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on
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This thread appears to have developed two strands:
a) the Sovereignty of God vs. human autonomy and responsibility; and
b) the perceived incompatibility of the God revealed (or described) in the OT (especially with regard to the killing of the Amalekites) and the God revealed in Jesus
I’ll give my thoughts on b) first; and despite the much-to-be-respected comment from NigelM: ‘... answers in a forum like the Ship are useless unless we can demonstrate the process one is using for getting to them’, I regret that I can’t right now give an extensive justification for my thoughts. This is my weakness: I can just about remember what I think and believe, but remembering the complete logical infrastructure to explain why I believe what I do is well beyond the capability of my memory. (Other than going: ‘er, I think there’s something in the Bible about it... )
I have found Covenant theology to be a very useful framework for understanding the way that God has interacted with mankind over the millennia. I’m still getting to grips with the subject, I’m certainly no expert, and I’m not sure how it relates to dispensationalism. I’d probably want to distance myself from the latter. I’m sure that my following thesis is very susceptible to challenge and refinement, but I’ll throw it into the ring anyway.
The basic premise of Covenant theology is that God has related to mankind, and different groupings of mankind, in different ways at different times. This does not mean that He changes in Himself, but rather that His revelation and dealings may progress and develop over time.
At the time of the events recounted in 1Sam:15, the Mosaic covenant was in force, which established the Twelve tribes of Israel as God’s chosen people, and occupying a land which God gave to them. One element of this covenant was that God’s condemnation of wrongdoing was to be implemented there and then by his chosen people. The death penalty was prescribed in the Law for certain wrongdoing by members of the people of Israel (see Lev.20); and when wrong was done to God’s chosen people by another tribe (the Amalekites), the death penalty for that whole tribe was also commanded through the prophet (1Sam15:3).
When Jesus established a new covenant in His blood, a lot of things changed. I can’t start to give a comprehensive explanation of what did, but for example, the membership of God’s chosen people was now open to all nations of the world, the initiation rite was changed from circumcision (done to Jewish males) to baptism (done to Jews and gentiles, men and women). Also, the implementation of the death penalty for wrongdoing was withheld from God’s people, and reserved now for God alone to implement. (Lev20:10 cf. John 8:1-11). We don’t have the execution of adulterers in the Christian church.
The timing of the judgement was also deferred, from there and then, to the Last Judgement as predicted by Jesus. The deferment giving time for repentance to occur. So instead of God’s people implementing God’s judgement by killing their enemies, Jesus commands his followers to love their enemies, such that they may repent and become friends instead of enemies.
The job of implementing God’s judgement, will, according to Jesus, be done by Him. See John5:22-29: “22The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son... 27And he has given him authority to execute judgement because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement.” (ESV, bold emphasis added). Other quotations from Jesus can be presented here in agreement, possibly including those quoted by Martin PC not... above.
It’s worth noting that the criteria for judgement quoted in bold in the above passage from John, are the same as those used by the God who, through Samuel, charged Saul: “Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.”(1Sam15:18, ESV) – the Amalekites had done evil. A valuable contrast can be seen in the tribe of the Kenites. They escaped destruction because they had done good to the people of Israel (1Sam15:6), just as those who have done good will experience the resurrection to eternal life at the Last Judgement.
Once one sees the difference under the two covenants with regard to who executes judgement, and when, God's consistent nature can be seen. I think that this can remove any perception of a contradiction between God’s nature as reported in the OT, and God’s nature as revealed by Jesus in the NT. It is the same God who establishes the criteria for judgement, and the pronouncement of the judgement, but different people implement the penalty in the two instances.
As a gentile, I could definitely agree with Kwesi: "Thank God I was born AD rather than BC! He`s improved a lot." as the covenant established by Christ extends to include gentiles like me, but that’s an improvement for me not of God. Another improvement is that the deferment of judgement gives time for repentance. But this should not be taken for granted – the Amalekites had no idea when the death sentence would be passed on them, and neither do we know when Jesus will return in judgement.
With regard to this timing of God’s execution of judgement, either in the OT case of the Amalekites, or in the NT case of the whole world at the Last Judgement, that is entirely up to the sovereign prerogative of God. Which leads me on to strand a), which I might continue in another post!
Angus ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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You beat me to it, Angus!
I began this rather long and winding road with a challenge to the assertion that God's character is incompatible with much that is attributed to him in the bible. I think the end point would indeed be that the evidence shows the character of Jesus to reflect the very characteristics demonstrated of God in the likes of 1 Samuel 15. We can avoid that latter passage only by stripping out huge chunks of data from the bible as a whole.
To cut to the chase, as you say, herem has now been reserved to God and Jesus. In this respect the activities of God's People have changed from then to now, but I haven't had to argue or discuss that point; merely that God's character is the same. If there is one slight qualification here, it is that the NT does retain a hint that God's People will also be judges of creation, which could imply that herem will still be practised by 'the saints.'
I agree too with your concern over dispensationalism. If it helps, I think we can eat our cake and still have it here. When Walter Eichrodt published his three-volume work on the Theology of the Old Testament (2 volumes in the 1960s SCM English translation), he attempted to show that covenant was the central theme of the bible. His weakness was that he saw covenant as a series of enactments by God with his people, including Noah, Moses, and so on. This accorded reasonably well with a dispensationalist view, but he struggled to explain how the gaps were accounted for: where, for example, did the Wisdom literature fit in this? And how did covenant as he understood map over to the New Testament.
I think a more fruitful way of perceiving covenant is to raise it out of the specific instances of covenant – Moses and so on – and see it as a worldview. It was, in other words, a consistent and comprehensive filter through which the biblical writers understood life, the universe, and everything. It was their life, their social setting, their politics and religion. As such, the specific enactments were merely localised instances of this much larger and wider framework. Even when there did not appear to be a specific covenant in existence, the gap did not mean the absence of God's eternal covenant with all of creation. This also as something understood by the biblical writers. It allows Wisdom literature under the umbrella, too. It's elegant! It explains everything!
I'm sorely tempted here to show how this might work out in terms of divine purpose in authorship of the bible, but that would blow my chances of producing yet another long-winded and tedious to read post on the other thread!
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Meanwhile, back in Romans...
Paul carries on the continuity theme in 3:21 – which could be paraphrased:-
quote:
[Despite the fact that humans have proved to be notoriously unfaithful to the covenant] God has now proved himself to be the opposite: very faithful. This too is consistent with the purpose of the [Jewish] Scriptures.
The loyalty spoken about here is dependent on the human response of 'faith in Jesus' (3:26). This starts to bring in Paul's second introductory theme (the good news message is about Jesus...) but also repeats the 'obedience of faith' theme, something that crops up again in 4:24 (dependency on belief in the one who raised Jesus from the dead).
This repeated dependency, the qualified offer of reconciliation, runs through the message and it really has to be addressed as part of the good news message. It cannot be ignored. When Paul refers to Deut. 30:14 ("The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart" in 10:8), it is to make the point that only those who believe and confess loyalty are saved. So what happens to those who do not confess loyalty? Paul refers back to God's anger when he says (11:17-24) that God proved his sternness by not sparing those who broke faith. In fact, a key principle in all this comes out in Paul – who incidentally makes my point(!):
quote:
(Rom. 11:22)
Pay attention to two things when considering God's character: his loyalty and his harshness. He is loyal to those who are loyal, but harsh to those who are disloyal.
That rather sums up the balance of the message. It is consistent with the character of God in both Testaments.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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The discussion on this thread sort of carried on on the thread dealing with divine intention, so rather than lose that momentum, I've taken things back here. The context: God's character would be morally reprehensible if he had caused damage to a human being for any purpose.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Nigel: the criterion?
The God who revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus didnt play games with people's lives. Nor did he regard God in the same way as Tess of the Durbavilles. The Immortal(s) was not making sport of human existence.
OK - We've already established that God revealed himself in Jesus of Nazareth through human authors who were well versed in OT ways of thinking. How do you respond to the fact that those authors revealed a Jesus who presented a consistent worldview with that of his predecessors in Israel?
I know you find the idea of a progressive revelation a useful model. My case would be that you would have to relegate the entire bible to an earlier stage in that revelation, not relying on a human portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth, because that is as flawed (as I think you would have to see it) as that of the OT.
This in turn opens up the issue of where then you would draw justification for living a Christian life today. It must come from a more recent past - keeping the idea of progressive revelation going.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Again, from the Divine Purpose thread - moved here because it fits better:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
What kind of Christian apologetic is it that seeks to defend genocide after the experience of the last and present century? What sort of message of salvation is that to a world ravaged with ethnic conflict? In an attempt to preserve the indefensible notion that the bible is the inerrant word of God, which anyone with two brain cells knows it isn't, we get the kind of contortions in so many of the posts on this thread. It may satisfy Christians in the closet, but it does nothing to engage the faithful with God's world and the people in it. ...
You are right about the dangers of 'cherry-picking', but its contents have to be measured against what we understand about the Word and the Godhead: to be Christologically coherent and in accordance with trinitarianism.
I think you are giving the game away again, Kwesi. How can you show that you are not reading into the NT texts (never mind the OT) the worldview that occupies us in the light of the 20th century?
The is nothing unique to Christianity about saying that we should all learn the lessons of man's inhumanity to man so ably demonstrated a few decades ago. Even the Fabian Society worked that out all by themselves! One of the challenges I have been posing to your reading of the bible is to be able to justify it to someone who is not a Christian and who would want to know what you have to offer that he or she could not get more easily from another source. You have made reference to the character of Jesus (now I see you want to bring in wider doctrinal points as well - trinitarianism and christology). You now need to deal with the phenomenon that what we know of Jesus comes to us via human authors who present Jesus in terms familiar to those embedded in an OT worldview.
Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on
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Probably time for another summary to pull threads together, particularly since the discussion has spawned two threads – for my assistance if for no one else's! First, though, I would like to thank all those who have engaged in the debate (especially, but by no means limited to, shamwari and Kwesi) – it's gone further than too many before, both on and off the Ship, where either one side or the other backs out too soon with the “Agree to disagree” clause, or “This is my truth, you can have yours!” option.
Key question: Were the human authors of the bible right to attribute to God their authority for the destruction of human beings (including the non-military, e..g, women and children, and where there was a generational gap between the original offence and the subsequent destruction).
I did a summary of points based on that question back here, so I won't repeat all that.
I think we can agree on the following – though of course open to correction:-
[1] The authors of texts like 1 Sam. 15 present their world in terms familiar to them. They have their worldviews and presuppositions, and they lived within a societal make-up that was based around family loyalties, working up through clan, tribe, nation and occasionally empire. Part of the world involved interaction with other nations having different politico-religious loyalties. It is, therefore, no surprise that the world presented in the bible is to an extent time- and space-bound. The question is about whether 'light shines through' and to what extent.
[2] The focus of the authors is ultimately on how God interacts with his creation. God forms a focus, as it were, of the writings.
[3] The methodology we can use to tease out authorial intention in the OT is exactly the same as that we use with the NT. In other words, we don't have to assume that the Gospels require any special approach to interpretation. We can approach them in the same way we read 1 Sam 15 as far as interpretation goes. Application, of course, is a different matter altogether.
Where differences emerge, as I see it, are over the following issues:-
[1] Is there evidence of a paradigm shift in the way the biblical authors saw the character of God with the coming of Jesus? This would involve a wholly new way of looking at the world and God's interaction with it.
[2] Somewhat linked to the above, does the shift involve a move from viewing God's dealings at a corporate level to an individual level?
[3] Similarly, does the shift involve a move from seeing God as tribal (or national) to universal?
[4] To what extent does our current world-view affect our reading of the bible?
A crucial element in this has been to focus on Jesus, as the best option we have for defining God's character. Here's where another issue arises. We have Jesus mediated by human authors. When these authors present Jesus in terms familiar to a reader of our OT, to what extent are we able to say this or that is a true reflection of God's character? So, for example, if Jesus says things that demonstrate a corporate and 'tribal' world-view, and if Jesus and his Father are one, then does that not reflect the character of God? Or is it just another example of a human author doing the best he could according to his lights? This, of course, goes to how one justifies one's reading of the bible, or one's distinction between the parts.
We've been running through a few options in an attempt to locate a criterion for justifying how we define God's character, e.g.,:-
[1] The character of Jesus;
[2] Love;
[3] Natural Justice;
[4] Our experience of human nature in the not too distant past.
I suppose we could add the “It just couldn't be that way” line, but that doesn't assist in providing evidence.
Nigel
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