IMO, there can be no reasonable justification as to what God did at 2 Samuel 12:15. How horrendous!
I wrote these thoughts about it on Usenet some time ago, regarding 2 Samuel 12: 7-23...
First off, if David was the one screwing up, why did God threaten his family? What is this, the Mafia? This story has always implied to me that God killed Bathsheba's infant son due to David's conduct. I don't know how much God intervened on the incestual(sp?) rape and follow-up killings, but it seems to me that he carried out his threat against David's family. But why hurt the innocent?
How badly I feel for Bathsheba. Her husband is murdered, and then her husband's murderer (who previously raped her and knocked her up) "took her home" to become his wife. God disapproves so he strickens her infant son with a deadly illness!
And note that God didn't kill the infant outright, it had to suffer some first.
Yeah, I have a real problem with a lot of the Bible.
Please bear in mind I'm not trying to offend anyone but am rather just posting my thoughts just as I've read the strong thoughts of many others on this forum daily regarding this type of issue.
I think a lot of people on this board view things through a type of lens still, though different from the WT lens -- a lens that tries to equate modern thinking with passages based on a more ancient world that didn't work the same as the comparatively cushioned one we live in today and also where people were under a different covenant -- one that was not as good. Basically what I'm saying is that I feel one's sense of justice may have been mightily different if that person were actually alive in the time period these events transpired vs. looking at the event from our current 21st century perspective.
This isn't to say I believe all pre-21st century thinking was "right" just because people may have felt things were "right" during those periods, such as when dealing with racism, for example. At the same time, I feel people might possibly not be keeping in mind even basic realities such as how survival worked in more ancient times and tend to view things through seemingly overly-modern psychoanalytical thinking, striving to judge things correctly by taking them highly out of context -- at least IMO.
From my understanding, for example, one's firstborn child was the most major blessing possible to the father. Likely the death of his firstborn with Uriah's wife was one of the most damaging punishments David could have suffered for the terrible sin he committed against Uriah, Israel, and God. And according to the law, a "life for a life" scenario seems to be involved even though it wasn't David's own life directly. I believe the covenant we are under now is a far better one and that we have forgiveness of sins much more easily than how forgiveness came about under the law. People had to sacrifice quite a bit for forgiveness under the law vs. accepting the better sacrifice of Jesus in their own place under the new covenant, whereas unlike the new covenant, the letter of the law is death, just as is spoken of in the NT. I do feel there are universal "rights" and "wrongs", and I also feel people's perceptions of what is right and wrong is highly based on how they are taught to view right and wrong (even if via recent peers) and therefore may not be totally accurate indicators of what actually is right and wrong if there is such a thing as universal "right" and "wrong."
I'm not trying to start a debate (and don't even have the time to). I just wanted to state a difference of opinon but agree with the majority of posters' views regarding using the Bible and other means to undermine the WT as being the sole channel of God to people.
