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Originally posted by no prophet:
We should repudiate and denounce those parts of the bible which give basis for the political and social ideas that are used to give authority to intolerance, rage, political dominionism and intolerance.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We should see them all, first and last and totally, through the lens of Jesus. And therefore embrace them with His arms.

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Originally posted by StevHep:
I think the 'difficult' passages in Scripture only pose a real problem to those who follow Luther's principle that the literal meaning of the text is always the most important unless those texts themselves suggest otherwise. If we understand that the great variety of genres written for a great variety of purposes which make up the Bible need only be understood as pointing in more or less veiled ways towards the fullness of perfection found in Christ for it to be inadmissible for them to justify anything short of that fullness.

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Catechism of the Catholic Church
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.
2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".
3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
These are the principles of the RCC, perfected (though by then long established) in the middle ages.

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Catechism of the Catholic Church
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

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The one and only thing one needs to be aware of is that "literal" does not mean "literalistic".

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105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It is obviously difficult for some to see the Bible through the lens of Christ.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Which is why He delays His coming.

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
We readily accept it if a 'goody' harms a 'baddy' in a film or a novel, but wince if it happens in the Bible.

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116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
As an atheist (and a Humanist) my view is clear; the Bible should be read, understood and appreciated as literature. Itwas written by people with only a fraction of the factual knowledge of the world and the universe we have today, then re-written, altered, revised, etc by people hundreds of years later. At that point it became (metaphorically only of course!) set in stone.
Lessons of what is right and wrong and good and bad can be learnt from stories, including of course the ones retold in the Bible, and that must have started way, way back before the different parts of the Bible started to be put together, i.e. before the Torah, and certainly before the written word.
posed

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quote:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.

The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".

The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

The one and only thing one needs to be aware of is that "literal" does not mean "literalistic". That is to say, "literal" concerns the intended direct meaning of the writer and that does depend on the chosen literary form. For example, poetry operates a lot with imagery and when the Song of Songs says "Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves." we do not imagine miniature doves stuck in eye sockets. That would be a literalistic interpretation, not the literal one. However, the literal meaning is indeed the foundation of RC bible interpretation. And this literal meaning cannot simply stand against a clear meaning of the text. One cannot for example simply declare the difficult parts of the OT as bronze age propaganda. That would not be about discovering what the writer really wanted to say (literal sense), but about saying that the writer is either lying or himself deceived.

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Luther wrote “it is the historical sense alone which supplies the true and sound doctrine.”

The Catechism states
quote:
116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."
Do you honestly not see any difference between these two approaches?

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“Thou shalt understand, therefore, that the scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou cleave, thou canst never err or go out of the way. And if thou leave the literal sense, thou canst not but go out of the way. Nevertheless the scripture uses proverbs, similitudes, riddles or allegories, as all other speeches do; but that which the proverb, similitude, riddle or allegory signifieth, is ever the literal sense, which thou must seek out diligently.”

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Originally posted by StevHep:
@IngoB
Luther wrote “it is the historical sense alone which supplies the true and sound doctrine.” Do you honestly not see any difference between these two approaches?

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by StevHep:
@IngoB
Luther wrote “it is the historical sense alone which supplies the true and sound doctrine.” Do you honestly not see any difference between these two approaches?

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I am pretty sure that Luther is arguing against allegorical interpretations (including the moral interpretations and anagogical interpretations). He is not arguing that the Bible should always be understood in what IngoB calls the literalistic sense.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Wouldn't the comprehension and adoption of that lens be the same thing as His coming?

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Originally posted by StevHep:
Luther wrote “it is the historical sense alone which supplies the true and sound doctrine.”
The Catechism states

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116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."

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Do you honestly not see any difference between these two approaches?

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I am pretty sure that Luther is arguing against allegorical interpretations (including the moral interpretations and anagogical interpretations). He is not arguing that the Bible should always be understood in what IngoB calls the literalistic sense.

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Modern society does not approve of slavery, for instance, and would look askance at the temple as a slaughterhouse.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I think erasure of the stories of oppressed people (even those God is apparently an oppressor of) is deeply troubling, and does more harm than good to the oppressed.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Who cares if scripture conforms to modern sensitivities?

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...we find our religion just as distasteful as they find it.

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Originally posted by no prophet:
I think we have to understand that the can is already open.

An OT and NT example.

I think that we should be saying that in the OT, for example in 1 Sam 15:2-3, Deut 2:34, 3:6, 20:16-18 etc that the bible has it wrong. The people got it wrong, when they slaughtered everyone (and the animals) in the heat of battle and then wrote self-justifying versions. Just like we today don't really know what God wants because we don't get direct communication and two-way conversations. People have thought God approves of lots of things, and frequently they mistake their motives and goals for God's. We should always be suspicious when someone does something obviously wrong and then tries to justify it by saying God told me to do it. Biblical or not.

In the NT, in 1 Corinthians 14:34 where it says that women should be silent in church is obviously someone's idea at a time when churches are sorting out power struggles. It wasn't and isn't God's idea, it may not have even been Paul's. But it is clearly something to repudiate.

How's that?

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originally posted by no prophet:
I think that we should be saying that in the OT, for example in 1 Sam 15:2-3, Deut 2:34, 3:6, 20:16-18 etc that the bible has it wrong. The people got it wrong, when they slaughtered everyone (and the animals) in the heat of battle and then wrote self-justifying versions.

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originally posted by no prophet:
In the NT, in 1 Corinthians 14:34 where it says that women should be silent in church is obviously someone's idea at a time when churches are sorting out power struggles. It wasn't and isn't God's idea, it may not have even been Paul's. But it is clearly something to repudiate.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Sorry,Freddy; I was quoting your post but you had started with a quote from Dafyd and your 'avatars' are similar.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
In the NT, in 1 Corinthians 14:34 where it says that women should be silent in church is obviously someone's idea at a time when churches are sorting out power struggles. It wasn't and isn't God's idea, it may not have even been Paul's. But it is clearly something to repudiate.

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Again, I don't know that at all. God might have approved of Paul telling women in the context he was writing to be silent at church. Apparently, the goal isn't to read scripture through the lens of Jesus so much as to try and read Jesus and the rest of scripture through a Marxist lens (and I didn't say Communist lens).

I refuse to repudiate any portion of scripture simply because it offends modern sensibilities. Doesn't mean that I believe God would command Christians to participate in genocide. Doesn't mean that I believe women should be silent.

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Well said Beeswax.
 

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Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :
 

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Originally posted by Steve Langton
If we really found it that distasteful we'd be joining their little club, surely...?

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
So, the fact remains that even if we say "all of Scripture is true", we certainly don't read all of it.

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Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
So, the fact remains that even if we say "all of Scripture is true", we certainly don't read all of it.

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It does not follow from asserting that "all Scripture is true" that "all Scripture is equally useful." No one seems to preach Haggai or Nehemiah unless the church is in a building program.

The boring bits are still Scripture, regardless of where they fall in the Lectionary.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
I think that we should be saying that in the OT, for example in 1 Sam 15:2-3, Deut 2:34, 3:6, 20:16-18 etc that the bible has it wrong. The people got it wrong, when they slaughtered everyone (and the animals) in the heat of battle and then wrote self-justifying versions.

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I don't know that at all. One, I don't know how many of those stories are even historical. Why would I just assume that in the heat of battle
he Israelites went berserk and slaughtered people? Two, God may have told the Israelites to kill all of those people.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
In the NT, in 1 Corinthians 14:34 where it says that women should be silent in church is obviously someone's idea at a time when churches are sorting out power struggles. It wasn't and isn't God's idea, it may not have even been Paul's. But it is clearly something to repudiate.

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Again, I don't know that at all. God might have approved of Paul telling women in the context he was writing to be silent at church. Apparently, the goal isn't to read scripture through the lens of Jesus so much as to try and read Jesus and the rest of scripture through a Marxist lens (and I didn't say Communist lens).

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:


I refuse to repudiate any portion of scripture simply because it offends modern sensibilities. Doesn't mean that I believe God would command Christians to participate in genocide. Doesn't mean that I believe women should be silent.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
I think that we should be saying that in the OT, for example in 1 Sam 15:2-3, Deut 2:34, 3:6, 20:16-18 etc that the bible has it wrong. The people got it wrong, when they slaughtered everyone (and the animals) in the heat of battle and then wrote self-justifying versions.

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I don't know that at all. One, I don't know how many of those stories are even historical. Why would I just assume that in the heat of battle
he Israelites went berserk and slaughtered people? Two, God may have told the Israelites to kill all of those people.

quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
In the NT, in 1 Corinthians 14:34 where it says that women should be silent in church is obviously someone's idea at a time when churches are sorting out power struggles. It wasn't and isn't God's idea, it may not have even been Paul's. But it is clearly something to repudiate.

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Again, I don't know that at all. God might have approved of Paul telling women in the context he was writing to be silent at church.

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I think erasure of the stories of oppressed people (even those God is apparently an oppressor of) is deeply troubling, and does more harm than good to the oppressed.

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Having had the story of Jacob, Laban, and the two sisters read as the first lesson this morning, I can agree with this, insofar as women have been the victims of the patriarchy for, apparently, as long as history has been recorded.

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originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
If we can't say that unequivocally, then perhaps our God isn't that much cop, anyway.

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originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
That's just petty and absurd. Paul had certain prejudices about women. That much is clear. It doesn't necessarily undermine other parts of his writing to admit that, in this area, he was wrong. And that's not "Marxist". It's just decent humanity, where discrimination against women (and other races etc) is wrong and we're not ashamed to say it's wrong.

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originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
Sorry. But this is just wanting to have your cake and eat it too. If you don't believe God would command people to commit genocide, then have the decency to say "those bits of the Bible that indicate otherwise are wrong."

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originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
And it's not about offending "modern sensibilities"; it's about addressing genuine moral concerns expressed by rational, decent, ordinary people.

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originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
When such people say to you "that God of yours is a bit of a bastard, isn't he?" That shouldn't be taken as compliment, but as the rebuke it is.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Isn't there? That part of the Bible says to me, "If God can use people who are as deeply fucked up as these ones are, he can use me too."

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by StevHep:
Luther wrote “it is the historical sense alone which supplies the true and sound doctrine.”
The Catechism states

quote:

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116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."

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Do you honestly not see any difference between these two approaches?

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I have no idea what Luther himself wrote, or intended to say. I have no particular interest in that either. I was reacting to what you wrote about Luther, above. And my point was that what you attributed to Luther there is entirely compatible with RC principles on interpreting scripture. You said above "Luther's principle [is] that the literal meaning of the text is always the most important unless those texts themselves suggest otherwise." That is also the principle of the RCC.

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So we do not begin with the literal meaning of a text, we begin with the rules of sound interpretation.

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The rules for sound interpretation are provided by the Church.

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Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Isn't there? That part of the Bible says to me, "If God can use people who are as deeply fucked up as these ones are, he can use me too."

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There's that. And we can say that these people thought they were doing the right thing. So what can we learn from that? The stories in the Bible show often the people of faith got it wrong. Even with the Scriptures.
Henri Nouwen relates a version of a story in his The Wounded Healer. It is about a fugitive hiding in a village. The soldiers who sought him threatened to burn the village and kill the villagers unless they handed the fugitive over. The people went to the minister who pored over his bible After many hours he came to the passage. "It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost." So the minister told the soldiers where the boy was and they lead him away to be killed. That night as the minister was sad and alone in his room, an angel came to him and. said, "Don't you know that you have handed over the Messiah to the enemy?". "How could I know?" the minister replied. "If, instead of reading you Bible you had just once visited this young man and looked him in the eye you would have known."

You can read this as a parable, or you can disagree with it's interpretation of Scripture, or whatever else you like.
For me, the dry bones of Scripture are dead unless The Word makes it live.

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Jesus got things 'wrong' of course. Racism. PSA. How could He not?

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard;

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Jesus got things 'wrong' of course. Racism. PSA. How could He not?

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Can't recall Jesus getting racism wrong - please explain.

PSA is only one partial image of the atonement in the NT; and not I think Jesus' primary image. Within its limits it's a good image. Again, what way did Jesus get that wrong?

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Originally posted by Byron:
Matthew (15:21-28) portrays Jesus calling a Canaanite woman who requests his help a dog, and only agreeing to heal her daughter when she keeps her faith despite the insult.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Like what? I prefer progress on the moral arc from the Bronze Age. Jesus got things 'wrong' of course. Racism. PSA. How could He not?

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Aren't you just whatever you are politically who happens to like some of the stuff in the Bible?

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Originally posted by Byron:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard;

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Jesus got things 'wrong' of course. Racism. PSA. How could He not?

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Can't recall Jesus getting racism wrong - please explain.

PSA is only one partial image of the atonement in the NT; and not I think Jesus' primary image. Within its limits it's a good image. Again, what way did Jesus get that wrong?

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Matthew (15:21-28) portrays Jesus calling a Canaanite woman who requests his help a dog, and only agreeing to heal her daughter when she keeps her faith despite the insult.

Luke of course gives us the Good Samaritan as a counterpoint, and both he & Matthew give us the healing of the centurion's slave.

I don't know if any of these go back to the historical Jesus, but they do, at the least, portray an attitude to ethnicity that many of us wouldn't share.

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But all of those people are the same race with the possible exception of the Centurion

Race is not the same as ethnicity or culture, and marking out differences in ethnicity is not racism. Racism is a power exchange between a socially dominant/powerful race and a less socially dominant one - so in Roman-occupied Palestine it's the Romans who are the only ones who are actually racist as opposed to ethnicity-based prejudice or xenophobia.

In any case, Matthew 15:21-28 is not about Jesus insulting the woman.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
OtG - I am a woman and a Marxist feminist but I really don't feel that Paul or pseudo-Paul has any particular prejudice towards women. On the contrary, he praises women a great deal and includes women as full members of the early Church - if he had any prejudice then according to both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious mores, he would not have mentioned women at all. The fact that he praises and includes women so much within a deeply patriarchal religious and social culture is fairly conclusive evidence that he was not prejudiced against women in the slightest, but actively working for their inclusion and for them to be seen as full and equal members of the Body.
 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Aren't you just whatever you are politically who happens to like some of the stuff in the Bible?

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Is probably a good description of most of us afloat...

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
OtG - I am a woman and a Marxist feminist but I really don't feel that Paul or pseudo-Paul has any particular prejudice towards women. On the contrary, he praises women a great deal and includes women as full members of the early Church - if he had any prejudice then according to both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious mores, he would not have mentioned women at all. The fact that he praises and includes women so much within a deeply patriarchal religious and social culture is fairly conclusive evidence that he was not prejudiced against women in the slightest, but actively working for their inclusion and for them to be seen as full and equal members of the Body.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
OtG - I am a woman and a Marxist feminist but I really don't feel that Paul or pseudo-Paul has any particular prejudice towards women. On the contrary, he praises women a great deal and includes women as full members of the early Church - if he had any prejudice then according to both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious mores, he would not have mentioned women at all. The fact that he praises and includes women so much within a deeply patriarchal religious and social culture is fairly conclusive evidence that he was not prejudiced against women in the slightest, but actively working for their inclusion and for them to be seen as full and equal members of the Body.

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All excellent reasons for why women shouldn't be required to keep silent in church or even (Dead Horse).

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
From the above no simple quote to kick off from, but...

Rightly or wrongly I think of 'racism' as having the idea that your ethnic group is better than the other, regardless which way up the power dynamic currently is between your group and the other.

The Jews of Jesus' day, or at any rate those who opposed Jesus, were by that standard 'racist' looking down on the ethnically mixed Samaritans and also slightly mixed Galileans, let alone the Canaanites and Romans.

Jesus stood out as not discriminating in,such a way,telling the parable about the 'Good Samaritan' and other parables which implied that relying on your Jewish ethnicity with God might not get you as far as you thought; for example a parable about vineyard tenants who would be displaced after beating up the owner's servants and killing his son. And there are quite a few which say that kind of thing either primarily or in passing.

He surprised a Samaritan woman by being willing to talk to her despite the usual prejudice between the two groups. In the case of the Canaanite woman whose daughter he healed, it seems to me that he tested her faith and sincerity by appearing at first to act in a typically Jewish way, but of course responded positively to her spirited answer. The text can't make it clear, but one can even wonder if he said his apparent downer with a bit of a smile, a bit of a 'tongue-in-cheek' attitude, that would encourage her to 'try her luck' as it were. And he healed the centurion's servant, indeed.

I can't see that he was 'racist' at all - maybe a bit 'politically incorrect', but for good rather than nasty ends.

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That's not racism, and Jesus wasn't racist - racial prejudice and xenophobia are not the same as racism. And why the scare quotes around racism?

It's either racism or it's not, you can't be 'kind of racist' or 'a bit racist'.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Oscar the Grouch and Ikkyu

Well said, say I.

[ 28. July 2014, 17:21: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
 

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Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

quote:

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I think erasure of the stories of oppressed people (even those God is apparently an oppressor of) is deeply troubling, and does more harm than good to the oppressed.

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Having had the story of Jacob, Laban, and the two sisters read as the first lesson this morning, I can agree with this, insofar as women have been the victims of the patriarchy for, apparently, as long as history has been recorded.

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As my wife pointed out, the OT reading was even worse, in that it wasn't just about women being treated as goods to be traded; it was also about an abusive form of indentured labour.

No-one comes out of this looking good. Not even Leah, who went along with the deception. This reading today was one of those moments when you want to stop a service and say "there is no positive value in this part of the Bible, whatsoever, so let's not say 'thanks be to God'."

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Originally posted by seekingsister:
I honestly don't know if you are serious.

He uses a metaphor of a dog taking crumbs from a child's table. He is not offering her crumbs of bread, but healing. It is therefore understood that the bread, dog, and child are metaphors.

He is not calling her a dog any more than he is calling the first Christians fish because the Apostles were fishermen.

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But all of those people are the same race with the possible exception of the Centurion

Race is not the same as ethnicity or culture, and marking out differences in ethnicity is not racism. Racism is a power exchange between a socially dominant/powerful race and a less socially dominant one - so in Roman-occupied Palestine it's the Romans who are the only ones who are actually racist as opposed to ethnicity-based prejudice or xenophobia.

In any case, Matthew 15:21-28 is not about Jesus insulting the woman.

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originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sorry BA, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here or not!

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Byron: This depends on whether you define "racism" as "prejudice + power," or discrimination on grounds of ethnicity. I go for the latter.

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Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But all of those people are the same race with the possible exception of the Centurion

Race is not the same as ethnicity or culture, and marking out differences in ethnicity is not racism. Racism is a power exchange between a socially dominant/powerful race and a less socially dominant one - so in Roman-occupied Palestine it's the Romans who are the only ones who are actually racist as opposed to ethnicity-based prejudice or xenophobia.

In any case, Matthew 15:21-28 is not about Jesus insulting the woman.

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This depends on whether you define "racism" as "prejudice + power," or discrimination on grounds of ethnicity. I go for the latter.

I agree that the story of the Canaanite woman isn't about insulting the woman. It's about her faith, and Jesus' mission. Any insult is incidental. (Some will, of course, argue that there's no insult.)

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Originally posted by Enoch:
As so often, IMHO, Lamb Chopped is the one who talks the sense on this thread.

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Agreed!
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by Jade Constable:
Sorry BA, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here or not!

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I wasn't being sarcastic.

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Originally posted by no prophet:
I don't buy the idea that we have no responsibility re the interpretation and that they wouldn't listen. We're not even talking, let alone discussing it with them. We wishy-washily just vaguely ignore. No-one calls the leaders on anything, when they misuse religious texts and imagery.

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Originally posted by no prophet:


Consider for example God's killing of all the first born in Egypt, and the distinction between Egyptians and Israel (Ex 11:7) and the thoroughness of the killing until all homes had someone dead (Ex 12:30)

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quote:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This is also an issue in the USA, I imagine, with the Fundamentalists in the Deep South frequently being poorer, having fewer qualifications and facing less job security than the mainstream Christians who would like to 'teach' them.

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... I don't understand this bit. Certainly the leaders of the US Fundamentalist groups seem to be fairly well off.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This is also an issue in the USA, I imagine, with the Fundamentalists in the Deep South frequently being poorer, having fewer qualifications and facing less job security than the mainstream Christians who would like to 'teach' them.

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... I don't understand this bit. Certainly the leaders of the US Fundamentalist groups seem to be fairly well off.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:


Consider for example God's killing of all the first born in Egypt, and the distinction between Egyptians and Israel (Ex 11:7) and the thoroughness of the killing until all homes had someone dead (Ex 12:30)

---

In that case, why stop with repudiating parts of the Bible? God made each one of us with an expiration date. Why should our bodies have to age, become decrepit, and die? That bastard God, how dare he! In fact, I bet it wasn't even God Himself who created us, but some Igor in his lab pretending to be Him!

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:


Consider for example God's killing of all the first born in Egypt, and the distinction between Egyptians and Israel (Ex 11:7) and the thoroughness of the killing until all homes had someone dead (Ex 12:30)

---

In that case, why stop with repudiating parts of the Bible? God made each one of us with an expiration date. Why should our bodies have to age, become decrepit, and die? That bastard God, how dare he! In fact, I bet it wasn't even God Himself who created us, but some Igor in his lab pretending to be Him!

---

That contains argumentation fallacies. Something about taking things to an illogical extreme that no-one was suggesting and that the topic doesn't actually imply, and setting up a strawman / straw-body situation. That the bible contains parts that are through the misguided eyes of people trying to justify their behaviour after the fact, and people deciding things are of God because they really really believe them has nothing to do with our bodies. God may be a bastard but not about any of this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The vast majority of fundie Protestant laity in the US are poorer white blue-collar workers.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
You don't want to believe that God would have sent the Angel of Death to kill the firstborn child of every Egyptian family. God would never do such a thing! Yet you don't seem at all outraged by the fact that God has built death into each and every human body that has ever existed. So I wonder why God's killing all of us in advance (as it were) doesn't faze you, yet you react in horror at the thought that God might have killed all the firstborn of Egypt in a single night.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
You don't want to believe that God would have sent the Angel of Death to kill the firstborn child of every Egyptian family. God would never do such a thing! Yet you don't seem at all outraged by the fact that God has built death into each and every human body that has ever existed. So I wonder why God's killing all of us in advance (as it were) doesn't faze you, yet you react in horror at the thought that God might have killed all the firstborn of Egypt in a single night.

---

I'm not a creationist. At all. Which I think this would imply, even a weak version of creationism. This strays into the biology of life, which provides factual information of how cells and bodies age such they inevitably die. That bodies die is a biological fact, and is part of our evolutionary history. God didn't build this into our bodies, evolution did. That there is a start and end to everything is rather obviously the basic characteristic of the universe, we are simply part of that natural process. So no, I do not agree with you. Life and death are part of the essence of being human.

The difference is that in the Egypt story, God is alleged to have stepped outside nature and done evil things. I don't accept this other than as an allegorical tale which seems to want to be rather hard on the Egyptians. It is an us versus them story, and how the weaker can overcome the stronger.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The second is more subtle. It's who are you, or whoever it might be, who decides that his or her version of God is sufficiently pristine to be able to decide with confident which bits of scripture to excise?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
The metaphor doesn't seem complimentary.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:
It is an us versus them story, and how the weaker can overcome the stronger.

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quote:

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Originally posted by seekingsister:

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
The metaphor doesn't seem complimentary.

---

Fine, but it's not correct to say "Jesus calls a Canaanite woman a dog."

A classmate of mine tried to argue that Christianity teaches polygamy, and when I disagreed he pointed to the Parable of the Ten Virgins.

It seems you have fallen into a similar trap here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
How can you discriminate on grounds of ethnicity without being prejudiced against that ethnicity and having the power to act on it?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Well no, it's not discrimination on grounds of ethnicity - firstly because ethnicity isn't the same as race. Secondly, discrimination isn't harmful discrimination unless combined with power.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The second is more subtle. It's who are you, or whoever it might be, who decides that his or her version of God is sufficiently pristine to be able to decide with confident which bits of scripture to excise?

---

To 'repudiate' is not to 'excise'. God forbid that we should edit our Bibles to remove the challenging bits. They are part of the history of our faith and (if we believe in inspiration at all) a record of how God has spoken and still speaks. But we can, and should, repudiate statements which, whatever they may have meant centuries ago, are to us a source of error or evil.

There are parts of the Bible that contain timeless and priceless truth and beauty, but we're kidding ourselves if we think that its all like that. It isn't. There isn't, as far as I can tell, one single consistent Biblical view of cosmology or natural history which accords with anything that we can now think of as 'true'. There is no single Biblical anthropology.

There certainly isn't a single Biblical view of ethics. Tell me that the writer of Judges had the same opinion of divinely instituted kingship as the writer of Samuel, and I'll laugh at you. Or that the writers of Ruth and Ezra would have agreed about interracial marriage. Or the writers of Hebrews and Acts agreed about the propriety of animal sacrifice for Christians. There's no consistent Biblical teaching on marriage, or on slavery, or the rightness of punishing children for the sins of parents. You can, I suppose, just about read the NT as if it set out a consistent picture of the role of faith and works in salvation, but only if you start from the assumption that all the Biblical writers who proclaimed the gospel would have agreed precisely about what the gospel actually is. The more natural reading reveals significant differences of opinion and emphasis. There simply isn't such a thing as 'the Biblical view' of almost anything worth thinking about.

None of that means that the Bible is not inspired, or useful, but it ought to give us some confidence in saying that we disagree with what the Bible, in places, appears to be saying.

The "whose version of God is so pristine" thing is a strawman. Doubtless I have as many wrong opinions about ethics and theology as I do about everything else, but I'm not going to get any better or wiser by trying to make myself see evil as good because the Bible seems to me to contain errors. If I have to be mistaken about God (and, being a finite, fallible creature, I don't get a choice about that), I'd rather mistakenly believe things about him that I think good than mistakenly believe things that make him seem evil. The Bible might inform my conscience, or challenge it, and that's all to the good, but I remain morally responsible for what I believe, and if something in the Bible appears to me to be wrong, it is right for me to say that.

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Awesome.

Damn it! I wish I could have said this so clearly and powerfully.
 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Isn't there? That part of the Bible says to me, "If God can use people who are as deeply fucked up as these ones are, he can use me too."

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
OtG - I am a woman and a Marxist feminist but I really don't feel that Paul or pseudo-Paul has any particular prejudice towards women. On the contrary, he praises women a great deal and includes women as full members of the early Church - if he had any prejudice then according to both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious mores, he would not have mentioned women at all. The fact that he praises and includes women so much within a deeply patriarchal religious and social culture is fairly conclusive evidence that he was not prejudiced against women in the slightest, but actively working for their inclusion and for them to be seen as full and equal members of the Body.

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quote:

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There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Garasu:

quote:

---

Originally posted by seekingsister:

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
The metaphor doesn't seem complimentary.

---

Fine, but it's not correct to say "Jesus calls a Canaanite woman a dog."

A classmate of mine tried to argue that Christianity teaches polygamy, and when I disagreed he pointed to the Parable of the Ten Virgins.

It seems you have fallen into a similar trap here.

---

Sorry. Jesus does compare the woman to a dog. And while the parable of the ten virgins may not require polygamy, it surely presupposes it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
OtG - I am a woman and a Marxist feminist but I really don't feel that Paul or pseudo-Paul has any particular prejudice towards women. On the contrary, he praises women a great deal and includes women as full members of the early Church - if he had any prejudice then according to both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious mores, he would not have mentioned women at all. The fact that he praises and includes women so much within a deeply patriarchal religious and social culture is fairly conclusive evidence that he was not prejudiced against women in the slightest, but actively working for their inclusion and for them to be seen as full and equal members of the Body.

---

I'm not one for going down the whole road of "Paul hated women" (though I have heard some people say that). And I agree that there are signs that he worked with women and had good relationships with some of them. But equally, we cannot deny that he made some pretty damning and dismissive statements - the keeping silent in church being just one.

My personal belief is that, in his best moments, Paul was indeed remarkably visionary and open-minded. How else could he have had the courage to say

quote:

---

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

---

But Paul, like all of us, was a person of his own times and often struggled to see the full consequences of his ideas. As a result, he could be restricted in his outlook by his upbringing. The Pharisee part of him never really left. Like everyone of us, he could struggle to break free of the culture and presumptions which were ingrained in him.

He was human. And so he was flawed and imperfect and his attitudes towards women reflected this.

---

But you've just completely ignored everything I said about the specific verses dealing with women's silence in church Paul was not writing a book to be read by a global church in modern English, he was writing a letter to a church in Greece in a specific point in history. In context he is not telling all women to be silent in church at all.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

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Byron: Those who use the "prejudice + power" definition tend to define "power" not just as power to act on prejudice, but systematic power.

There's a quick way to test which side of the line you come down on: was this assault a racist act? If the answer's no, you've adopted the systematic position.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Creation is creation, regardless of the means. Even if God is the Deist absentee landlord you seem to think He is, he still designed the universe and set it in motion.

Given all you've said on this subject, how exactly do you avoid coming to the conclusions of Epicurus?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But you've just completely ignored everything I said about the specific verses dealing with women's silence in church Paul was not writing a book to be read by a global church in modern English, he was writing a letter to a church in Greece in a specific point in history. In context he is not telling all women to be silent in church at all.

---

quote:

---

As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
...we have a companion and comforter, not a magic friend in Jesus.

---

Brilliant.
 

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Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Creation is creation, regardless of the means. Even if God is the Deist absentee landlord you seem to think He is, he still designed the universe and set it in motion.

Given all you've said on this subject, how exactly do you avoid coming to the conclusions of Epicurus?

---

You are going to need to say more, because I haven't any idea what Epicurus said.

Not an absentee landlord. But not one who intervenes in magical ways in the physical operating of the universe. I have said before in other threads that in my experience, my extensive discussions of the matter with others who've suffered and in my understanding of events in history, we have a companion and comforter, not a magic friend in Jesus.

---

quote:

---

Laban is not denounced as a corrupt cheat who takes advantage of his own daughters,

---

quote:

---

The whole story is fun, but I think you really have to stretch to see how any of it illuminates the grace and love of God.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:

As far as magic friend, I'd say it seems pretty magical from where I sit that a man who was killed 2000 years ago can be anyone's companion and comforter in the here and now, let alone the (potential) companion and comforter of every human being.

---

 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 

quote:

---

originally posted by Martin:
Progress as defined by progress. If it quacks like progress, it's progress.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by Eliab:
but I remain morally responsible for what I believe, and if something in the Bible appears to me to be wrong, it is right for me to say that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We should see them all, first and last and totally, through the lens of Jesus. And therefore embrace them with His arms.

---

Amen. Some parts of the Bible we may not fully understand until we see God face to face.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
To me racism = prejudice + power, both individual power and systemic power. In other words, discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, which can also be individual or systemic. I really don't see the difference.

I'm not very good in reading legaleze, so I can't define my position with regards to the link you gave very well.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
There are parts of the Bible that contain timeless and priceless truth and beauty, but we're kidding ourselves if we think that its all like that. It isn't. There isn't, as far as I can tell, one single consistent Biblical view of cosmology or natural history which accords with anything that we can now think of as 'true'. There is no single Biblical anthropology. There certainly isn't a single Biblical view of ethics. ... The more natural reading reveals significant differences of opinion and emphasis. There simply isn't such a thing as 'the Biblical view' of almost anything worth thinking about.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
Doubtless I have as many wrong opinions about ethics and theology as I do about everything else, but I'm not going to get any better or wiser by trying to make myself see evil as good because the Bible seems to me to contain errors.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garasu:

quote:

---

Originally posted by seekingsister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Byron:
The metaphor doesn't seem complimentary.

---

Fine, but it's not correct to say "Jesus calls a Canaanite woman a dog."

A classmate of mine tried to argue that Christianity teaches polygamy, and when I disagreed he pointed to the Parable of the Ten Virgins.

It seems you have fallen into a similar trap here.

---

Sorry. Jesus does compare the woman to a dog. And while the parable of the ten virgins may not require polygamy, it surely presupposes it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
To me racism = prejudice + power, both individual power and systemic power. In other words, discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, which can also be individual or systemic. I really don't see the difference.

I'm not very good in reading legaleze, so I can't define my position with regards to the link you gave very well.

---

In the case before the court, a group of African-American men attacked a random white boy because he was white, after becoming enraged by the movie Mississippi Burning. It was ruled a hate crime.

If you class it as a racist attack, you don't employ the "power + prejudice" formula, since "power" doesn't just refer to individual power, but power in society as a whole.

---

OK...so now we are judging Jesus based on how hate crimes are defined under US law.
 

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Epicurus : “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

As far as magic friend, I'd say it seems pretty magical from where I sit that a man who was killed 2000 years ago can be anyone's companion and comforter in the here and now, let alone the (potential) companion and comforter of every human being. So again, I'm not understanding where you draw the line; it seems arbitrary and idiosyncratic to me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gildas:
Actually, notwithstanding the Two Ronnies gag about the bloke who combined the Five Foolish Virgins with the Seven Deadly Sins and ended up with Thirty Five Dirty Weekends, I think you'll find that the ten virgins were attendants at the Wedding Feast i.e. Bridesmaids. The existence of bridesmaids does not, I submit, presuppose a polygamous union. Even in Utah.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Epicurus : “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

As far as magic friend, I'd say it seems pretty magical from where I sit that a man who was killed 2000 years ago can be anyone's companion and comforter in the here and now, let alone the (potential) companion and comforter of every human being. So again, I'm not understanding where you draw the line; it seems arbitrary and idiosyncratic to me.

---

Epicurus is prepared to draw conclusions and come to an end isn't he? I prefer Ecclesiastes, Job and the Psalms myself. These philosophical, moral and aesthetic truths. This is the other polarity of the problems we face. We cannot accept the bible wholly as truth about God, neither can we reject it. We have to sit with it in dynamic tension between the rejection of God entirely and the acceptance of a God who constantly does things in our lives. I think we have minds more prepared for dichotomy than the holding of mysteries.

Someone else may be able to say this better than I, as they have elsewhere on this thread. WE mustn't be pushed to foreclose ourselves onto conclusions like your Epicurus does.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
On what grounds, then, do you decide what is authentically revelatory of God and what is not? So far, it looks like your yardstick is comfortable middle-class liberal prejudice.

The difference between you and Epicurus is that he was looking honestly at where his assumptions led.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by no prophet:
I prefer Ecclesiastes, Job and the Psalms myself. These philosophical, moral and aesthetic truths.

---

Those don't fit into my political ideology therefore I must repudiate them.

(Actually, if I were to start prooftexting scripture to support my political beliefs, I'd start with Ecclesiastes)
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
OK...so now we are judging Jesus based on how hate crimes are defined under US law.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Based on contemporary moral sensibilities...

Yeah, I'll need something other than contemporary morality is progress because everything new is progress before I'm willing to repudiate one jot or tittle of scripture.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
On what grounds, then, do you decide what is authentically revelatory of God and what is not? So far, it looks like your yardstick is comfortable middle-class liberal prejudice.

The difference between you and Epicurus is that he was looking honestly at where his assumptions led.

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Is your's inerrancy? I don't think we should talk of honesty here: it is judgemental.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:

You would not have much of an idea of how my assumptions have been tested. It isn't about theory, it is about experience and extensive discussion of experiences with others. It ain't book learning except as I have studied independently outside of my field. They are why I must reject some parts as not illustrative of God. I cannot accept genocide as God's nature. Nor rape, nor murder. Nor the use of people as objects within the stories of others. These are thus subject to our judgement and rejection.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
So it's sentiment instead of middle-class prejudice, then. My apologies.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Based on contemporary moral sensibilities...

Yeah, I'll need something other than contemporary morality is progress because everything new is progress before I'm willing to repudiate one jot or tittle of scripture.

---

I'm not arguing "new = good." Neoliberalism is new, and nuts.

Arguing "scripture = good" just goes to the other extreme. Scripture endorses slavery, patriarchy, genocide, and lots of other things we can agree are not of the good.

Everything on its merits, nothing on its source.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
So it's sentiment instead of middle-class prejudice, then. My apologies.

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No sir. Not based on feelings either.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
As judged how?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
So it's sentiment instead of middle-class prejudice, then. My apologies.

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No sir. Not based on feelings either.

---

Then what is it based on? Looks like feelings based on middle class prejudice to me. Again...you are asking us to repudiate part of scripture.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Best evidence of what?

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Of whatever's under consideration.

Let's say we decide if the Bible's defense of slavery stands up. We examine the history of slavery, the psychological effects of being at another's mercy, and move on to the arguments for and against.

Do you agree that slavery is wrong in all circumstances? If so, you disagree with the Bible; if not, you disagree with the modern world. As ya like.


 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 
which isn't incompatible with feelings based on middle class prejudice
 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 

quote:

---

originally posted by Byron:
We examine the history of slavery, the psychological effects of being at another's mercy, and move on to the arguments for and against.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What does that have to do with morality?

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quote:

---

Byron posits:
the Bible's defense of slavery

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
which isn't incompatible with feelings based on middle class prejudice

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quote:

---

To 'repudiate' is not to 'excise'. God forbid that we should edit our Bibles to remove the challenging bits. They are part of the history of our faith and (if we believe in inspiration at all) a record of how God has spoken and still speaks. But we can, and should, repudiate statements which, whatever they may have meant centuries ago, are to us a source of error or evil.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
...particularly when they energise zealots and nuts who would distort Christianity beyond recognition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
[...] Where is this? The bible's defense of slavery.

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quote:

---

(1 Cor. 7) Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.

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quote:

---

(Ephesians 6) Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.

And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

---

quote:

---

(1 Peter 2) Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What does studying the history of slavery and psychological effects of being at the mercy of others have to do with the morality of the biblical view of slavery?

---

They allow us to assess its merits.

How d'you decide what's right and wrong? If it's some other method, by all means, share. If it's the same method, we're in agreement.


 

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Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What does studying the history of slavery and psychological effects of being at the mercy of others have to do with the morality of the biblical view of slavery?

---

They allow us to assess its merits.

How d'you decide what's right and wrong? If it's some other method, by all means, share. If it's the same method, we're in agreement.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
You're talking about assessing the rightness or wrongness of a specific action by measuring it against some kind of moral yardstick, but that's not the question BA is asking (I think). He wants to know what the yardstick is.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Weber:
You're talking about assessing the rightness or wrongness of a specific action by measuring it against some kind of moral yardstick, but that's not the question BA is asking (I think). He wants to know what the yardstick is.

---

The yardstick is the evidence and argument. We can apply general principles, but they're formed by the same process.

The alternative is positivism, giving an opinion weight because of its source. If you go this route, you'd better hope your source truly is revealed truth. 'Cause otherwise, you've just elevated a handful of flawed humans to godhood. Not a good kind of apotheosis, that.

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Wow...all this circular reasoning is making me dizzy.

Besides, evidence and argument aren't a yardstick.

Try again

I'm waiting for a legitimate reason for why I should repudiate scripture.

Oh...and simply posting a list of verses without comment is not an explanation of the biblical view of slavery.

And your misapplying the argument from authority fallacy.


[ 29. July 2014, 20:38: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
 

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
But Eliab says ultimately it is based on his feeling of right and wrong. You say it isn't based on feelings or middle class prejudice but can't tell us on what it is based. You are asking me to repudiate scripture but you can't tell me why. All I get is because decent, ordinary, and rational people like yourself don't like it. So what?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
[...] Where is this? The bible's defense of slavery.

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I'm sure we're all familiar with the Mosaic law's regs, so from the NT:-
(1 Cor. 7)…
(Ephesians 6) …
(1 Peter 2) …

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Those are the expected citations, but you don't explain how these are a defense of slavery.

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Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Byron posits:
the Bible's defense of slavery

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It was your example, so I don't feel it's nitpicking to ask.

Where is this? The bible's defense of slavery.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
[...] And your misapplying the argument from authority fallacy.

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quote:

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quote:

(1 Cor. 7) Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.

quote:

(Ephesians 6) Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.

And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

quote:

(1 Peter 2) Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
But Eliab says ultimately it is based on his feeling of right and wrong. You say it isn't based on feelings or middle class prejudice but can't tell us on what it is based. You are asking me to repudiate scripture but you can't tell me why. All I get is because decent, ordinary, and rational people like yourself don't like it. So what?

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Let's flip this around a bit, though let's not ignore The Silent Acolyte's post which is well done.

Please tell me what the genocide in Joshua tells you about God and how it informs our Christianity. I think it misinforms but you indicate that you think differently.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
[...] And your misapplying the argument from authority fallacy.

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Amusingly, and appropriately, you don't explain why, just as you don't explain how my reasoning is circular. Toss in assertions about yardsticks, and we have us a tall glass of because-I-say-so. Not my poison, I'm afraid.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
But Eliab says ultimately it is based on his feeling of right and wrong. You say it isn't based on feelings or middle class prejudice but can't tell us on what it is based. You are asking me to repudiate scripture but you can't tell me why. All I get is because decent, ordinary, and rational people like yourself don't like it. So what?

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Let's flip this around a bit, though let's not ignore The Silent Acolyte's post which is well done.

Please tell me what the genocide in Joshua tells you about God and how it informs our Christianity. I think it misinforms but you indicate that you think differently.

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God chose to reveal Godself to the Israelites. God's choice made the Israelites God's chosen people with all the privileges and responsibilities that came with it. The privileges included God siding with the Israelites when they were in conflict with their neighbors. The responsibilities included keeping the law. The Incarnation happened in the place and within the culture shaped by God's relationship with the ancient Israelites. So, yes, the fate of the Israelites as a whole was more important to God than the fate of other ancient nomadic tribes that no longer exist. Not being a fundamentalist, I also God was concerned more with the fate of humans as a species than some of the ones that exist now only in the fossil record.

Jesus never questions the notion that the Israelites were the chosen people. He never questions that the religion of the ancient Jews wasn't correct and the others wrong. Just look at what Jesus actually says to the Samaritan woman at the well. Hint, Jesus doesn't say the Samaritan religion is equally as valid as the religion of the Jews.

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
The argument from authority is not universally invalid. Certain kinds of discussions (e.g. common law) are impossible without an appeal to authority.

The argument from authority becomes fallacious when an authority is appealed to on a topic outside its expertise or upon which it is not disinterested. So if I were to assert that modern cosmology is tosh because the Bible clearly states that the sun revolves around the earth, that would be one example. Or if, in an argument with an unbeliever over the existence of God, I cited Scripture to support my contention that God exists, that would be an example of the second case.

It is impossible to have a discussion within Christianity of Christian doctrine without some sort of appeal to Scriptural authority. It seems to me that a Christian who advocates subordinating Scripture to some other authority is at least bound to show what that other authority is.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
There are three basic things to say about these texts.

First, as I think I mentioned earlier, Slavery in those days and right down to the late medieval era with 'serfs' in English farms, was not always the outrage we think. In as very different culture without the kind of sophisticated money economy we now have, our style of nominally free employment wasn't very straightforward and for much everyday kind of service having slaves or being owned as a slave was a the normal option. And precisely because society was that way, freeing slaves was not always the best thing to do; indeed an owner who followed the OT rules probably offered the slave far greater security than freedom would have. I'm not sure of the detail, but I gather it took the extreme circumstances of the Black Death in England to break the pattern.

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Second, early Christianity, Christianity of the NT teaching, is not set up to be a powerful body that changes the world straightaway by coercive means. Don't think medieval state church, think people who have been called out of the pagan world not to another country but to live among their fellow-citizens as 'resident aliens' respecting the local culture so far as is possible, unless it is a clear case of 'obeying God rather than men'. And in those cultures, slavery would not seem as clear an issue as it does to us – whence that Paul commands masters to treat slaves well rather than free them.

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Third, for Christian slaves, this was a matter of following the example of Jesus by 'turning the other cheek' even to a bad master.

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Over time Christianity did have significant effects; as, for example when a Christian master might well find that in a local church his slave was an elder over him in Christ. Look, even in NT times, at Paul's words to Philemon - “...that you might have (your slave Onesimus) forever; no longer as a servant, but better than a servant, a beloved brother... At the time, because of the normalcy of slavery and that it wasn't all just like the atrocity of the Southern USA slave states, this might not mean freeing Onesimus (remember that in OT law there was provision for a slave to opt to continue as such); but enough of that kind of event would start a change which led to our present attitudes. At the same time we should not anachronistically impose those attitudes backwards and expect them of people who were only at the beginning of that change.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
[...] I find it interesting that the Bible is held up as the source of all objective morality
for all time, but the arguments are:

"well under those conditions slavery wasn't all bad" Or it was those particular women that needed to shut up not all women.

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Originally posted by George Spigot:

quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We should see them all, first and last and totally, through the lens of Jesus. And therefore embrace them with His arms.

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Amen. Some parts of the Bible we may not fully understand until we see God face to face.

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Tell that to the people who use it to condone hatred.

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I'll be happy to when it comes up, but alas, the old friends who are likely to bring it up appear to have dropped me, I'm guessing because of the whole gay thing. C'est la vie...

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
There are three basic things to say about these texts.

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All three of which I basically agree with.

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
Well each to their own.

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Wait, who's using an argument from authority to establish propositions (that's accepting for the purposes of argument your assertion that to do so is invalid)?

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“Turning the Beatitudes into an abuser's charter!”

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:

quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Byron posits:
the Bible's defense of slavery

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It was your example, so I don't feel it's nitpicking to ask.

Where is this? The bible's defense of slavery.

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For a start:

Leviticus 25:44-46
Matthew 5:18

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There was a reason the church used to discourage people from reading the Bible on their own. Give a Bible to an average teenager without previous knowledge of Christianity and have them read from the book of Revelations, give them a version of the Bible without commentary or footnotes. Also don't tell them its from the "Bible".

What do you think will happen? Will the review be:
what is this nonsense? Was the author on Acid? or: I feel inspired to burn my enemies in an everlasting lake of fire.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Of course Jesus did and we just, must continue on His humanist, liberal trajectory.

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:

quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Byron posits:
the Bible's defense of slavery

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It was your example, so I don't feel it's nitpicking to ask.

Where is this? The bible's defense of slavery.

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For a start:

Leviticus 25:44-46
Matthew 5:18

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This is just more sloppy internet-style argumentation: naked citations with nothing said to establish that these texts in any way make a defense.

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quote:

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There was a reason the church used to discourage people from reading the Bible on their own. Give a Bible to an average teenager without previous knowledge of Christianity and have them read from the book of Revelations, give them a version of the Bible without commentary or footnotes. Also don't tell them its from the "Bible".

What do you think will happen? Will the review be:
what is this nonsense? Was the author on Acid? or: I feel inspired to burn my enemies in an everlasting lake of fire.

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:


This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

You talk as if the Bible stands alone. This sounds like some sort of 21st-century, North American idolatry of the book.

The book cannot be interpreted outside of the Church, with worship and prayer being the principal locus of interpretation.


In fact much of the objection to certain texts of the bible seem to constructed of earlier centuries' interpretation the church no longer teaches, particularly when it comes to Holy War (what is so simplistically called genocide on this thread), sexual and other mistreatment of women, usury, you name it).

And, where is Phyllis Trible's name on this thread? I search and I can't seem to find it!

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
In fact much of the objection to certain texts of the bible seem to constructed of earlier centuries' interpretation the church no longer teaches, particularly when it comes to Holy War (what is so simplistically called genocide on this thread), sexual and other mistreatment of women, usury, you name it).

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quote:

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originally posted by Byron:
Authority is invalid if used to establish a proposition.

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quote:

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originally posted by Pre Cambrian:
Which of you should we actually believe? You say that we shouldn't base our view of the Bible on what the Church no longer teaches. However, Beeswax Altar earlier in the thread denigrated condemnation of genocide as a "modern sensibility" that shouldn't be allowed to stand up against the biblical word.

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There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The Church has never taught genocide. A faithful Christian wouldn't participate in a genocide. However, just because a faithful Christian wouldn't participate in genocide doesn't mean Christians should repudiate OT descriptions of what might now be called genocide.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Christians don't believe God will ever command holy slaughter.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
So, yes, the fate of the Israelites as a whole was more important to God than the fate of other ancient nomadic tribes that no longer exist. Not being a fundamentalist, I also God was concerned more with the fate of humans as a species than some of the ones that exist now only in the fossil record.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The Church has never taught genocide. A faithful Christian wouldn't participate in a genocide. However, just because a faithful Christian wouldn't participate in genocide doesn't mean Christians should repudiate OT descriptions of what might now be called genocide. Christian opposition to genocide has nothing to do with modern sensibility. Scripture should not be repudiated because it offends modern sensibilities.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Laws that codify slavery and that say the sons of
slaves are slaves for ever

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quote:

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You just made my point for me. I believe it is rational to judge Bible texts from a point of view outside of the Bible.

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I admit I should have presented my point better. It was an example against those that claim that everything in the Bible is inspired and "good" for you.

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If that is true…

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…you should be able to read any book of the Bible out of context and find something "good" in there.

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And to find that good you should not start from the assumption that it has to be good because its in the Bible.

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If you start from that assumption…

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…your claim is equivalent to the claim of a devout Muslim who can also justify everything that is in the Koran using the same kind of argument. Or everything in the book of Mormon for that matter.

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Interpreting the Bible trough a tradition small or big T is to use a standard outside the Bible to judge it.

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If not why can't the person use the plain text? Why would the interpretation of the High schooler be wrong just because its not in accord with a tradition? You could argue against the High Schooler using historical arguments that put the text in context you can tell him that burning people to death in a lake of fire for eternity is immoral but you won't find those things in the text of the Bible.

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Originally posted by no prophet:


Some of us see the revelation of God's nature as much more interactive with the awareness and consciousness of the people.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
but I remain morally responsible for what I believe, and if something in the Bible appears to me to be wrong, it is right for me to say that.

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Individuals acting as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong have caused far more death and destruction than the biblical account of the destruction of the Amalekites.

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I genuinely don't get your point. Surely you can appreciate that there's a difference between listening to one's conscience and taking moral responsibility for one's values and "acting as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong".

You seem to be making the assumption that everyone accepts some sort of authority as unquestionably correct and binding at all times, and the argument is about what it is we put in that exalted position: scripture or sentiment.

I don't think that no_prophet accepts that premise, and I certainly don't. It simply isn't true that if I reject the uncritical approach to scripture that you argue for, I have to endorse some other standard as being beyond criticism. I don't. Why should I?

Besides, as I tried to demonstrate, scripture isn't a thing. It's a category. The Bible doesn't speak with one voice. It cannot, in my judgment, be true that it is both OK to marry a Moabite, and OK to abandon her and your own children by her for no other reason than her race. And yet there's a scriptural warrant for both propositions.

Like everyone else, you have interpretive principles by which you do in fact repudiate parts of the Bible. You did it on this thread when (contrary to the known praxis of the first Christian church) you said that Christians don't believe in animal sacrifice. You, can, presumably, cite the letter to the Hebrews in support of that view. FWIW, I agree with you, but you are repudiating parts of the book of Acts when you do this, and you know that you are. Why the reticence in saying so?

[ 30. July 2014, 07:08: Message edited by: Eliab ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
TSA - humanism and liberalism are obviously divine. Human consciousness is opening to the divine. To love. And we ALL know what that looks and feels like even though we obscenely pretend that it is OK for God to sanction our murderous monkey vileness.

How do we do that?

Make black white? In God's name?
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Totally unrelated to the content of your post, Martin, but you really should post something on the Eighth Day poetry board.


 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
And to join up the dots TSA, Jesus showed us HOW to be liberal, humanist, humane, human, divine.
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
The general Christian principle of interpreting the bible, and I do mean general as in espoused by the vast majority, is that bible traces the trajectory of humanity's interaction with the Divine through salvation history, followed up until the impact of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the early stages of the ensuing missionary explosion of the Church into the world. Almost no Christian group considers say the polygamy of the ancient Jews as of the same moral and religious status just because it is also spelled out in the bible. That's just not how that works.

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While there certainly is a natural (and, I believe, God-given) backbone to your concepts of good and evil, the views that you now have have been formed and re-shaped by endless cultural and social interactions. […] And you can change again. Should you, though?

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And it is at this point where the question of "bible morality" bites, if you are a Christian. It is far from clear that the various voices which de facto spoke morality into your head in your upbringing are more authoritative than the ones who now speak morality to you with the bible in their hands. Maybe they were, maybe they were not.

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But the answer to that cannot be given in the mode of "here I stand, I can do no other".

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You are not unchangeable, in fact, you have been changed. That is the question, and you cannot evade its force by pretending that your moral principles are set in stone.

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originally posted by no prophet:
The problem I have with your idea is that you accept that God did indeed side with the Israelites, versus they believed they had God on their side. It would seem that they created God in the image they imagined.

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originally posted by no prophet:
It is not okay to simply dismiss the women, children and men who were slaughtered with phraseology like "ancient nomadic tribes that no longer exist" and "God was concerned more with the fate of humans as a species than some of the ones that exist now only in the fossil record."

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originally posted by no prophet:
These were living and breathing people who lived, felt love and were loved, babies who bounced on parents' knees, families who hugged each other and cared for their elderly. You really can find it possible to dismiss actual living people?

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originally posted by no prophet:
That God did a personality change?

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quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
I genuinely don't get your point. Surely you can appreciate that there's a difference between listening to one's conscience and taking moral responsibility for one's values and "acting as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong".

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quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
You seem to be making the assumption that everyone accepts some sort of authority as unquestionably correct and binding at all times, and the argument is about what it is we put in that exalted position: scripture or sentiment.

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quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
I don't think that no_prophet accepts that premise, and I certainly don't. It simply isn't true that if I reject the uncritical approach to scripture that you argue for, I have to endorse some other standard as being beyond criticism. I don't. Why should I?

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quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
You did it on this thread when (contrary to the known praxis of the first Christian church) you said that Christians don't believe in animal sacrifice. You, can, presumably, cite the letter to the Hebrews in support of that view. FWIW, I agree with you, but you are repudiating parts of the book of Acts when you do this, and you know that you are. Why the reticence in saying so?

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An excellent example

Animal sacrifice is not a part of the new covenant. Nowhere does scripture command animal sacrifice and in fact condemns it. Still, in Acts 21, we have Paul seeming to sponsor animal sacrifice in the temple. Do I repudiate Acts 21? Absolutely not. I understand that given the context Paul had a legitimate reason (and actually reading the entire pericope along with Paul's epistles makes the reason quite obvious)for what he did. Now, if somebody taught that Christians should sacrifice animals based on Acts 21, I would repudiate that teaching.
 

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
Was wrongly informed that Anglicans consider reason and tradition in addition to scripture? Here reason - the use of our brain power - is required to properly consider God's role in taking sides with a tribe of dusty people bent on taking over the lands belongings to others. This, the anthropologists indicate is the usual conduct of tribal peoples.

I accept therefore that the Israelites thought God was on their side and helped them, ordered them, to kill as they did, but reason tells us this is contrary to God's nature.

Sentiment as you state it, well, that would impetuously guide me to damn myself to hell and refuse heaven, Jesus and all the rest, if it were true as you state: that God values an agreement, a covenant, over everything else. This sort of use and discarding of human beings is something I see as one of the great failings and distortions of the business-as-god direction of our civilization. The reasoning as you promote it is the root in my view.

I might throw the sentiment label back your way. Sentiment perhaps attaches you to this tribal view because it provides comfort and felt security in 'truly knowing' the traditional truths. I do not think we can afford the ongoing destruction of each other with such views, and that we are required to do better with our minds than that. We afford such a luxury at our peril.
 

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Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
I don't have the cite from Hooker close to hand, but the gist is: resolve a question using scripture. Failing that, look to tradition for the resolution. Then, when scripture and tradition are silent, apply human reason informed by scripture and tradition.

The fabled three-legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason, favorite of confirmations far and wide in this country, is a modern tool frequently used to pervert both scripture and tradition with modern opinions masquerading as reason.
 

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Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
Hooker wrote :

Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after this the Church succeedeth that which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever.

You have it almost right, TSA; you have only flipped reason & tradition.
 

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Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
In fact much of the objection to certain texts of the bible seem to constructed of earlier centuries' interpretation the church no longer teaches, particularly when it comes to Holy War (what is so simplistically called genocide on this thread), sexual and other mistreatment of women, usury, you name it).

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…
I am interested also by your suggestion that it is simplistic to describe as genocide such as the divine instruction to massacre the Amalekites. Instead, apparently, we should dress it up as "Holy War", i.e. pure euphemism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Laws that codify slavery and that say the sons of
slaves are slaves for ever

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You still don't mount an argument, but follow up with yet more sloppiness. Your citation does not say what you assert it says; or, you fail to offer a citation that does say this.

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quote:

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The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai:

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quote:

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44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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You just made my point for me. I believe it is rational to judge Bible texts from a point of view outside of the Bible.

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What I actually said was that the only place from which a Christian can interpret the bible is within the Church and there, from within prayer and worship.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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I admit I should have presented my point better. It was an example against those that claim that everything in the Bible is inspired and "good" for you.

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This is an idiotic statement. A straw man.

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quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
Was wrongly informed that Anglicans consider reason and tradition in addition to scripture?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Laws that codify slavery and that say the sons of
slaves are slaves for ever

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
You have it almost right, TSA; you have only flipped reason & tradition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Many progressives are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Oh, me too; I'm inclined to consider Tradition to be at least on the same level as Reason.

Unlike some continuers, I don't canonize Hooker's opinions; I disagree with him, for example, that the episcopate is not essential to the Church.
Still, those who quote him should quote him properly and not mangle his words in order to make them serve their own purposes!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by no prophet:
Was wrongly informed that Anglicans consider reason and tradition in addition to scripture?

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Were wrongly informed about what that means. Many progressives are.

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You know I wasn't exactly expecting you to agree with me. But I see the consequences of Israelite exceptionalism as one of the great evils in the world, as empire and country after empire and country in history and present have used these ideas to follow the same terrible path. I don't really think that anyone can accept that the model as shown in the OT is one to be followed - you wrote something along these lines - but I fault clergy and others who fail to point it out, and grievously fault those who support it. Most often I see support. Are you suggesting that believers and clergy who hold views such as your's regularly take on the misuse of scripture that allows pursuit of agendas along these lines? This is a repudiation of the bare minimum: of the institution of national agendas based on this.
 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
My point is merely that they are two different things, genocide and holy war, though they wind up in pretty much the same place with respect to the carnage.

The point of genocide is to totally destroy a people. And, while we're at, let's collect and appropriate for our own use all their stuff. It's usually motivated by greed.

Holy war in the OT, on the other hand, is a total destruction of the people and their stuff, making both an offering to God. It is warfare waged at personal risk, but without the gain of possessions, herds, flocks, and slaves.

There are a number of instances where biblical characters are punished for holding back from total destruction of the enemy's goods. It was a stealing from God's portion, for all the booty was to offered to him, consumed with flame.

The object was to gain the land, fulfilling God's promise to his people. The destroyed people's goods were not the object.

I'm not saying this to make anyone like the depiction, rather just to write an accurate account of it and to distinguish it from garden-variety, 20th-century genocide.

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quote:

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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Christians don't believe God will ever command holy slaughter.
Croesos response; Again, why not? Sure, Christians believe that they're under a new, different covenant, but they seem to have retained some bits of the old covenant (e.g. Ten Commandments) and repudiated* other bits (your example of animal sacrifice). Why did the genocidy bits get chucked over the "repudiate" side of the fence?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Your distinction between "holy war" and "genocide' is a false distinction and a dangerous one at that. I say dangerous for two reasons. First of all, it reveals a sad lack of moral awareness and an appalling view of God as one who would approve and even command such actions. And secondly, it leaves you an atom's breadth away from joining the Islamists who slaughter in God's name. If "holy war" is acceptable, then what is to stop Christians applying those principles in Nigeria or Sudan or.....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
the various Crusades and wars like the English Civil War supplying sad examples; but in so doing they went against NT teachings.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Beziers

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quote:

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Neither the Crusades nor the English Civil War were about holy slaughter.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
First of all, it reveals a sad lack of moral awareness and an appalling view of God as one who would approve and even command such actions. And secondly, it leaves you an atom's breadth away from joining the Islamists who slaughter in God's name. If "holy war" is acceptable, then what is to stop Christians applying those principles in Nigeria or Sudan or.....

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quote:

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Holy war in the OT, on the other hand, is a total destruction of the people and their stuff, making both an offering to God. It is warfare waged at personal risk, but without the gain of possessions, herds, flocks, and slaves.

There are a number of instances where biblical characters are punished for holding back from total destruction of the enemy's goods. It was a stealing from God's portion, for all the booty was to offered to him, consumed with flame.

The object was to gain the land, fulfilling God's promise to his people. The destroyed people's goods were not the object.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Fr Weber;

quote:

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Neither the Crusades nor the English Civil War were about holy slaughter.

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But in claiming to be in the name of God, they were not so far off it, either. A bigger question would be whether you are approving of them, whatever technical distinctions you might make about them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Laws that codify slavery and that say the sons of
slaves are slaves for ever

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It was this statement for which I was looking for a citation. This is important, because you ransack the OT for scattered citations that you think support your argument.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
You say that because slavery is depicted in the bible it must be good in God's eye. That because a bronze-age document doesn't offer a full-throated 19th-century denunciation of slavery, the divine inspiration for that document must eternally approve of slavery. This is bollocks.

The laws concerning slavery in the OT regulate and ameliorate a vicious institution.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
First Idiotic now Bollocks?

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quote:

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I just said that there are texts in the bible that claim God dictated laws to regulate slavery.

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quote:

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Other Christians in this thread would,I believe,argue that the god that they believe in would dictate no such laws.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Laws that codify slavery and that say the sons of
slaves are slaves for ever

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Laws that codify slavery and that say the sons of
slaves are slaves for ever

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I guess I was annoyed at your failure to support this statement. I keep asking for the citation that supports it. I'll stop.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
First of all, it reveals a sad lack of moral awareness and an appalling view of God as one who would approve and even command such actions. And secondly, it leaves you an atom's breadth away from joining the Islamists who slaughter in God's name. If "holy war" is acceptable, then what is to stop Christians applying those principles in Nigeria or Sudan or.....

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For this you should apologize. You accuse me of having a lack of moral awareness, an appalling view of God. You accuse me of having common cause with the Islamists, with those who slaughter in God's name. Play the ball, not the man.

I started that post [link] by saying that the depiction of holy war in the OT was nasty business. I further asserted that genocide and holy war in the OT were two different things. To casually conflate them is to fail to think critically about what God was up to.

To distinguish them enables us to understand wtf is going on in these deeply disturbing stories. It's critical to really look and see what is said and to struggle to come to terms with it.

What I wrote, I wrote in an attempt to lay bare some of the structure of the narrative of holy war. Here is the meat of what I wrote:

quote:

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Holy war in the OT, on the other hand, is a total destruction of the people and their stuff, making both an offering to God. It is warfare waged at personal risk, but without the gain of possessions, herds, flocks, and slaves.

There are a number of instances where biblical characters are punished for holding back from total destruction of the enemy's goods. It was a stealing from God's portion, for all the booty was to offered to him, consumed with flame.

The object was to gain the land, fulfilling God's promise to his people. The destroyed people's goods were not the object.

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Please engage with that, with what I said, not with what you think I mean.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
First Idiotic now Bollocks? I wonder what comes next.

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A Host? (looks around nervously)
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting

No, an apology, so all is self-regulatingly well.

hosting
 

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Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
Oscar the Grouch, so you don't feel an apology is necessary? That's fine. I retract my assertion you should make one.

But, understand: I haven't asserted that either holy war or genocide is justified.

I have never on this thread asserted that indiscriminate slaughter can be justified.

Don't tell otherwise; to do so is either to misread my words, or to be disingenuous. Examine my posts and you will see that they have dealt exclusively with the text, the relation of scripture to the church, and how scripture can be interpreted. Oh, I also through a rock hard at Martin's eschatology.

My entire project on this thread has been to protect scripture from our modern despair over stories we find appalling.

Here is what I said about Paul's statements about women on the bottom of page three. A parallel, but more complicated, set of statements could be crafted about OT holy war.

quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
So, we back away from excise to repudiate.

To protect scripture from a mixtum-gatherum ransacking, I would substitute this language for repudiate:

We now recognize that, for example, some of Paul's dicta on women, which were grounded in the societal norms for his times, are no longer suitable norms for our times, because we can no longer conform these norms to the greater biblical norm of equality.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Ill admit it was a poor paraphrase of
"You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life"

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
My entire project on this thread has been to protect scripture from our modern despair over stories we find appalling.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
I reiterate however, that your moral dudgeon at genocide and holy war clouds your judgment and your ability to grapple with the OT texts about holy war. You collapse the two and so you abandon the possibility of gaining meaning from the texts, because you can only view them through a 20th-century lens.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
What I cannot do … is gain a positive meaning from [the disturbing OT texts].

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quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
What I cannot do - and what I suggest that no-one can do - is gain a positive meaning from something that is undeniable and irredeemably negative.

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Well put.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Something perhaps to consider re some of the "hard" parts of the Bible, including all of the stuff in which God seems to command things we are definitely not, as Christians, supposed to do...

To quote C.S. Lewis on "hating" one's father or mother,

quote:

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The hard sayings of our Lord are wholesome to those only who find them hard. There is a terrible chapter in M. Mauriac’s Vie de Jésus. When the Lord spoke of brother and child against parent, the other disciples were horrified. Not so Judas. He took to it as a duck takes to water ... For there are two states of mind which face the Dominical paradoxes without flinching. God guard us from one of them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
What I cannot do - and what I suggest that no-one can do - is gain a positive meaning from something that is undeniable and irredeemably negative.

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Well put.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Based entirely on sentiment and circular reasoning... but...whatever...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
TSA, Oscar the Grouch

You are now showing signs of a developing personal conflict. Probably time to check out Commandment 4?

Barnabas62
Purgatory Host

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I'm sorry was some rational reason given for me to repudiate scripture?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
It'll all be all right in a) the next life or b) the afterlife cannot be proved to us since all we have is literary accounts, and I feel it would be better to act as if we were atheists, and this life were all the life those children had.

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Um... which would not really be so much chucking out those bits of the Old Testament but that and all of Christianity... If "this life were all the life those children had"--and all that we have--then as St. Paul says, "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."

PS: Barnabas62 re warts and all:

[ 31. July 2014, 07:14: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
seconded

There's no going back.
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
I genuinely don't get your point. Surely you can appreciate that there's a difference between listening to one's conscience and taking moral responsibility for one's values and "acting as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong".

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Not in the way you are proposing there isn't. Everybody faces moral conundrums to which their is no clear and easy answer. In those circumstances, a properly formed conscience is the best guide in individual decision making. However, using your conscience to judge the actions of people who lived several thousand years ago is making yourself the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

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originally posted by Eliab:
I don't think that no_prophet accepts that premise, and I certainly don't. It simply isn't true that if I reject the uncritical approach to scripture that you argue for, I have to endorse some other standard as being beyond criticism. I don't. Why should I?

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And yet you aren't claiming to be the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong...

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quote:

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Animal sacrifice is not a part of the new covenant. Nowhere does scripture command animal sacrifice and in fact condemns it. Still, in Acts 21, we have Paul seeming to sponsor animal sacrifice in the temple. Do I repudiate Acts 21? Absolutely not. I understand that given the context Paul had a legitimate reason (and actually reading the entire pericope along with Paul's epistles makes the reason quite obvious)for what he did. Now, if somebody taught that Christians should sacrifice animals based on Acts 21, I would repudiate that teaching.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Well, scripture is available for reproof and correction. Of course we take that to mean of ourselves. 2 Tim 3:16 is of course circular. The Bible is inspired because the Bible says it is inspired. Which makes 2 Tim 3:16 some kind of non-proof proof text.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I can certainly agree that we should repudiate the use of those texts to justify genocide. The New Covenant holds us to a different standard than the Old did. But that doesn't mean that the texts are lying about God having commanded the Israelites to slaughter the tribes of Canaan. If I find, when I at last come face to face with God, that the author of Joshua was dishonest about God commanding such a thing, I won't be terribly disappointed; until then, I will take what is written in Scripture as true a priori unless given evidence otherwise.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There's nothing dishonest about it.

But if they were accurately reporting what happened 3500 years ago - which is impossible - then we don't know God in Jesus. Which we therefore don't need to. We follow Jesus in His radicality regardless that He is NOTHING like God in Israel's prior experience.

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quote:

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There is no dressing up, no euphemism, no attempt on my part to make it any less the nasty business that it plainly was.

My point is merely that they are two different things, genocide and holy war, though they wind up in pretty much the same place with respect to the carnage.

The point of genocide is to totally destroy a people. And, while we're at, let's collect and appropriate for our own use all their stuff. It's usually motivated by greed.

Holy war in the OT, on the other hand, is a total destruction of the people and their stuff, making both an offering to God. It is warfare waged at personal risk, but without the gain of possessions, herds, flocks, and slaves.

There are a number of instances where biblical characters are punished for holding back from total destruction of the enemy's goods. It was a stealing from God's portion, for all the booty was to offered to him, consumed with flame.

The object was to gain the land, fulfilling God's promise to his people. The destroyed people's goods were not the object.

I'm not saying this to make anyone like the depiction, rather just to write an accurate account of it and to distinguish it from garden-variety, 20th-century genocide.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Magic Wand:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There's nothing dishonest about it.

But if they were accurately reporting what happened 3500 years ago - which is impossible - then we don't know God in Jesus. Which we therefore don't need to. We follow Jesus in His radicality regardless that He is NOTHING like God in Israel's prior experience.

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I'm probably going to regret this, but...

If Jesus isn't God (or how we know God) then what do we care about following Jesus' radicality, or anything else about him?

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quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
It'll all be all right in a) the next life or b) the afterlife cannot be proved to us since all we have is literary accounts, and I feel it would be better to act as if we were atheists, and this life were all the life those children had.

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Um... which would not really be so much chucking out those bits of the Old Testament but that and all of Christianity... If "this life were all the life those children had"--and all that we have--then as St. Paul says, "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
and therefore implying that there's no need to be too troubled about it (and I sort of picked that up in one place, maybe wrongly)

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Yes, that wasn't what I meant--but (unless someone develops a time machine, and God knows how badly we'd screw things up if we were allowed to!) there is nothing we can do to affect what happened back then at all. I find it greatly troubling--but I also must trust God that somehow it will all make sense in the end, and in presumably... let's see, I'm 46 now, so probably in the next 40 years or less... I'll get to ask all the questions I want. And no one has mentioned so many more things that are just plain terrifying, like Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac and the like.

But till then I have been told to trust Him and be anxious for nothing, which I think holds true for both the next month's rent and what happened to people who died several thousand years ago. (Or longer. One of the very first questions I asked when I was receiving catechism was where the cavemen went when they died, because surely God loved them too...)
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Was my summary of the "pro-repudiation" side good, pro-repudiation people? And, Beeswax Altar, was that a sufficiently rational summary of the position?

just trying to help
 

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Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
I started that post [link] by saying that the depiction of holy war in the OT was nasty business. I further asserted that genocide and holy war in the OT were two different things. To casually conflate them is to fail to think critically about what God was up to.

To distinguish them enables us to understand wtf is going on in these deeply disturbing stories. It's critical to really look and see what is said and to struggle to come to terms with it.

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quote:

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The (attempted) deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group. (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)

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quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Was my summary of the "pro-repudiation" side good, pro-repudiation people?

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quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
(1) The Israelites in the distant past believed that God was telling them that things like genocide and slavery were OK or even commanded;

(2) As Christianity developed over the centuries, Christians grew to understand that those things were not only a tad awkward but downright evil and never justifiable;

(3) Therefore, despite prior belief that He did, God could never have truly commanded or accepted those things;

(4) And therefore Christians should revise their understanding of those sacred texts to reject the ones which claim that God has ever truly commanded or accepted such behavior or practices.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Of course Jesus is God! But not as we know Him in the gutter press.

Unless Bronze Age myths are accurate reporting.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No.

It's circularity of seeing the heilsgeschichte entirely through the lens of Jesus, not the other way around.

The gutter - in to which Jesus fell - press is scripture, tradition and 'reason', yes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Magic Wand:

I can't help feeling like there's some sort of secret gospel that Martin's reading that would allow all of his cryptic pronouncements to make sense, like claiming that Jesus was a Marcionist. Personally, if I were secular, his circular reasoning would put me off even humanism, which, frankly, is my experience of any number of people who would describe themselves as deterministic materialists. Which I guess maybe is what Martin is trying to achieve?

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