"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character...

by digderidoo 261 Replies latest jw friends

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  inkling

  Apples and oranges.

  EXACTLY! This is also know as a FALSE, and (therefore worthless) analogy! You are are one that summoned it, not me.

  [inkling]
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  inkling

  uh oh... I think we scared her off

  [inkling]
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  snowbird

  Nothing scares me anymore, Inkling, thanks for your concern. I'm having computer problems.

  The passage from Deuteronomy regarding proof of a girl's virginity:

  Deuteronomy 22:13 -19 If a man marries a woman, sleeps with her, and then turns on her, calling her a slut, giving her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I slept with her I discovered she wasn't a virgin," then the father and mother of the girl are to take her with the proof of her virginity to the town leaders at the gate. The father is to tell the leaders, "I gave my daughter to this man as wife and he turned on her, rejecting her. And now he has slanderously accused her, claiming that she wasn't a virgin. But look at this, here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." And then he is to spread out her bloodstained wedding garment before the leaders for their examination. The town leaders then are to take the husband, whip him, fine him a hundred pieces of silver, and give it to the father of the girl. The man gave a virgin girl of Israel a bad name. He has to keep her as his wife and can never divorce her.

  20 -21 But if it turns out that the accusation is true and there is no evidence of the girl's virginity, the men of the town are to take her to the door of her father's house and stone her to death. She acted disgracefully in Israel. She lived like a whore while still in her parents' home. Purge the evil from among you.

  I don't see anything barbarous in the above. I see a strong deterrent to fraud and deception, slander and malice.

  I don't believe girls of the past were as physically active as those of today, hence, an intact hymen would have been the norm. Whatever the case, I have faith that the Judge of the whole earth was going to see that justice was done.

  One final point, the issue was raised as to how the Israelite men would be able to identify the virgins among their captives. It was customary in those times for a woman's dress to identify her status, e.g., David's daughter, Tamar, in 2 Samuel 13. This is still the case in India and many parts of Africa, and if true of the people captured by the Israelites, identifying who were virginal would have been a simple matter.

  EXACTLY! This is also know as a FALSE, and (therefore worthless) analogy! You are are one that summoned it, not me.

  [inkling]

  I wasn't making any analogy whatsoever. I was making an attempt, albeit feeble, to show that a person can by faith accept God's actions without feeling a need to condone them. That is my premise.

  Sylvia
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  inkling

  Ok, I think I will respond to a few of your points later tonight, but until then
  (now that I know I have a listening ear) I would like to pose a few more of my
  unanswered questions: --- What about 2 kings 2:23 where the God's punishment for little children who make fun of his prophet is to send a bear from the woods to tear them to pieces? --- In duet 25:11, If a woman sees her husband in a fight with a man, and goes to break up the fight, and in the process grabs his privates, her hand is to be chopped off. Seriously??? How can you feel good about giving Jehovah direct credit as the writer of that law? --- Later in Duet 22:22, the following laws regarding fornication and rape are given: If a man lies with a betrothed virgin "in the city" and she does not protest by screaming (meaning it appears to be consensual immorality, not rape) then they are both killed. Once you buy into the value system that fornication is deserving of the death penalty, this seems to make sense. (As long as you don't allow any room for the fact that the poor girl might be be too terrified to scream) Next, if the same thing happens to an engaged virgin in the FIELD, not in the city, only the man is killed, because clearly it would be impossible say for sure that the girl was a consenting party. By default, the situation is treated as rape: The rapist dies, the girl is considered innocent. Still makes relative sense. Next, a very similar situation is described, with one important difference: This time, the virgin girl is SINGLE. Not engaged. Not already promised to, or "owned" by a man. This time if the man "finds", "seizes", and rapes her, not only is the man not killed, he is made by law to BUY the property he "ruined" and the girl is stuck married to her rapist for the rest of her life! The woman is clearly being treated as a piece of property here, and the death penalty seems only summoned when the woman has been "stolen" from her rightful owner. As long as she doesn't have an owner, premarital sex, even rape, does not appear to be much of a moral outrage, simply a social inconvenience. --- thanks for taking the time, [inkling]
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  snowbird

  As of the moment, God has failed to get back with me with an answer. Have you had any more success than me? Please, do share. [ink]

  Please see:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/145187/2618316/post.ashx#2618316

  Sylvia
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  Warlock

  Would you agree?

  Nope.

  Warlock
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  snowbird

  What about 2 kings 2:23 where the God's punishment for little children who make fun of his prophet is to send a bear from the woods to tear them to pieces?

  I will be very succinct; where were the parents?

  In duet 25:11, If a woman sees her husband in a fight with a man, and goes to break up the fight, and in the process grabs his privates, her hand is to be chopped off. Seriously??? How can you feel good about giving Jehovah direct credit as the writer of that law?

  Seriously. If a woman goes for a man's privates, she's not seeking to break up a fight. She means to do homeboy some serious damage. Like, maybe making sure he never gets to experience fatherhood? I see in this the importance of respecting the dignity and procreative abilities of every man - even an assailant.

  Now, as to the situation with a betrothed and an unbetrothed virgin; again, no problem. I know you are aware that a betrothal was treated as seriously as a marriage? That's why, in the case of a betrothed virgin, if the incident took place in the city, where someone could hear her cry for help, both were considered guilty of adultery and were stoned to death.

  As for her being too terrified to scream, Israelite families were large, with extended families often occupying the same dwelling. Girls were carefully guarded and protected by other male relatives. There should have been no reason for a girl to be all alone, but if it so happened that she was, surely in such close quarters, someone would have heard something.

  Now, in case of a betrothed virgin; if the incident took place in the field where no one was around to hear her scream, only the man was stoned to death. That is entirely fair. However, if the virgin was not betrothed, a bride price was to be paid to the girl's father, the man was forced marry her, and could not divorce her all the days of his life.

  Whereas you may see cruelty and barbarity in these practices, I see a strong desire to impress upon the Israelites the need for all to be morally upright.. If anyone, male or female, knowingly did what was bad, they would have to suffer the consequences.

  I'm sure the possibility of being stoned to death for adultery, or being forced to marry and stay married to someone whom you may not necessarily like, dampened the ardor of many a potential transgressor. Woud that those laws were in effect today!

  And yes, females were considered the property of their fathers or their husbands. No, I don't like it, but that's the way it was. When you really think about it, a woman's situation of today is not that much different. It is an unfortunate fact of life that a lot of women are at the complete mercy of men, especially in the matters of finance.

  Thank you for reading.

  Sylvia
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  middleman

  I'm sure this post will probably get criticism, but I'm ok with it. The things I'm reading on this topic are/seem to be true at face value. God is angry, a mass murderer, a homo phoebe, etc. What's hard to see on such aspects and stories on God in the OT is the deeper meanings. One such topic is all of the Canaan conquests and "murders". I used to think why God wanted the "Hittites" and all the "ITES" ultimately destroyed, even the women and children! With much study you'll learn that those "giants" and "Anakim" were descendants of the fallen angels, yes the Nephilim. It was God's grace to wipe out the "walking dead.....rephaim" from perverting the blood lineage of man. Here's an article on it if you care to read further. http://stargods.org/MA_Giants.html

  There's much more to be said on other OT topics/aspects of God, but for now this is all I'll write. If anyone has any questions or ideas they'd like to run across me, I'll do my best to answer. I will gladly discuss/debate these OT views on God, that are MORE than face value. Remember one last thing about the OT, man wasn't under the Grace period yet. It was the reconciliation of Jesus dying on the cross that changed the death/sin "contract". I will not deny that some things here look/sound weird, but it doesn't mean that we should give up and just judge from our "limited" understanding that probably will change in time(with an open mind). Blessings.....
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  cognizant dissident

  Middleman: The Nephilim and all their descendants were destroyed in the global flood. (Remember that little incident in the OT?) Everyone after that was descended from Noah and his three sons according to OT, so the Cananites being descended from Nephilim is pure hogwash using only the Bible as your source.

  I will not deny that some things here look/sound weird, but it doesn't mean that we should give up and just judge from our "limited" understanding that probably will change in time(with an open mind). Blessings.....

  The limited understanding you speak of comes about precisely because of a lack of an open mind. The phrase "willful ignorance" comes to mind. Or the picture of someone with their fingers stopping up their ears and saying "I can't hear you, la la la".

  Snowbird: You are still a JW in everything but name. Your logic and reasoning are still straight out of the WTBTS. Everything they condemn in other religions, when it is pointed out in thier own organization, they reply, "Oh but that is different. You are comparing apples to oranges". You are doing the same thing.

  Your comment about Israelite girls being less active and therefore more likely to have intact hymens is ridiculous. A huge number of baby girls are not born with complete hymens. Many more girl's hymens are damaged through childhood trauma. Others have very elastic hymens that only stretch and do not tear and bleed upon initial intercourse. This is not a perfect law made by an all knowing God in an attempt to keep his nation morally upright. (If he was so concerned about virginity and moral uprightness, where is the comparable test for the male's virginity upon marriage? Strangely missing!) This is a law made up by a sex-obsessed, male dominated, war like tribe who were totally ignorant of women's anatomy and biology and only concerned with her virginity as "value-added" to her property value! I can only assume the wise Israelite mother provided her daughters with a little vial of goat's blood to use on her wedding night, otherwise the horrific screams of innocent, stoned virgins must have pervaded the night air in Israel on a regular basis!

  Cog
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  The account at 2 Sam. 24 is a most unpleasant picture of YHWH. David took a census, which for whatever reason was a sin. The consequence:

  (2 Samuel 24:15-16) 15 Then Jehovah gave a pestilence in Israel from the morning until the time appointed, so that out of the people from Dan to Be´er-she´ba seventy thousand persons died. 16 And the angel kept his hand thrust out toward Jerusalem to bring it to ruin; and Jehovah began to feel regret over the calamity, and so he said to the angel that was bringing ruin among the people: "It is enough! Now let your hand drop."

  Oh yeah, great move God, David does something you don't like, so you slaughter 70,000 ISRAELITES ! HE KILLED HIS OWN PEOPLE !! So, Jehovah felt regret. But he didn't resurrect the 70,000. After all, he wanted to make sure that David was suitably punished... by killing 70,000 innocent Israelite worshippers of Jehovah. Real smart. The FDS justifies this:

  ***w693/15p.191QuestionsFromReaders***

  Realizing this, commentators have offered various possible reasons for Jehovah’s viewing David’s census taking as a sin. Some have thought that David erred in not collecting the head tax as God said should be done at such times. Others have felt that the king was showing weakness in trying to find out how large his military force was, instead of depending on God for victory no matter what its size. Yet others say that David might have given in to human pride, wanting to be able to boast over Israel’s importance and glory.

  But, as noted, we simply do not know why David’s census was a sin....

  As a punishment for this sin Jehovah brought three days of pestilence that killed 70,000 Israelites. (2 Sam. 24:12-16) Was that unjust? Were 70,000 innocent people dying for the king’s error? The Bible plainly shows that we all are sinners deserving of death; it is only by God’s undeserved kindness that we live. (Rom. 3:23; 6:23; Lam. 3:22, 23) So those who died had no special "right" to life. Additionally, can any human today say for sure that those 70,000 were not guilty of some serious sin not mentioned in the historical record?

  If those 70,000 were indeed "guilty of some serious sin", I'm sure JHWH would have enumerated their every error.

  Putting this account in modern terms, since the FDS keeps a census of how many JWs attend the Memorial, that probably makes God really mad. Right? Would it be righteous on God's part to decide to kill by pestilence Snowbird and 69,999 other worshippers of him. After all, "The Bible plainly shows that we all are sinners deserving of death" and have "no special "right" to life". Or should God just have given the FDS a really painful case of hemorroids? (1 Sam. 5:1-12)

  How many more examples of the random murders by the God of the Old Testament would you like to read about?

  Oh, and if Jesus is God, who the heck did he pray to all the time? Satan? Michael?