I recently got into a debate about Numbers 31

[Sirami]

It's very difficult for me to understand the viewpoint of the truly faithful. I recently got into a debate with my aunt, who is a strong fundamentalist. Scripture came into the debate, and I brought up numbers 31.

Here's the New International Version for reference:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=NIV

I suggest you read the whole chapter, but here's a paraphrase for those that won't read it:

God told Moses to wipe out Midian as a result of them worshiping other Gods. So Moses people did wipe them out.

After all the fighting men of Midain were killed and the women and children were brought back to camp.

Moses got angry and told his officers that all of the women must be killed, and to kill all of the children as well, except for the children that were female virgins. The female virgins were forced into marriage with the people that destroyed their homes and families.

Now, when reading the bible it's pretty clear that not only did God approve of all of this, God demanded that all of this happen. To me that sounds a lot like the LRA of today.

How could somebody respect God and Moses after reading something like this?

[Woland]

God told Moses to wipe out Midian as a result of them worshiping other Gods. So Moses people did wipe them out.

After all the fighting men of Midain were killed and the women and children were brought back to camp.

Moses got angry and told his officers that all of the women must be killed, and to kill all of the children as well, except for the children that were female virgins. The female virgins were forced into marriage with the people that destroyed their homes and families.

Now, when reading the bible it's pretty clear that not only did God approve of all of this, God demanded that all of this happen. To me that sounds a lot like the LRA of today.

How could somebody respect God and Moses after reading something like this?

The Midianites were "cousins" (decendents from Abraham) to the Israelites and not one of the nations God pronounced would be totally destroyed; however their joining forces with the Moabites put them in harms way and was viewed by God as an attack ; subvertive actions of the Midianites resulted in the death of 23,000 Israelites and God instructed his people later to take revenge on this Midianite-Moabite coalition. The Israelites were told to destroy their cities in a specific territory (the nation was NOT wiped out completely). In this conflict, as in many of the Isaelite wars, only virgin girls were to be spared.

WHY ONLY VIRGIN GIRLS

When fighting a war the ultimate goal is the survival of your nation. Sparing men, adult women and boys would represent a significant threat to their future national security. While girls bought up in a community tend to adopt the culture and standards of their surroundings and children born to them identify with their father's nation and loyalties, this is not the case with boys. The man's dominant position would mean that their children would no doubt continue the allegences of their father and the national identity would be split; it would only be a matter of time before those households sought revenge for past grievances, no matter how many generations back that was. Sparing the boys or adults would be effectively be implanting potential subvertive elements in their nation that would ultimately prove destructive. The Isaelites did in fact live to see the disastreous effects of NOT following God's explicit command to clear the territories completely of their enemies. Obeying God's commands would have spared the nation hundreds of years of warfare and countless lives.

SPARING THE BABIES

Further, fighting a war and asking the soldiers to take all the small children and babies first is a completely impractical war stratagie that would leave the soldiers themselves vulnerable. They would presumably have to either be fighting with a toddler in one arm or attempting to leave the war zone with them get them to safety and then return to fight some more, pick up some more babies and fight holding them while getting them to safety... there is little doubt the Israelites would have been wiped out and their own children eventually killed had they adopted this approach to war.

HOLY/DIVINE WARFARE

A lot of bible texts presented as evidence of God's "bloodthirsty" nature are verses pertaining to divine Warfare where God commission his people to execute nations the refused to bow to divine mandate for example:

"The Lord commands: "... slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women" -- Ezekiel 9:4-6 (also see Numbers 31:17-18; Jeremiah 48:10)


DIVINE RIGHT

Can God steal from himself?

The entire planet belongs to the Creator, it is his property to do with as he sees fit. Arguing that God did not have the right to assign a specific territory to a specific group is like arguing that a father doesn't have a right to move his child from one room in the house to another. God assigned a specific territory to the descendents of Abraham and the nations that lived there prior to their arrival should, upon notification of divine intentions, vaccated the territory and bowed to divine right. Complete capitulation was their only option, enemy nations chose to fight instead of go for this option, they therefore forfeited their right to live in the territory (with "live" being the operative word).


HOW MUCH WAS GOD DEMANDING?

The land the Israelites were given was vastly inferior in size to what neighbouring (and subsequent) powers claimed. While Alexandre the great would conquer whole continents, and the American colonies spread westward over thousands of miles of native American territories, the total area of the State of Israel is 8,522.04 sq. miles (22,072 sq.km.); about 290 miles (470 km.) in length from north to south and some 85 miles (135 km.) across at its widest point between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean coast.

HISTORY - GETTING A GRIP

While not belittling how sad it was that humans chose to defy the God, critics seem not only to operate in a kind of historic vacuume - where acceptance of the reality of how nations (including their own) were established is completely (and conveniently) irrelevant; but one almost gets the impression they think the great civilisations such as Greece and Roman asked residents nicely if they would mind moving over and history promptly and neatly rearranged itself.

The ugly reality is however that the human race have been fighting for territories as long as its existed with no intervention from the creator, and that, based on much more selfish criteria than those of the biblical narrative.

WHY NOT FIND ANOTHER WAY

God could have magically trasported them, hypnotised them, made them not be born in the first place... in short, God could have taken away the individual free will of a particular group of people. He COULD have but he chose not to. Our creator respects our right to live and make choices. He has faith we will make the best ones for ourselve and our family. Transporting the offending nations would not have changed their attitutde and he'd have to keep them heavily sediated to not eventually chose to return and reclaim their territory. What next Mars? God choses to leave us free will but we will have to live the consequences of our choices. It is not for HIM to find another way, it is for humans to bend to divine will. The nations that frequently attacked his people, joined forces and totally out numbered them and failed ot surrender completely to them faced the consequences of oppositing the Creator and his representatives (in this case the Israelites). When you drive full speed into a war, do you blame the wall? War is hell, warring against the Almighty is suicide.




I'm afraid I don't know what LRA is so I cannot address that.

Based on your theories, we can safely conclude that the deity you worship, despite his alleged omnipotence and the fact that he's presumably not bound to act genocidally in any situation by anything else than his malevolent nature, is nothing more than a petty tyrant, and a human slaver who feels he has the right to torture and torment his own sentient creation - a right supported by his worshipers, unsurprisingly. Humans have always found all sorts of ways to justify atrocities, if only to themselves and to people who think as they do.

We can also conclude, from your words, that you think that human beings are nothing but abject slaves under a totalitarian dictatorship, and that this is the best of all imaginable regimes.

However, it's the fact that you truly believe that "since God owns us, he can do anything to us and we can just call that good and just and loving" that revolts me. You will never make me believe something like this. Even if your deity was shown to exist at all (good luck), calling him/it "good" would never be justified except in the minds of people who have no respect for human dignity.

-Woland

[cnorman18]

Of course, SOME of us who believe in God and take the Bible seriously, though not literally, regard all this as a LITERARY creation, of men with their own Bronze Age agendas and mythology, and not as HISTORY that we are required to justify and explain.

Of course, that point of view isn't as much fun to either argue or argue against. Doesn't lend itself to polemic and preaching, from either left or right. Makes too much objective sense, I guess. .

[Woland]

Of course, SOME of us who believe in God and take the Bible seriously, though not literally, regard all this as a LITERARY creation, of men with their own Bronze Age agendas and mythology, and not as HISTORY that we are required to justify and explain.

Of course, that point of view isn't as much fun to either argue or argue against. Doesn't lend itself to polemic and preaching, from either left or right. Makes too much objective sense, I guess. .

It certainly does.

You must be pretty weary of repeating this. You're like the voice of reason among theists, only most of them really, really don't care for any of your commonsense dispensations.

-Woland

[Sirami]

Of course, SOME of us who believe in God and take the Bible seriously, though not literally, regard all this as a LITERARY creation, of men with their own Bronze Age agendas and mythology, and not as HISTORY that we are required to justify and explain.

Of course, that point of view isn't as much fun to either argue or argue against. Doesn't lend itself to polemic and preaching, from either left or right. Makes too much objective sense, I guess. .

That, my friend, is a better way to approach it, should you believe.

God can become a fine guidance for life if you cut out all the bigotry, intolerance, and fear that come along with it.

Respect to you for thinking reasonably.

[Wootah]

Of course, SOME of us who believe in God and take the Bible seriously, though not literally, regard all this as a LITERARY creation, of men with their own Bronze Age agendas and mythology, and not as HISTORY that we are required to justify and explain.

Of course, that point of view isn't as much fun to either argue or argue against. Doesn't lend itself to polemic and preaching, from either left or right. Makes too much objective sense, I guess. .

It certainly does.

You must be pretty weary of repeating this. You're like the voice of reason among theists, only most of them really, really don't care for any of your commonsense dispensations.

-Woland

I never thought I would see Woland support a theist.
Woland
- Were you mocking CNorman or gently encouraging him further into Atheism?
- Do you regard CNorman as 'copping out' or 'trying to have it both ways'.

CNorman
- If you had to believe the bible was literal in its genesis account would you stop being a theist? How serious is serious?

[bernee51]

Of course, SOME of us who believe in God and take the Bible seriously, though not literally, regard all this as a LITERARY creation, of men with their own Bronze Age agendas and mythology, and not as HISTORY that we are required to justify and explain.

Of course, that point of view isn't as much fun to either argue or argue against. Doesn't lend itself to polemic and preaching, from either left or right. Makes too much objective sense, I guess. .

It certainly does.

You must be pretty weary of repeating this. You're like the voice of reason among theists, only most of them really, really don't care for any of your commonsense dispensations.

-Woland

I never thought I would see Woland support a theist.
Woland
- Were you mocking CNorman or gently encouraging him further into Atheism?

Further into atheism? So because CNorman does not have belief in the same concept of god as you, you consider him an atheist?

- Do you regard CNorman as 'copping out' or 'trying to have it both ways'.

If you had read with attention anything CNorman has written on the topic of his god belief you would know that this is far from a cop out or wanting to have it 'both ways'.

CNorman
- If you had to believe the bible was literal in its genesis account would you stop being a theist? How serious is serious?

Can't speak for Charles here but...how is this not an unanswerable hypothetical?

[cnorman18]

Guess I'll reply to everybody in this post (and thanks to Sirami too):

Of course, SOME of us who believe in God and take the Bible seriously, though not literally, regard all this as a LITERARY creation, of men with their own Bronze Age agendas and mythology, and not as HISTORY that we are required to justify and explain.

Of course, that point of view isn't as much fun to either argue or argue against. Doesn't lend itself to polemic and preaching, from either left or right. Makes too much objective sense, I guess.

It certainly does.

You must be pretty weary of repeating this. You're like the voice of reason among theists, only most of them really, really don't care for any of your commonsense dispensations.

-Woland

Yeah, I get tired. But SOMEBODY'S gotta do it.

Sure, I could just move on and add to the general impression that the only kind of religion that exists is rigid dogmatism, and that the only alternatives for reading the Bible are (1) literally or (2) not at all. But, as the great rabbi Hillel said, "If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?"

This point of view, this approach, does exist; and a lot of Christians as well as Jews find it reasonable, rational, and meaningful. This is a forum dedicated to discussing and debating religion. What am I supposed to do when I get tired? Fold my hands and shut up because there aren't many like me, and because both atheists and fundamentalists have a hard time understanding these ideas, and don't much like them when they do?

No, thanks. We Jews are sort of used to being a small minority, and it hasn't discouraged us much over the last three or four millenia or so.

And I know you weren't advising any of that, Woland.

I never thought I would see Woland support a theist.

Depends on what you mean by "support." See below.

Woland
- Were you mocking CNorman or gently encouraging him further into Atheism?

Actually, I'd like an answer to Bernee's question too: what do you mean by "further into atheism"?

Woland and I have interacted before, and we respect each other and each other's points of view: I know mockery when I see it, and your remark is closer to that than his. I may not be your kind of theist - thank God, no pun intended - but I am certainly not an atheist.

- Do you regard CNorman as 'copping out' or 'trying to have it both ways'.

I'll let Woland answer that for himself, but I'm wondering - why do you ask? Do you?

CNorman
- If you had to believe the bible was literal in its genesis account would you stop being a theist?

I cannot conceive of "having to believe" that in order to be a theist, if that's the thrust of your question. I don't think that dogmatic literalism and theism are the same thing, and I don't think they have to be.

A better question might be: If you had to give up your belief in Genesis as literally true, would you give up on believing in God at all?

How serious is serious?

Good question. Is God really your God, or do you just worship a book?

[Woland]

Hello Wootah!

It's nice to see that you're still hanging around.

I never thought I would see Woland support a theist.

I support thoughtful theists all the time.

I have a much harder time with the fancies of anti-science dogmatists, as you know.

Woland
- Were you mocking CNorman or gently encouraging him further into Atheism?

I don't think I'll find any reason soon to mock Charles Norman - he's one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and interesting people around here.

He's also seminary educated, if I remember correctly. He used to be a very devout Christian. Anyway, I can let him tell his own story if you're interested, but there is much that you could learn from someone like Charles' take on Abrahamic texts.

You can be a theist and live in harmony with modern knowledge, you know.

- Do you regard CNorman as 'copping out' or 'trying to have it both ways'.

Not at all. He and others have soundly demonstrated that the choices at hand aren't limited to "dogmatism or atheism".

CNorman
- If you had to believe the bible was literal in its genesis account would you stop being a theist? How serious is serious?

I can't speak for him, but I really don't see how anyone can believe the Genesis account of creation today. Keeping a belief in the literal truth of the Genesis account of "creation" requires an extremely cultivated ignorance about science - you know this to be true, you know how creationists constantly misrepresent science, the scientific method, and scientific discoveries with their strawmen. You've seen it debunked countless times, you've even seen how overwhelmingly strong the evidence is for evolution, an old Earth, etc. Websites like creation.com and answersingenesis.com are nothing but businesses that thrive on abusing of the credulity of people - and big businesses they are.

An intelligent person like you appear to be, Wootah, ought to realize that Genesis, at the very least, is nothing but a myth. Call it a metaphor if you want - it doesn't describe any facts at all.

Even Christians overwhelmingly seem to acknowledge this these days. The body of evidence is too strong.

I don't mean to derail this thread. If you want to discuss Genesis or science with me, Wootah, you are most welcome to do so. Either open a thread or PM me and I'll open one.

Cheers

-Woland

[Wootah]

I support thoughtful theists all the time. I have a much harder time with the fancies of anti-science dogmatists, as you know.

We agree so often.

You can be a theist and live in harmony with modern knowledge, you know.

That is more than evident.

Not at all. He and others have soundly demonstrated that the choices at hand aren't limited to "dogmatism or atheism".

I suspect he demonstrates his own cut off point. Everyone in CNorman's position must do this. Which events in the Bible they choose to believe and which they choose to label as story is completely an arbitrary and individual designation.

[cnorman18]

I support thoughtful theists all the time. I have a much harder time with the fancies of anti-science dogmatists, as you know.

We agree so often.

You can be a theist and live in harmony with modern knowledge, you know.

That is more than evident.

Not at all. He and others have soundly demonstrated that the choices at hand aren't limited to "dogmatism or atheism".

I suspect he demonstrates his own cut off point. Everyone in CNorman's position must do this. Which events in the Bible they choose to believe and which they choose to label as story is completely an arbitrary and individual designation.

You speak as if every person who takes the Bible seriously, but not literally, is just striking out on his own and making his own individual choices without regard to anything or anyone but his own personal prejudices -- as if the only important question involved is whether or not a particular thing actually happened, and as if there were no such thing as academic scholarship, as a tradition of teaching and thought, or any other question other than "Exactly how dogmatic should I be?"

In short, you're not grasping my approach, nor the approach of many, if not most, modern liberal Jews (and even many Orthodox), nor of a very great many nonfundamentalist and nonliteralist Christians. Sorry; I can understand how it might look like that from your point of view, but from mine, you're not asking the right questions.

You see, in my own opinion -- and I am not alone here -- the most important question to people who look farther than the surface accounts in the Bible is what is being taught here, not whether or not it really happened. Sometimes even the former question isn't obvious. We are to THINK about it. Sometimes that thought and argument go on for generations. Sometimes for millenia.

Take the book of Job, for instance. Was Job a real person? Never mind the accounts of conversations between Satan (who is not the same figure in that book that he is in Christian tradition) and God; did Job really live, did all these terrible things really happen to him, did these three men come and "comfort" him as told in the story?

What difference does it make? Does this story have no meaning if it didn't really happen? The story is probably, according to scholars, the oldest in the Bible -- and it is surely concerned with one of the most ancient and puzzling questions that theists have struggled with for thousands of years. Why do bad things happen to good people? Sure, the answer is obvious to the atheist; but the theist is compelled to come back to it again and again, and we, most of us, do not choose to accept the obvious answer -- because for us, it is not an answer at all; it's simply avoiding the question. But that's a different debate.

The point is, we LEARN from that book; we talk about it, and think about it, and become more human, more mature, think more deeply, and learn more about suffering and justice and compassion from it than if it had never been written nor read. Did it really happen? Who cares? The question is still there, waiting.

I could name a dozen -- no, a hundred -- no, a thousand stories that people have found uplifting, inspiring, life-changing, and thought-provoking that we all KNOW are not "true stories." Where to start? Harper Lee only wrote one book, but that one book will be remembered and read a hundred years from now. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most profound, and profoundly moving, tales ever written in English. The Lord of the Rings is alluded to often around here; no less respected a Christian author than C. S. Lewis once described it as "As long as the Bible and not half long enough." Anyone who has ever read it has met characters that he or she will never forget, and been moved and inspired by courage and perseverance and compassion and integrity that can, and do, continue to inspire and strengthen and move us for decades afterward -- never mind that none of those people or creatures ever really lived and that none of those events ever really happened.

There are passages in Scripture that I regard as pure poetry or pure myth: Job is one of them. So is Ruth, and Esther, and the first chapters of Genesis. There are others that I regard as probably historical, or at least with roots in history: some of the events in the books of Samuel and the Kings come to mind, and some of the narratives in the Prophets. Does that mean I think the first group has no meaning or value, and that the second only is worthy or respect? What idea could be sillier? For most of the Bible, including any narrative from the time of Abraham onward, I would say that (1) I don't know whether or to what extent actual, literal history is represented there; and (2) that it doesn't matter.

You draw a distinction between the parts of the Bible that I "choose to believe" and the parts that I "choose to label as story." The obvious implication is that I don't "believe" the latter -- but the more subtle implication, or more properly assumption, is that I "choose" at all. Where the overwhelming majority of the Bible is concerned, I simply don't find it useful to ask. Did Abraham really come close to sacrificing Isaac, or is it just a story? What difference does it make? Either way, it was more than three thousand years ago. Abraham and Isaac and the ram, if they ever existed, are dust. We, living and breathing TODAY, are struggling with our real lives TODAY, and whatever we LEARN from that story -- and we are to work that out for ourselves -- THAT is real, and it is our working it out for ourselves that MAKES it real.

The Bible is the literature of my people. Some of it may well be historical; which particular parts, and to what extent they reflect real events, cannot be determined at this late date. I do NOT regard it as mere fabrication; as I've pointed out over and over, the Plagues on Egypt in Exodus, arguably the most fantastical events in the OT, are almost beyond doubt echoes of actual memories of real phenomena that absolutely did really happen in or around that time and place, as a result of the massive eruption/explosion of the island of Thera, aka Santorini, in the eastern Mediterranean.

Does that mean that Exodus is an absolutely truthful historical account, literally accurate in every detail? Of course not. But it means that it isn't a pure fabrication, a piece of consciously concocted fiction, either. It is the end product of a thousand years or more of oral tradition, and as such it has a positive historical value of its own; as a cultural artifact, the traditional story of the origin of my people, it has a religious, an ethical, and a spiritual value of its own as well, whether or not it is literally and historically true.

The idea that the only significant fact about an account in the Bible is whether or not it really happened is an incredibly shallow and shortsighted view of that ancient and precious book. Others, with a faith at least as deep and life-affirming and powerful as your own, do not feel the need to draw a line in the sand and claim that anyone who doesn't believe that God sent the Sun backwards in the sky at the request of Joshua cannot have a meaningful belief or faith in God, any more than I can claim that you who DO hold such a belief are, ipso facto, atheists insofar as the God I believe in is concerned. That would be ludicrous.

The Bible says that three hundred thousand men heard God speak at Sinai (and never mind the obvious sexism; that passage was written more than two thousand years ago, not in 1970s San Francisco). Jewish tradition holds that every line and word in the Torah has meaning, and that one of the meanings of that line is that there are three hundred thousand ways to read the Torah, and every single one of them is of value. Don't make the mistake of dismissing the understanding of every person who does not understand this book in exactly the same way that you do. No one -- not me, not you, not C. S. Lewis, not Matthew Henry, not Maimonides -- has the right or the authority to give the final word on what the Bible means. The Bible speaks for itself, and its ambiguity and its multiple viewpoints and perspectives are there for a reason, too.

Notice that I do not question or mock anyone's belief in the Bible as the Word of God. It may very well be; even in my own belief, which is that it is the words of men thinking about God, it's the closest thing we have. But even if it IS the Word of God -- we are still expected to read it and THINK about it with the brains God gave us. Where THAT effort is concerned, whether or not something really happened is of secondary importance at best. In my own opinion, it is of no importance at all.

What is more important? The words, or the thought that they signify? They are not necessarily the same.