Evil people do evil things to other people .
Does Bible teach us everything good?
- Thread starter Saint
- Start date
Evil people do evil things to other people .
So God was evil when he commanded genocide?
I doubt God commanded any body to kill, man does do to his own initiative. You can take the example of Sahara Ab's. wife as she war trying to help ,so God's promises be fulfilled to Abraham.
1 Samuel 15:
Thus says the Lord of hosts: "I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."
I don't know about that . Those prophets had writers and the prophet was not necessary a literate person , that could be a political encouragement for the Israeli to fight Amelakites . but this is my view.
It's the Bible though. The part most Christians have learned to ignore. Now, it's just the rest of it people need to ignore.
Apparently god let it get past the editors and into the final edition, so he must've approved it...
This and That
I would note at the outset that 1 Samuel is not generally considered a prophetic book; rather, it is generally viewed as part of Deuteronomistic history. It is intended as a chronicle.
As an historical perspective, I would not disagree with your point. But in its Biblical context, there is a difference between the tradition of Gad and Nathan's contributions to the Books of Samuel and prophetic books at the back of the Old Testament.
Still, though, if the Bible is to be taken in any remotely literal context, yes, God ordered the genocide of the Amelekites, repented of a kingship when that genocide failed, and crowned a new monarch after it was completed.
The key is in the question: What is good or bad to our minds has nothing to do with the Truth that God knows.
Note Arauca's point, to which I responded above. I don't disagree, but neither do I find the assertion stable in the context of this thread.
Genocide, to us, is evil.
To God? Well, we can reasonably posit that if God is good, then genocide, when ordered by God, is also good.
Think of it this way: How many times do we answer a tragedy by saying that God works in mysterious ways, and so on? Recall, for instance, the brouhaha we endured last year in the American election cycle when Republican candidates developed a curious knack for saying the strangest things about rape.
Was it Richard Mourdock who said a rape-induced pregnancy was a gift from God?
Well, you know, to my mind that's repugnant, insane, and an embarrassment to our nation, speak nothing of Indiana, where Mourdock was state treasurer and GOP candidate for U.S. Senate. But, to the other, if I'm God, and busy dealing with everything in the Universe, who knows? The rape babies, the vicious murders, natural disasters, and other atrocities of our living experience all have their part in the total event that is the Universe.
And so they are good, because God is good, and the whole of the Universe is God's will.
So when you see, for instance, a veteran limping along on his artificial leg, or a refugee missing his lips and nose, or the lifeless body of a premenstrual child raped to death by soldiers in order to scare a town into compliance? Tell yourself that it is God's will, and praise His goodness.
And when your conscience argues that what you see is a product of evil, remind that it is a mere conscience, and not God.
Arauca said:
I would note at the outset that 1 Samuel is not generally considered a prophetic book; rather, it is generally viewed as part of Deuteronomistic history. It is intended as a chronicle.
As an historical perspective, I would not disagree with your point. But in its Biblical context, there is a difference between the tradition of Gad and Nathan's contributions to the Books of Samuel and prophetic books at the back of the Old Testament.
Still, though, if the Bible is to be taken in any remotely literal context, yes, God ordered the genocide of the Amelekites, repented of a kingship when that genocide failed, and crowned a new monarch after it was completed.
• • •
Saint said:
The key is in the question: What is good or bad to our minds has nothing to do with the Truth that God knows.
Note Arauca's point, to which I responded above. I don't disagree, but neither do I find the assertion stable in the context of this thread.
Genocide, to us, is evil.
To God? Well, we can reasonably posit that if God is good, then genocide, when ordered by God, is also good.
Think of it this way: How many times do we answer a tragedy by saying that God works in mysterious ways, and so on? Recall, for instance, the brouhaha we endured last year in the American election cycle when Republican candidates developed a curious knack for saying the strangest things about rape.
Was it Richard Mourdock who said a rape-induced pregnancy was a gift from God?
Well, you know, to my mind that's repugnant, insane, and an embarrassment to our nation, speak nothing of Indiana, where Mourdock was state treasurer and GOP candidate for U.S. Senate. But, to the other, if I'm God, and busy dealing with everything in the Universe, who knows? The rape babies, the vicious murders, natural disasters, and other atrocities of our living experience all have their part in the total event that is the Universe.
And so they are good, because God is good, and the whole of the Universe is God's will.
So when you see, for instance, a veteran limping along on his artificial leg, or a refugee missing his lips and nose, or the lifeless body of a premenstrual child raped to death by soldiers in order to scare a town into compliance? Tell yourself that it is God's will, and praise His goodness.
And when your conscience argues that what you see is a product of evil, remind that it is a mere conscience, and not God.
And who were the editors ?
Endless Nameless
Technically, there have been many editors, perhaps countless as the overwhelming majority are unknown to us, but the Old Testament and the Gospels are formalized versions of oral tradition.
Generally speaking, though, the editors were a bunch of Catholic bishops from the fourth to ninth centuries, at least, and some Protestant clerics from the sixteenth to the nineteenth. The "Catholic" Bible was formalized in the ninth century, and the "Protestant" (or "English") Bible in 1825.
Interestingly, John Wycliffe (1320-1384), of the Lollard movement that predated the Protestant Reformation, has often been referred to since as "The Morning Star of the Reformation". That is, he is the Lucifer of the Reformation.
And, yes, there is a "Wycliffe Bible". It is worth noting that the Wycliffe, like Douay-Rheims, and other earlier Bibles, used the name "Paralipomenon" for the Books of Chronicles. The name is derived from a Greek term meaning, "things left out".
Throughout its history, the Bible has been a dynamic text despite claims to the contrary.
Arauca said:
Technically, there have been many editors, perhaps countless as the overwhelming majority are unknown to us, but the Old Testament and the Gospels are formalized versions of oral tradition.
Generally speaking, though, the editors were a bunch of Catholic bishops from the fourth to ninth centuries, at least, and some Protestant clerics from the sixteenth to the nineteenth. The "Catholic" Bible was formalized in the ninth century, and the "Protestant" (or "English") Bible in 1825.
Interestingly, John Wycliffe (1320-1384), of the Lollard movement that predated the Protestant Reformation, has often been referred to since as "The Morning Star of the Reformation". That is, he is the Lucifer of the Reformation.
And, yes, there is a "Wycliffe Bible". It is worth noting that the Wycliffe, like Douay-Rheims, and other earlier Bibles, used the name "Paralipomenon" for the Books of Chronicles. The name is derived from a Greek term meaning, "things left out".
Throughout its history, the Bible has been a dynamic text despite claims to the contrary.
Ah. So the Bible isn't God's word, but rather someone's interpretation of it? OK, that's fine.
Problem is that applies to everything. Jesus was the Son of God? Might just have been editorial license by someone who liked that imagery. Virgin birth? Well, no one wants to admit that they fooled around and got themselves pregnant; "we never had sex!" might have been necessary to avoid criminal charges at that time. Elohim and Yaweh considered the same God? Might also just be a translator's mistake, since both names are used throughout the Old Testament - and both got translated (perhaps incorrectly) to "God." So there may be two Gods.
Irrelevant. It's either the word of god or it isn't. You can't pick and choose as to which parts you think are of god and which parts are superfluous. If god is all powerful and he wants us to have his message, then what we have must've been approved by god.
Well you can, and many people effectively do. But as has already been pointed out you're then giving up any notion of inerrancy which brings everything into question. But you'll find that most Christians don't care because to them faith is simply more of an organic, freestyle affair. In other words, they're not really like the devout first century Christians you read about in the book of acts and according to the fundamentalists a lot of them (if not all of them) are in serious danger of burning in hell alongside all the atheists, idolators and blasphemers. There's even all sorts of biblical passages to support such a position (which will of course be ignored by those whom they condemn).
Is it harmful to send my children to Sunday's School?
Yes. Unless you want them to grow up with the terror of hell.