The Student Room Group

How do Christians defend this verse in the Bible.

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Original post by chazwomaq
I have already explained I am a Christian in this thread.

I also don't think God would or did wipe out Soddom and Gomorrah, but the OT clearly states that he did. So moral Christians (and Jews) should conclude that the Bible is not entirely true.


I dont understand how you can be a Christian and deny the events of the OT: it seems clear that a Christian shouldappreciate they did happen, Jesus made ubiquitous references to them and for sodom and gomorrah its in Matthew that Jesus says they did happen.

-The Bible is entirely true, the question is, how should it be interpreted and what should we as Christians interpret?

-The OT must be read if you want historical context and a greater understanding of God's nature - the New is the most directly applicable part to Christians: as you know, in it God sent his Son to earth to teach us how to live. Follow Jesus's example as best you can and when God judges us at death, hopefully we'l deserve the better afterlife. That is Christianity. It centers entirely around God's New message through Jesus. It's called Christianity for a reason, not the Church of the Old Testament or whatever else.

-Out of curiosity what denomination, if any, are you?
Original post by JNDSAN
I dont understand how you can be a Christian and deny the events of the OT: it seems clear that a Christian shouldappreciate they did happen, Jesus made ubiquitous references to them and for sodom and gomorrah its in Matthew that Jesus says they did happen.


I'm only denying some. As I've said, that's because many of them are very immoral. Not that they didn't happen, just that God didn't sanction them. Others are clearly not true e.g. the creation myth.

Jesus did not refer to all the events of the OT. At any rate, he was a rabbi among Jewish people so it was natural he would talk to them at their level i.e. with the cultural clothing of the OT.

He just as clearly corrected some aspects of the OT and disobeyed commandments e.g. working on the Sabbath.

-The Bible is entirely true


Assertion!

Follow Jesus's example as best you can and when God judges us at death, hopefully we'l deserve the better afterlife. That is Christianity.


Actually some Protestant Christians would argue that you are wrong here. There is no "hopefully" about it - if you repent and follow Jesus you are saved.

-Out of curiosity what denomination, if any, are you?


Protestant.
Original post by chazwomaq
I'm only denying some. As I've said, that's because many of them are very immoral. Not that they didn't happen, just that God didn't sanction them. Others are clearly not true e.g. the creation myth.

Jesus did not refer to all the events of the OT. At any rate, he was a rabbi among Jewish people so it was natural he would talk to them at their level i.e. with the cultural clothing of the OT.

He just as clearly corrected some aspects of the OT and disobeyed commandments e.g. working on the Sabbath.



Assertion!



Actually some Protestant Christians would argue that you are wrong here. There is no "hopefully" about it - if you repent and follow Jesus you are saved.



Protestant.



fair enough I respect what you think - Im sure some Protestants would disagree though thats by the by for me as Im Catholic!
Original post by chazwomaq
You are saying that we should not take all the OT literally or as morally good and I agree. But verses like this are a problem for Biblical literalists regardless as whether you see them as mandatory for Christians. The verse is still immoral.


You don't hear yourself, it's not mandatory for Christians, it's that we don't follow it anymore.
The words written in the OT, don't actually literally mean what they are, if it says a person should be killed because of not taking rest, it does not mean that literally, it means that a person should visit God in church at least one day a week, it's written like that because it's how people in the past used to deal with stuff, there's no immorality or a problem for Biblical literalists because as I said we don't follow it and it doesn't literally mean word by word.

Original post by chazwomaq
Well that's easy to say when you have a monopoly on the truth. You can only counter their claims by admitting that you should not take religious texts as literally true or morally and legally prescriptive. Yet many Christians (and other religious folk) will not do that.


I don't have a monopoly, neither do I care about these people, I was just saying my opinion, and these groups are not related to the subject of this thread....
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by ihatehannah
'
'For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.'

So people who work on Sunday should be killed? This is the student room and I presume we all have a decent amount of intellect- so how can anyone who says the Bible is a great moral compass defend this verse, I'm actually curious for an answer. If the old testament is the sacred word of God, then how can he command such evil deeds.


Maybe the seventh day doesn't absolutely have to be on Sundays? Maybe people who work on that seventh day will be put to death by God using exhaustion? And maybe the number of seventh day can vary between everybody? ^_^
Original post by PlayerBB
You don't hear yourself, it's not mandatory for Christians, it's that we don't follow it anymore.

I know. I've said so several times. But that doesn't change the fact that such a law is immoral. For example, some other countries today have laws that are immoral. I don't have to follow them, but I can criticise them as immoral. If you believe this is or was God's law you have a moral problem.

there's no immorality or a problem for Biblical literalists because...it doesn't literally mean word by word.


I think this speaks for itself. Literal does not mean literal?!*
Original post by chazwomaq
OK sure, but now you can't criticise Islamic State (Daesh) when they murder gay people, or unbelievers, or adulterers etc; or the Westborough Baptist Church for their antics. After all, "God says so".

In fact, you should be criticizing Jews who don't murder people who work on the Sabbath. They are not doing what God told them.


My beef with ISIS is not how they interpret their sciptures. The koran does indeed order them to commit the acts you describe and I'm sure many of them feel they are doing the will of God. I'm in no position to criticize any verses in the koran; I don't know enough about it.
What I DO have a right to do is tell these freaks that their interpretation of their sciptures doesn't sit well with 21st century man and your actions are forcing me to " army up ", come after you and kill every one of you.

Now you want me to criticize the Jews. I won't and for the same reason.
Original post by chazwomaq
I know. I've said so several times. But that doesn't change the fact that such a law is immoral. For example, some other countries today have laws that are immoral. I don't have to follow them, but I can criticise them as immoral. If you believe this is or was God's law you have a moral problem.



I think this speaks for itself. Literal does not mean literal?!*


These laws are immoral by your standards of morality only. Keep in mind that people accused of a capital crime were not dragged out of their homes and stoned by a lawless mob. They received their form of Due Process.
I'm guessing the sentence of stoning for working on the Sabbath wasn't carried out a lot. I mean, if the guy was working he wasn't just laying around with nothing to do which means he might be, even in a small way, a productive member of the community. The odds against making it to adulthood were great and it wasn't in the best interest of the group to execute someone for a single party crime.
What I...is tell these freaks that their interpretation of their sciptures doesn't sit well with 21st century man and your actions are forcing me to " army up ", come after you and kill every one of you.


Original post by oldercon1953
My beef with ISIS is not how they interpret their sciptures...


I think it is! They are doing these things because of their scriptures (among other reasons). So you should criticize their scriptures.

Now you want me to criticize the Jews. I won't and for the same reason.


Jews, even the most Orthodox, do not follow the letter of the OT because they sensibly realise how awful many of the laws are.
Original post by chazwomaq
I think it is! They are doing these things because of their scriptures (among other reasons). So you should criticize their scriptures.



Jews, even the most Orthodox, do not follow the letter of the OT because they sensibly realise how awful many of the laws are.


OK I will, " HEY ISIS, YOUR SCRIPTURES SUCK." How's that?
Original post by oldercon1953
OK I will, " HEY ISIS, YOUR SCRIPTURES SUCK." How's that?


:five:

And some of the Bible sucks too?
Original post by ihatehannah
'
'For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.'

So people who work on Sunday should be killed? This is the student room and I presume we all have a decent amount of intellect- so how can anyone who says the Bible is a great moral compass defend this verse, I'm actually curious for an answer. If the old testament is the sacred word of God, then how can he command such evil deeds. I do not care if you Christians follow the New testament now and disregard the OT because you can't disavow the OT and the fact of the matter is it was written by God. You can't deny that and I want someone to directly answer this.



Hi, direct answer, which you've tried to anticipate but not really managed to at all. The new testament trumps the old, that's the whole point of the new testament existing. The passage which would trump the above would be 'let he who has no sinned cast the first stone', basically meaning don't judge unless you're sure that you're sinless yourself. (So.. don't judge.)

No one is 'disavowing' the Old Testament, it's simply not as relevant as the New, since a huge part of Jesus' coming was to go to the crux of 'being nice' as opposed to being pretentious and following religion to the letter, without kindness, which is what the Pharisees did.

Of course, since you've picked out a passage of the Old Testament, which Christianity has in common with Judaism and Islam, I'm glad to see you're taking the opportunity to ask for their opinions too. (Basically, please do.)

Also - this is my semi-atheistic part kicking in. Of all the weird/bizarre areas of the old testament, that's the one you choose?

Just one final point, saying 'I do not care if Christians follow the New Testament over the Old' sounds like you're having a tantrum. What do you expect? Do you think people will say 'Oops, sorry OP, we take that back, just because you disagree and it would help your little anger outburst, we'll all start sticking to the Old Testament to the letter, and completely disregard the New?'

Yeah, the Old Testament has issues, luckily the New Testament trumps most of these. If you want to pick on Christianity effectively, look at St Paul's stuff.
Original post by chazwomaq
:five:

And some of the Bible sucks too?


No
Original post by oldercon1953
No


OK then...

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=21


1. God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and perhaps unicorns. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37-42, gentle Jesus approves of this genocide and plans to repeat it when he returns.

2. God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15-18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.

3. God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.

4. God kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.

5. Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20-21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing “men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” In Deuteronomy 2:32-35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children. In Deuteronomy 3:3-7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites men, women, children, infants, and their cattle for something the Amalekites’ ancestors had done 400 years earlier.

6. God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant. (Newer cosmetic translations count only 70 deaths, but their text notes admit that the best and earliest manuscripts put the number at 50,070.)

7. 3,000 Israelites killed for inventing a god.
In Exodus 32, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. The Israelites are bored, so they invent a golden calf god. Moses comes back and God commands him: “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” About 3,000 people died.

8. The Amorites destroyed by sword and by God’s rocks.
In Joshua 10:10-11, God helps the Israelites slaughter the Amorites by sword, then finishes them off with rocks from the sky.

9. God burns two cities to death.
In Genesis 19:24, God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky. Then God kills Lot’s wife for looking back at her burning home.

10. God has 42 children mauled by bears.
In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them. (Newer cosmetic translations say the bears “maul” the children, but the original Hebrew, baqa, means “to tear apart.”)

11. A tribe slaughtered and their virgins raped for not showing up at roll call.
In Judges 21:1-23, a tribe of Israelites misses roll call, so the other Israelites kill them all except for the virgins, which they take for themselves. Still not happy, they hide in vineyards and pounce on dancing women from Shiloh to take them for themselves.

12. 3,000 crushed to death.
In Judges 16:27-30, God gives Samson strength to bring down a building to crush 3,000 members of a rival tribe.

13. A concubine raped and dismembered.
In Judges 19:22-29, a mob demands to rape a godly master’s guest. The master offers his daughter and a concubine to them instead. They take the concubine and gang-rape her all night. The master finds her on his doorstep in the morning, cuts her into 12 pieces, and ships the pieces around the country.

14. Child sacrifice.
In Judges 11:30-39, Jephthah burns his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for God’s favor in killing the Ammonites.

15. God helps Samson kill 30 men because he lost a bet.
In Judges 14:11-19, Samson loses a bet for 30 sets of clothes. The spirit of God comes upon him and he kills 30 men to steal their clothes and pay off the debt.

16. God demands you kill your wife and children for worshiping other gods.
In Deuteronomy 13:6-10, God commands that you must kill your wife, children, brother, and friend if they worship other gods.

17. God incinerates 51 men to make a point.
In 2 Kings 1:9-10, Elijah gets God to burn 51 men with fire from heaven to prove he is God.

18. God kills a man for not impregnating his brother’s widow.
In Genesis 38:9-10, God kills a man for refusing to impregnate his brother’s widow.

19. God threatens forced cannibalism.
In Leviticus 26:27-29 and Jeremiah 19:9, God threatens to punish the Israelites by making them eat their own children.
Original post by oldercon1953
Point?


The Bible is full of awful things supposedly sanctioned or committed by God.
Original post by hxfsxh
Its not Islam so it can't possibly true that violence exists in the Bible too. What a discovery that quote will be for some.


Reminds me of that vid some guy did on youtube where he read people a random verse from the Bible & Quran, with the one from the Quran being a peaceful pleasant verse and the one from the Bible being a verse condoning violence, and then asked people to guess which book each verse came from.

Of course, everyone assumed the violent verse was from the Quran and the peaceful verse from the Bible lol
Original post by ihatehannah
'
'For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.'

So people who work on Sunday should be killed? This is the student room and I presume we all have a decent amount of intellect- so how can anyone who says the Bible is a great moral compass defend this verse, I'm actually curious for an answer. If the old testament is the sacred word of God, then how can he command such evil deeds. I do not care if you Christians follow the New testament now and disregard the OT because you can't disavow the OT and the fact of the matter is it was written by God. You can't deny that and I want someone to directly answer this.


Mark 2:23-27
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: 26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”

27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”


Christians believe that respecting the Sabbath is a ceremonial law, not a moral law, and that Christ abolished the ceremonial laws as they are unnecessary for serving god.
Original post by chazwomaq
The Bible is full of awful things supposedly sanctioned or committed by God.


Consider this: As I looked at that long list of " awful " things you posted I saw a similarity with the way ISIS is acting; burning people alive, drowning people, and mass slaughter, etc.. The people who are committing these acts were born in the same century you and I were. This tells me that one wouldn't have to search very long to find an entire army who wouldn't relish committing these acts against entire populations today, mirroring those you posted. My guess is we would grow as numb as we have to acts being committed today. As I said in a previous post, a few thousand years ago these acts were seen as how things were done.
My point is that these acts can be labeled as " awful " in any time, but just how awful they are can't be determined looking at them through our 21st. century eyes.
Another interesting one; Hosea 13 16

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open

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