posted April 04, 2011 07:56 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
Picture this Lexx
You could have a robotic dog who would be "forced " to love you cuz he was a robot or a real dog who had choice to love---which would you want?
The real one.

Therein lies all the ensuing problems---Man was a creature with free will and free choice.
God made Man this way so man's love would mean something.

I can ,only,write ,little by little cuz I need to think on it.

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Give me the humans of the first Genesis and that true God not the latter.
Compare the two creation tales and see the vast difference betwixt them.

posted April 04, 2011 07:59 PM            

I shall return to reply to all you have posted.

I need to attend to other things at the moment.

posted April 04, 2011 08:11 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
I want to express the Bible as best as I can to anyone who has questions.
That is my only goal.

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posted April 04, 2011 08:21 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
Well, here is the thing,Lexx. One has to accept that God is the Creator and man is the creation.
They were NOT robots .If they were, I suppose,none of the trouble would have happened.
He did not want robots.
He wanted them to have choice. Do you agree,so far,Lexx?
If you really want to discuss this, I am game but if you are gonna laugh and make jokes at me, I am not interested.
I take this seriously. I am trying to seriously explain these things to you.

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Please compare the two creation stories.
Without realizing the differences there it is impossible to discuss this topic easily.

I must go for now.

posted April 04, 2011 08:57 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
What did God "demand" men to do? What do you mean?
I cannot fathom the question.You will have to be specific and with examples if you want me to attempt to answer it

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I want an explanation for this:

"Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (I Samuel 15:2-3)

posted April 04, 2011 08:59 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
OK
I will accept that you are serious.
*I* need to go in a step by step manner to get to YOUR question of the "atrocities"
I am willing,if you are ,but we must go step by step or it will not make sense.

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Ami Anne,

posted April 04, 2011 09:13 PM            

This subject of Atrocities in The Bible, LEXX brought up with me, and it has me "disturbed"... I want to know how other Christians feel about this issue.

posted April 04, 2011 09:29 PM            

quote:

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Compare the two creation tales and see the vast difference betwixt them.

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There is no disagreement there were two Creations.

If we look at the Mystic Enoch and his writings and go forward in time to Muslem`s Mystic Ibn Arabi`s writings; we can see "what they entailed"

Certainly he age old conundrum of the two creation stories have plagued humankind for ages. If we compare the writings of Enoch and Ibn Arabi, we can see the "mystery" unfold.

In the Secrets of Enoch, we read of a perfected Human describing the order of Creation. Enoch was a few generations after Adam and had limited terminology/language to describe the events, Planes and Beings he visited. A couple of thousand years later, with more developed language/terminology, Ibn Arabi describes the very same Creation , Planes and Beings.
Studying both texts, it becomes clear they are in perfect agreement and there was two Creations!

The first was from the Singularity/Essence who spoke into existance the first Creation as we read in John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him" (John. 1:1-3). Unseen and unknown, Masculine Essence AND Feminine Essence . The planes of unknown existances followed this order. Angelic orders et al. So, Enoch and Ibn Arabi are stating that the order of Creation is first with the unseen and unknown planes. They then state the second Creation of the seen and known, material form. Adam & Eve, plants and animals. First the Unknown Order than the Known. Two Creations stories unfold.

posted April 04, 2011 09:36 PM            

The unseen planes and unknown places

posted April 04, 2011 09:50 PM            

At the Councel of Nicea, they threw out many of the Mystical Teachings that fill out the blind spots of the books left to create the accepted Bible.

(Enoch being a perfect example.)

That is why some believe in an Eden zoo ( to borrow lexx`s term) based on the blind spots left in an incomplete Bible while others study the Mystics of all Faiths to complete the Bible and a God of love and mercy.

posted April 05, 2011 11:05 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
I don't believe in extra Biblical books,so my beliefs do not fit in .
I will leave this discussion as we would be talking about apples and oranges and it would be a crazy fruit salad.
See ya all around

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http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible3.htm#god-kills-the-firstborns

Err... this isn't an extra Biblical book. It's a website of excerpts of the Bible put into organized form for reference...

I don't think it's distributed even as a book for others to read.

Perhaps you just don't have an answer, either?

posted April 05, 2011 11:13 AM            

This is a question I’ve heard quite a bit from those who don’t understand how Yahweh can be the same God in both the Old and New Testaments. In their minds, it seems that God condones violence in the Old Testament while in the New Testament violence under any circumstances is condemned.

First of all, it is important to understand that violence came into the earth because of man’s sin. Violence is not God’s fault. As a matter of fact, I will go so far as to say violence started with Satan. Things were peaceful in heaven until Satan became puffed up with pride and decided he was going to take God’s throne. So he rounded up a third of the angels in heaven and started a war with the righteous angels who defended God’s honor. The rebellion was put down in a New York minute (see Isaiah 14:12-17; Ezekiel 28:11-19; Revelation 12:3-4, 7-9).

But back to the question at hand. God states clearly in his word that he hates for men to shed blood in Genesis 9:6 when he instituted the death penalty. From the context of scripture, it is understood that he was talking about murder. This is also what he meant by “Thou shalt not kill.” Otherwise, why would he then tell Israel to destroy all of the inhabitants of Canaan? There are times when violence is justified even by God. For instance, in Genesis 14 when the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were taken captive by neighboring kingdoms, Abram got an army of his servants together to go save them because his beloved nephew Lot and Lot’s family were among the captives. Abram was victorious and was even blessed by Melchizedek, God’s priest, for his victory. So we see here a principle that it is okay to use violence to protect our loved ones if they are needlessly attacked.

Now back to the question of why God told Israel to kill all of the Canaanites. Here’s what Yahweh tells the Israelites:

“Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.” (Deuteronomy 9:4-6)

So God is using Israel as a tool for his punishment against the Canaanites because of their many sins and because he wants to hold up his agreement with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He also states in Deuteronomy 7 that he wants Israel to be a holy nation without having the evil influences of the inhabitants of Canaan. God gave them one shot to get it right but they failed so just as God predicted, those Canaanites became pricks and thorns to Israel. Therefore, God justifies violence if it is to punish an evil nation.

“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

We must also keep in mind that in the Old Testament, God was establishing a physical kingdom in honor of an everlasting covenant to the three patriarchs. If Israel was attacked during their righteous periods, God condoned violence for their preservation. If Israel was attacked during periods of ungodliness, God condoned violence to punish them. In the New Testament, he was ushering in a spiritual kingdom that included all of mankind, so the violence for the preservation of a physical kingdom is unnecessary. “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” (John 18:36).

posted April 05, 2011 11:20 AM            

In the Old Testament there is so much war and violence sanctioned by Yahweh. Is this the same loving God portrayed in the New Testament? Let's take this seriously by quoting a few verses that seem repugnant to us. For example, Deuteronomy 20 contains Yahweh's instructions about war. If a city does not accept Israel's offer of peace and open its gates, then "when the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it" (verse13). With regard to other cities, the command is (verse 16), "Do not leave anything that breathes."

You probably also recall that the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, and then the Israelites "destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, and donkeys" (Joshua 6:21). This certainly seems brutal and vindictive, doesn't it? Or consider Joshua 11:20, "For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses." From our twenty-first century point of view, we ask, "What good was accomplished by all this annihilation?"

Yet there is clearly another side to Yahweh as well. While the prophet Ezekiel does not spare the wicked in his denunciations, he also records Yahweh's words of grace: "If a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die�Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" (Ezekiel 18:21, 23). And he goes on in verse 32, "For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!" And there is this compelling verse recorded in 2 Chronicles 16:9, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."

All these descriptions of God depict him as unwavering in retribution on evil, though he takes no delight in it, and also unwavering in love and encouragement toward those hearts are turned toward him. God's obvious desire is that sinners should repent and live. But there comes a point where evil is finally intolerable and wiped from off the earth.

We must see these terrible retributions in their historical setting. The spread of wickedness was so pervasive that immorality, degradation, and barbarity invaded every facet of life. Children were sacrificed to pagan gods. Male and female prostitution took place right in the temple as part of the religious rites. Idol worship was rife and the society wholly contaminated. This evil was contagious and God's people were in danger of being infected as well. God's awesome judgement was finally unleashed.

Today we have lost that black and white distinction between good and evil. Tolerance is presented as the great religious value. Indeed, tolerance of diversity is a high Christian value, but often today tolerance is taken to mean the virtue of accepting nearly every behavior under the sun. Anything goes - in the name of tolerance! A sweeping moral relativism is the result, and children grow up with fewer and fewer moral absolutes to guide them. We seldom hear the term sin anymore, but instead a dozen much milder words are employed. Surely the Lord will not tolerate this abomination to his holiness forever.

Nor do we like to accept the fact that when evil spreads, the innocent as well as the guilty are hurt. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the city died, both the innocent and the guilty. A few days later, as a direct result, the war came to an end. It was a terrible end, but it was the end, and greater carnage was avoided. Let's be clear about this stricter and more communal view of justice in the Bible. The Canaanite pagan communities would surely intermarry with the Israelites, and God's people were in danger of succumbing to their sexual perversions and religious degradation. Finally, the danger became just too much

The entire Bible from beginning to end never deviates from this standard of justice as well as grace. Jesus is crystal clear about the punishment of evildoers, for on the day of judgement God will say to the evildoers, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). Our society does not much care to hear about pain and punishment, and prefers the meek and mild Jesus of some contemporary writers. But the God of the New Testament is the changeless God of the ages.

And in that affirmation lies our only hope. Clearly we have all missed the mark. Each of us stumbles, and wounds, and sins. Even the most godly affirm that over and over. In God's enduring justice, he never simply blinks casually at sin. But that is not the end of the story, nor even the overriding theme of the Bible. For as humanity spirals deeper into self-gratification, God intervenes. Indeed, the Old Testament is a record of God's intervening in the human situation with a new promise of hope. The New Testament is the record of grace applied to people lost in sin and rebellion. There was no compulsion placed on God to undertake this rescue operation. But the plan was and is indescribably marvelous. God did not forget about guilt and justice. Rather, Jesus Christ, the God-man, took on himself the punishment and so satisfied the grisly sentence. This is what Christians call grace. The Bible is mainly a record of grace, set against a backdrop of horror and misery.

posted April 05, 2011 11:26 AM            

Hi bloggers and bloggerettes,

Sorry it's been a few days since I've posted. Been crazy busy.

I've been discussing the problem of divinely sanctioned violence in the Old Testament. So far I've argued that whether or not we're able to reconcile the holy war tradition with the non-violent example and teachings of Jesus shouldn't affect our faith in Christ, our picture of God or how we live (see postings on 3/17, 3/21 and 3/24). Still, this issue has significant theological repercussions, so we need to take it very seriously.

It's now time to start examining proposals. I’ll put all my cards on the table. I have a tentative "solution" (really, a set of "solutions") that I plan on building toward as I review various proposals over the next couple weeks. But I'll also be honest with you and confess that I'm not entirely satisfied with my present "solution," so I'm very open to modifying, or even completely abandoning, my present views. In a very real sense I'm just processing out loud on this blog. My hope is that this exercise will help refine, modify and improve my own view and perhaps help others along the way.

Let's start by considering the most radical proposal to resolve the apparent contradiction between the Old Testament's Holy War tradition and the non-violent character of God that is portrayed in the New Testament. There are a number of scholars and pastors who consider themselves Bible-believing evangelicals who argue that when Joshua and other Old Testament warriors thought Yahweh was telling them to slaughter men, women and children, they were simply mistaken. The Bible accurately (even infallibly?) reports what these people "heard," but their "hearing" was culturally conditioned by the violence of the culture they were entrenched in.

Some who are reading probably just gasped and are shocked I would even bother to consider such a proposal. But please hear the proposal out!

One author who espouses this view is Vernard Eller. I’ve read all of Eller’s books and find him to be a profoundly insightful thinker with a beautiful vision and deep understanding of the Kingdom. (His book Christian Anarchy is a classic!). In his book War and Peace: From Genesis to Revelation (Wipf and Stock, 2003) Eller makes as good a case as I’ve ever seen defending the view that Yahweh did not command the violence of the Holy War tradition. I can’t begin to do justice to the complexity of Eller’s argument and the insights offered in this (often neglected) book. But I can briefly outline his basic argument in five steps.

1. Born Fighters
First, Eller argues that humans are made with a warrior instinct, for we are made in the image of a warrior God. He finds this in the paradigmatic Genesis narrative itself, for humans are commanded to “subdue” and “rule” the earth (19 [all numbers are page references to War and Peace]). We’re to partner with God in building his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and this involves fighting for the Kingdom (21). In the Genesis narrative it's not yet clear who or what we’re supposed to fight, but there are suggestions we're not to fight other humans. In the narrative of Eve’s creation from Adam, for example, Eller notes that all fighting language is gone. “[T]here is nothing here about ruling or exerting control over others…Everything points to a mutual giving of oneself to the other – the very contrary of domination over the other. (23)

2. Turning on Each Other
Second, Eller observes that when humans "fall" (rebel against God), our fighter instinct gets turned on each other (Adam on Eve, Cain on Abel, etc.). Eller brilliantly traces the escalation of violence throughout Genesis and the Old Testament. Human on human violence, then, is the result of our estrangement from God. More specifically, violence is rooted in our unwillingness to trust God for security and thus in our need to make ourselves secure (33). At the same time, the Genesis narrative reveals that even after the fall, God continued to be a warrior, but he was a warrior for humans, not against them. This is reflected in the fact that Yahweh made clothes for Adam and Eve to cover their shame and in the fact that he took measures to protect Cain from other humans who wanted to kill him (as well as in a number of other ways) (29-30). Eller argues that God is always trying to protect humans from themselves and trying to get humans to partner with him in building the Kingdom (which Eller metaphorically depicts as dancing with God).

3. What Joshua and Other Old Testament Warriors Got Right
Eller argues – convincingly, I believe – that the wars that Joshua and others fought were not at all like the wars nations usually fight, for these wars are always motivated by the need to make oneself secure (he calls these sorts of wars “Nimrodian wars,” for they’re patterned after the “great” warrior in Genesis, Nimrod). The Israelite wars were “holy wars,” for the Israelite warriors were motivated only by a desire to partner with God in fighting God’s foes. Indeed, the Holy War tradition is premised on the conviction that “it is Yahweh who is fighting the war; about as much as is expected of the human participants is that they come along and watch him do it” (47).

This is why we repeatedly read in the Old Testament's Holy War material the refrain that “Yahweh has already given the enemy into your hand.” (52-53). This is also one of the reasons the Israelites often enforced “the ban” (herem) in which everything had to be “utterly destroyed.” They were trying to protect themselves against the fallen urge to fight for selfish purposes (57-58). Unlike Nimrodian wars, therefore, the Israelites couldn't be motivated by their own insecurities. They had to place all their trust in Yahweh and couldn't benefit from their battles (unless Yahweh explicitly allowed them to).

Not only this, but before engaging in these battles, the Israelites always had to spend time consecrate themselves to God – which means, according to Eller, they had to “[l]et Yahweh work you over, remodeling your Nimrodian image into that of himself until your total life and being become consistent with the war in which you have been enlightened to fight” (51). In this light, Eller says, these warriors “were doing the very best they knew how in getting their lives hallowed in accordance with Yahweh’s will" (52) They were trying to play out their warrior instinct the right way, by fighting God's battles rather than their own. "Their effort,” Eller adds, “puts ours to shame” (52).

One of the most interesting things about Eller’s book is that he is sharply critical of "enlightened" contemporaries who cavalierly judge Joshua and other similar Old Testament warriors for their barbarism. Joshua and other warriors at least had the understanding that they were to fight God’s wars, not their own, and that this involved totally surrendering to God’s will. In a moment, we’ll see that Eller believes these Old Testament warriors misapplied this true perception, but “we [today] don’t even have the true perception. Joshua’s is not the last word,” he says, “but his is the only first word that has any chance of ever getting us to the last word” (40).

Eller is particularly critical of anti-war activists who are, in his view, as “Nimrodian” in character as pro-war activists. Both the militarist and the pacifist are trying to acquire security for themselves apart from God (41). The way to stop wars, Eller argues, is not to get people to stop fighting each other. So long as people and nations are insecure, violence is inevitable. Rather, the only way to stop wars “is to get people to switch from fighting their wars to join Yahweh in fighting his war” (41). “Sad to say,” Eller argues, “the understanding of these people [Joshua and company] was flawed on some points, and their grand attempt failed." "But," he adds, “let it be said in deepest seriousness that, until we are ready once again to try the experiment of Joshua, there is no hope that the peace that God intends ever can become a reality” (43).

4. What Joshua and Other Old Testament Warriors Got Wrong
This brings me to the fourth, and, for our purposes, most important aspect of Eller's argument. While Eller stresses admiration toward the sincerely of Old Testament Holy Warriors, he also argues that “it simply is impossible to reconcile the savage, city-leveling Yahweh of Joshua with the God and Father of Jesus” (58) “[W]hen one…contemplates the hideous carnage that the ban required and encouraged, when he considers the completely indiscriminate and merciless slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, he cannot help but feel that the event reflects more of human presumption than it does of divine obedience” (72). Eller notes that “[e]ven the best of people with the best of intentions are not sufficiently godlike that they can fight God’s war without corrupting and perverting it with their own Nimrodian tendencies” (72).

In various passages that report Yahweh commanding slaughter, we are finding an accurate report “of what human beings heard him [Yahweh] say.” But we are not here finding “ the unmediated voice of God himself.” (78). When “the words run entirely contrary to all that knowledge would lead us to expect, we should perhaps question the hearing of the reporters rather than the consistency of God’s speaking” (78).

The Israelites were right in thinking they were called to advance God’s plan in the world (59) and right to believe this involved fighting. But they failed to grasp that “MAN IS NOT THE ENEMY” (59). In keeping with the “Nimrodian” mindset of their age, they wrongly assumed that any people who threatened the fulfillment of God’s plan were enemies who had to be removed. “[W]hen the squeeze came,” Eller claims, “Israelite faith wasn’t quite adequate, and the people fell back on the conclusion that man must be the enemy." In their limited perspectives, "there is no way for God’s plan to go forward without fighting against men, so this," they believed, "must be what God wants" (60).

This lapse constitutes “a failure of faith in the capabilities of God. As far as man can see, the only alternatives are either to let the plan of God be frustrated or to take out the obstructionists” (59). But this is, in fact, a “Nimrodian decision based on the premise that God’s alternatives are limited to what man can understand” (60). It’s the same thinking that Christians use today to justify violence (viz. "if we don't fight, evil will win!"). To really have faith in God, and to truly fight the battles God wants us to fight, we need to have faith that God can achieve his loving ends without using violent means (60).

Only in the New Testament do God’s people fully understand that our struggle is never against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12). Only with the coming of Christ does it become unambiguously clear that Yahweh’s battle is never against people, but always for people and against spiritual powers that oppress and destroy us. (Eller has a marvelous chapter on the spiritual warfare understanding of the atonement [ch.5, 113-144]).

5. God’s Use of the Holy War Tradition
One final point needs to be made. Eller argues that, while God didn’t approve of the slaughtering his warriors engaged in, he nevertheless used it to advance his purposes in the world. Throughout the Bible God uses what he does not approve of, as when he allows other nations to defeat Israel to teach them lessons. So too, “once Israel had determined that she was going to fight, God determined that, whether he approved of such fighting or not, he was going to use it to preserve Israel, give her a homeland, and lead her in the way toward the peaceable kingdom” (78). It's a matter of God bringing good out of evil.

This is how God handles all violence, according to Eller. All war is the result of human estrangement from God, and so in this sense all war is a punishment for rebellion against God. “God doesn’t approve of war,” he says, “but this isn’t to say war is completely outside his plan.” Rather, “war is the punishment brought upon themselves by those who foster and create the kind of situations that lead to war. " Moreover, Eller argues, "it is not that the losing nation is the punished one and the winner merely the punisher. War is always punishment both ways”(79). So, as a regrettable concession, God worked with Israel’s Nimrodian mindset, as he worked with the Nimrodian mindset of others, to accomplish his purposes, as much as possible, in the world. And part of this purpose was to punish the sinful violent-mindedness of both the Israelites and their pagan enemies.

And all the while Yahweh was laying the groundwork for a future revelation of who he really is, what his character is really like and what kind of warfare he has really called us to.

In my next post I'll offer a critique of this view. Until then, chew on this perspective. What pros and cons can you think of in response to Eller's view?

Keeping thinking, growing and loving!