Sorry I was silent today. I'll likely post something tomorow. Not that anyone is holding thier breath or anything

Just letting you know Im around.

Deuteronomy 21:10-14

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives,
Is warfare intrinsically wrong? Not according to Scripture. Since all men are sinners, God allows warfare so that those who seek to oppress others [or are ungodly and idolatrous as were the nations surrounding Israel] may be "executed", just as the death penalty is "righteous" when administered to a murderer.  At that time in the history of Israel, God would use Israel to bring Divine judgment upon ungodly nations through warfare and the "penalty of execution". The Bible teaches clearly that the wages of sin is death, so execution is consistent with God's judgments against sin.

11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.
Notice that God gives express permission for a sacred marital relationship [wife] not an immoral "whorish" relationship.

[i]12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. [/i]
This appears to be a ceremony of purification prior to marriage, nothing lewd or unholy here.

14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her. [/color]
Just as the Law of Moses allowed divorce because of "the hardness of men's hearts" God even allows this marriage to be anulled, while protecting the honour of the woman who was initially a captive of war but was given the status of a legal wife.  Now who in all fairness would say that anything in this passage is immoral?

While I will agree that it seems to be makeing an attempt at evenhandedness, I would argue that this passage still bears the mark of an ancient culture who viewd women as propertie. What's worse is the idea that you could indeed try and make someone whome you have thuroughly humiliated to become your wife. (You did just kill all her friends and family after all). When taken into context with the other passages I quoted, it is not unresonable to assume this passage is speaking of forced marrige. This idea being wholy abbominable in my mind.

Judges 21:10-24

So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
This passage upholds the teaching that young women should remain virgins before marriage.  Who can object to that except those who themselves are immoral?

The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives.
Again, these virgins were to be honoured with the status of legal wedded wives.  Is this unholy or ungodly?

Ummm... they were kidnaped, their village ransaked, and they were MADE into wives. It wasn't like Seven Wives and Seven Brothers over there. They didn't all go over with rings and propose after a nice date over some wine and dinner.

Sorry, but I don't understand your resoning here.

But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse."

To honour a solemn oath is an honourable thing.  Can anyone object to that?

An oath is one thing, but to resort to kidnaping to preserve it is another. Surely they could have found another way.

Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife!
There is not a shred of evidence that this suggests or implies rape.  What it does state that they were to be (1) taken home to be "wives" [an honourable thing] and (2) only one was allowed to each man [also an honourable thing].

They were KIDNAPED. And maybe not raped, just forced to marry the men who KIDNAPED them. Considering that the whole point of this story was preserving isreals bloodline, I think the intent of sireing offspring is implied. This would indeed imply intercourse somwhere down the line. These women are not given a say in the matter in the whole story. That is not right now is it?

And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnaped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance. Then they rebuilt their towns and lived in them. So the assembly of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.
The above translation uses the word" kidnapped" in verse 23.  However, the KJV uses the word "caught", and we should not immediately "rush to judgment" and say this is the same as being "kidnapped".  This was certainly not brutality, kidnapping or rape, but an unusual, and in our Western culture, unimaginable way of acquiring a wife. So to then infer from this passage that God is unrighteous is not only foolish, but unfair and blasphemous.

The first part of the story has men destroying a village and kidnapping 400 women to force them into marrige. The last part has them kidnapping a bunch more women in a dance.

Perhapse as you say it's a cultural thing. Yet let us not be so hasty and asume it was a good thing either. We know the ancient Hebrews did not in any way view women as having equal status as men. They are viewd as propertie.

This is echoed in other cultures in that region and by countless other bible stories. This story is just one of the bunch, and as the others do, God says nothing against these rather barbaric and humiliating ideas, and in some as in the Numbers story seems to order it explicitly.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
Again, this is divine execution of the ungodly, and God the righteous and true judge, has every right to not only render a just verdict, but also have it carried out.  You would not blame a human judge today if he order the execution of a serial killer, a child molester, or a serial rapist. How then can sinful man stand in judgment over a holy God and say "God is unrighteous because He righteously executes the ungodly"?

So why are the women godly, and are to be enjoyed with the rest of the plunder? Not only that, what about the explicit endorsement of forced labor in the first part? Is this righcheous?

Numbers 31:17

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.  
This is the same situation and the same response is adequate.

So why are the baby boys evil and ungodly, but not the young virgins? Why do they keep the virgins?

The fact that you refer to the one true and living God -- the LORD God Almighty -- as "the Hebrew god of the Old Testament" -- reveals that you prefer to believe the lies of theological liberals over the truth of God's Word.

I call him that, because he is that. I am not a liberal, just doing some research into christian thology. I mean no disrespect, I am seeking only understanding. I do apreciate your response, but I must say that this goes along the lines of my previous discusion. Instead of getting hung up on these details, perhapse we can discuss what the nature of richeousness and sin are?

I think this will lead to some enlightenment on this issue.

Again, thank you very much. I am really enjoying this discussion, and it is turning out more fruitfull than I expected.

guma's reply #3
So he is not all-loving.

He a Holy Righteous God, hates sin, is that wrong in your opinion?

I'm not arguing right or wrong here. But I would agree that he hates sin, and by consequence the sinner. Right? I mean he hates those who sin, so he feels free to punish them grusomely, if not in this world, then in the next.

Well then, this is the end of it  That answers my question. It really does, the christians I was arguing with told me he was.

Did they say he loved sin?? or did they even address this at all??

Well the idea was that he loves the sinner and not the sin, by consequence that he was all loving OF PEOPLE in general. I argued along the lines that some mothers never stop loving their kids no matter how bad they are. etc.

What it seems here, in this discusion, is that indeed God is not necisseraly all loving of all people. Those who sin, are not loved in his book. Hence the need for christ/salvation etc. This is what I am understanding so far.

So naturaly it just didn't make sense to reconsile those verses above.

Well noone can, unless one understands the spiritual truth of the matter.

This I don't understand. What is the spiritual truth of it? I am unclear.

However, god can do evil to reach his means if it suits him. He after all is the boss of this place. I guess there is a distinction between richeousness and evil then?

Liberals today, think exactly the way you have expressed yourself herein, and I don't even know you, but it amazes me, when someone says god is evil when He excercises judgement, instead of being thankful He doesn't repay us according to our iniquities.

I don't know what this has to do with politics. With all due respect, lets keep this discusion on a purely thological/philosophical basis.

When I said evil in this quote, I was unclear, I mean evil in our eyes. Meaning, the chapters I quoted above etc. Were evil things in human eyes. Baby killing etc. Look pretty bad from down here.

It is easy to make judgements on what God did four thousand years ago, not knowing the begining from the end of it all.  

But since He is who he is, we are confident He did what was right.

See, this is my sticking point though. Slavery, rape, pillage, murder etc. Were his devices of choice those 4000 years ago. Even if the ends justifyed the means, isn't that a rather cold, dictatorial, take on a God who loves us?

Perhapse I am not one to question. But when considering this God I cannot help it. What did killing all those people, enslaving them, pillaging them, gain in the long run? How could it compensate? Is there any result of it today to indicate it's ultimate merit?

All good things will come to an end, od has made His will knowen to ALL mankind, he hates sin, and the day is coming when he will Judge the World in righteousness, you can call it evil, if you please, but nothing can be further than the truth.

He has been offering a pardon for nearly two thousand years now, those who reject the pardon, have nowhere else to  turn to for forgiveness of sin.

But this will not prevent nor delay it, one moment.

Are you ready that this day does not catch unawares??

This is another discusion all together. It would be an interesting one, and indeed I am curious as to the nature and mechanisim of salvation. But right now I am exploring the nature of the christian God. I want to know what he is about.

Thank you very much, for your response, and your patience.

I've seen these questions before. They were worded a little bit differently, but I think they were on Internet Infidel. Christians would know the answers to these questions.

The questions are my own. They are things I encountered as I read the bible and discussed it with a friend. I don't doubt that others have come across them, and indeed the verses I snagged from online sources. (i.e. the blue letter bible, and another one I can't remember).

The other forum I discused it on, with a christian, became a nowhere conversation as the individual was deadset on maintaining the idea that god was all loving. When clearly the verses show that he is not.

As far as righcheoussness being the heart of the matter, I am very interested in perseuing this idea further. Thank you very much for your feedback, and tolerance of my inquiry. As I said, I really just want to understand the belife system, I don't really want to judge it or anything, just want to understand the justifications involved in maintaining its ideals.

Which brings me to michael_legna's post:

The first point to keep in mind is that seldom if ever is an act on its own a sin.  It is the accompanying intention that is sinful.  In fact the intention alone can be a sin all by itself.  Such as anger violating the commandment against murder.

So, an act is a sin by intention? If I intend good things by murder, and indeed achive those good things, was the murder a sin?

For example, much of this countries wealth was won from the persecution of the indians, and usage of slavery. Now, the intentions were not necissarly bad, they revolved around the idea of providing americans a better tomorow, and indeed those institutions succeded in doing so while causing great harm to others. Thus, can benifit come from sin? If so, was that sin really a sin?

This is a straight forward question. I really want to know the ideas behind this. As far as good coming from evil, and how that pertains to righchussness.

Now remember God is all knowing - so he knows the far reaching consequences of all actions, man's as well as his own.

Well, I'm not so sure about this. Do you mean all possible actions or all actions? I mean he didn't seem to know man was going to eat the apple, and in the flood story, God does say he reagreted man, and intended to end evil on earth. Yet God failed at this as there is still evil. If he can regret, and be surprised, how can he be all knowing?

I think I know what you mean, but I would like to clarify all-knowing further so we both understand it.

So something can be a sin for man, because we don't know the far reaching consequences or don't care, and do the act purely for our own selfish desires.

 

But what if the intention isn't selfish? Stealing to feed your starving family perhapse, or even something as huge as shooting down a passanger plane due to terrorist threat. Are these acts sins?

I ask this as a matter of defining what is a sin. That is, if a human knows the consequences, has good intentions, yet does something horrible. Then that horrible thing is not a sin, right?

But the same act done by God might would not be a sin as God knows the far reaching consequences and has only the best most perfect intentions at all times.

But the horrible acts listed above? How can we say god has good intentions thrugh murder, pillage, rape, and slavery? Is this based solely on faith at this point?

Isn't it more like my indian example above? Aren't we americans better off for persecuting them all, just as the isrealies were for pillaging cannan? Does that make either two things right?

Think of it this way, you come up and plug in the toaster to make toast.  Not a sin for you because you do not know the long term consequences.  But I might know that someone is trying to repair the toaster and has their fingers on the heating elements, so if I were to plug it in with the intention of taking advantage of the situation to hurt that repair person I would be committing a sin.  Of course there are numerous and more convoluted ways of expressing this scenario but I hope you get the picture.

I agree with you hear. I belive the above sittuations pose more of my predicament with this idea. If you could elaborate on those I would be much obliged.

I don't know where you are going with this or your purpose, especially considering this is your first post on a Christian family forum. I will simply tell you that you have been given some false information.

I was simply trying to find a solid answer to my question and I was told these apologetic forums were good. As I said, I just wanted something that made sense, whenever I brought these issues up with other christians I allways got half-hearted answers.

Almighty God is NOT an all-loving God. Almighty God is also a God of unimagined power in wrath and destruction of wickedness and evil. The Holy Bible is full of accounts where the wicked or evil were punished or destroyed. The great flood is but one example. There is prophecy throughout the Holy Bible that the future holds wrath and destruction like the world has never known before. The accounts in the Old Testament are mild in comparison to what the wicked will suffer in the future.

So he is not all-loving. Well then, this is the end of it That answers my question. It really does, the christians I was arguing with told me he was. So naturaly it just didn't make sense to reconsile those verses above.

However, god can do evil to reach his means if it suits him. He after all is the boss of this place. I guess there is a distinction between richeousness and evil then?

Can god remain richeous doing bad things like above?

I guess a better question would be, what is richeousness?

Hello All,

I have been having a religious debate elsewhere about a certain point in the Bible that I cannot seem to reconcile with a fundamentalist "the Bible is inerrant" viewpoint. The debate dragged on, with very easily refutable apologetics concerning the meaning of the verses in question. Someone suggested posting the question on this board, as there are a good number of intelligent Christians who may be able to provide a solid explanation. While I am expecting a lively debate on the following issue, my goal is not to change anyones mind about what they belive, or to start a flame war. I really want a solid Christian perspective, that stands up to logical scrutiny.

My line of questioning follows from the common fundamentalist beliefs that:

A.) The bible is inerrant and literally true in all it's words.
B.) God is all loving, all good, and does no wrong.
C.) The God of the Bible, by necessity of A, reflects B in all his actions.

However, I find contradiction to these beliefs in the following verses, which clearly showcase immoral, evil, acts sanctioned by God. Now, it is commonly held that God is the measure of Morality (anything he does is inherently right and good), this argument is easily dealt with, and I will do so after presenting the verses in question.

Deuteronomy 21:10-14

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

Judges 21:10-24

So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse."

Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnaped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance. Then they rebuilt their towns and lived in them. So the assembly of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

Numbers 31:17

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

The above verses reflect the immoral, evil, actions sanctioned by the Hebrew god in the old testament. These actions run the gamut of infantaside, slavery, rape (forced marriage), genocide, robbery (looting), and general murderous mayhem.

From these verses I can conclude that A is false in one of two ways:

1.) The bible is not inerrant, and the above verses reflect the ideology and moral values of a misogynistic patriarchal culture (not unlike many others found in the region at the time). A culture where women were property to be owned, killing "infedels" was a good and just act, and slavery and warfare were common practice.

2.) The bible is inerrant, and indeed God can shift and shape good and evil into anything that suits his means. His actions are out of love, and he gets to arbitrary define love, good, evil, etc. Whenever and however he feels like, despite the unwitting humans it affects.

Now if 1 is the case. My contention stops there, for this is my current belief on the subject. And what I see as the most obvious answer to the quandary. Following from this, we can say that if God exists, the above stories provide further proof as to how many have misused his name for personal gain throughout the ages.

However, If 2 is the case, we must then look deeper into the nature of morality and our ability to understand it.

Some would say, I (as a human) have no right to make these judgments in the face of an all powerfully god, as such a god himself sets the standard of morality. Thus, such a god can make rape (forced marriage), baby killing, murder, looting, a good thing. Right and wrong to this god is an arbitrary decision dependant on what his particular whim was at the time.

I would say that God is subject to the same concept of right and wrong that we (humans) are, and indeed is separate from this concept. We can make a good case for this by simply turning to Genesis.

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Now, here we learn that because of the fruit mankind gained the ability to know good and evil as god and his fellow gods? know it. This not only states that we have the same ability as god in this faculty, but allows us to easily infer that good and evil are something outside of God, and not necessarily a part of him. God knows good and evil as we do, we both have the same faculty to understand what is right and wrong. Now, I think it is safe to say that most humans would agree that rape, slavery, and infantaside, is wrong and evil in any context. Since we have the same faculty as god to decern this right from wrong, god would have to agree. Thus, commanding what he did in the stories above was evil, by the very measure he himself is subject to as established in Genesis.

To put it in a simply, God cannot make rape, slavery, and infantaside, good. Can he?

So, my question to you is, with regard to my reasoning above, how does a fundamentalist biblical inerrantist reconcile these verses with an all-loving God?

Did God make killing babies, looting villages, and raping women a good thing in these bible stories?

Thank you for your time in reading my post, and I hope that I can gain some insight into christian reasoning on these matters.

Best Regards.