Bible - cruelty and violence

[Compassionist]

Please read this list of cruelty in the Bible. Is the Bible true? If it is true then why is God so cruel and violent? Doesn't God's cruelty make God evil and unworthy of praise and worship?

[Compassionist]

If you want some specific guidance, I'd pick up a few commentaries and annotated Bibles. Oxford is good; the Jewish Study Bible is, too. There are many more, but be aware of the perspective of the editors and authors. Good scholarly commentaries are not hard to find, but fundamentalist screeds purporting to be commentaries are everywhere.

Some personal favorites:

• JPS Torah Commentary
• The Torah: A Modernd Commentary - Plaut
• Etz Hayim
• Jewish Study Bible
• The Five Books of Moses - Alter
• New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: NRSV

By the way, Berlin (Jewish Study Bible) has a really good commentary on Esther published by the JPS.

Many thanks for these links. It will take me a long time to digest them but I am finding them to be fascinating.

[Compassionist]

I find the Bible very confusing.

OK. Why not read something else?

It contradicts itself lots of times.

It certainly does.

I can't decide whether it is true or false or a mixture of both.

It's rather difficult to accept that statement as genuine. You give a very good impression of someone inartfully attempting to polemicize against bible supporters.

If it is a mixture, then which parts are true and which parts are false? How do we know for sure?

Perhaps you're asking the wrong question.

Here are 461 contradictions in the Bible.

< ... yawn ... >

How can something be true when it contradicts itself?

Something which contains inaccuracies cannot be wholly accurate. That doesn't rob the Exodus narrative (for example) of enduring value.

Why didn't God leave incontrovertible evidence that God is real?

... particularly given that it would have been such a natural - in fact human - thing to do. My guess is that if preternatural agency exists attempts to understand it inevitably wallow is worthless anthropomorphisms.

By choosing just Israelites as his faovoured nation, didn't God perform an injustice to all the other ethnic groups of humanity?

That's an interesting topic of it's own, but the short answer is: yes and no; study the commentary.

Why not make incontrovertible revelation to all living things? I would have thought that would have been effortless ...

And, again, it would have been such a natural - in fact human - thing to do.

... for an omniscient and omnipotent God.

It must be hard for even a god to live up to such hype.

If God is so real and so good, why didn't God prevent all suffering, unfairness and death?

There is a wonderful topic termed the Euthyphro dilemma:

• The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro: "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a)
  
  The dilemma has had a major effect on the philosophical theism (faith) of the monotheistic religions, but in a modified form: "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" Ever since Plato's original discussion, this question has presented a problem for some theists (believers), though others have thought it a false dilemma, and it continues to be an object of theological and philosophical discussion today.

It is more than a little difficult to define 'good' in non-anthropomorotphic terms.

You might be surprised to learn that there is an inordinant amount of highly respected Torah commentary by folks such as Sarna and Plaut and Alter and Berlin and many, many others - commentary found in the the most widly distributed Torah translations in the English-speaking world - that acknowledges the Tanakh as an evolved, human-authored text. This commentary is the focus of Torah study in innumerable conservative, reform, progressive, and reconstructionist synagogues on a weekly basis. We enjoy the study. We learn from it. We oft times struggle with it. Hopefully we benefit from it. I'm sorry that you seem to so desperately want to dismiss it.

I still go to church even though I am an ex-Muslim ex-Christian strong agnostic compassionist humanist. There are aspects of Christianity which I love. There are some verses of the Bible which I love. I am also troubled by its many contradictions and incidents of great cruelty and violence and injustice. That's why I left Christianity. I find the Jewish approach to the Bible to be very different from the Christian approach. Perhaps that's because the Christians I know are fundamentalists. Thank you for sharing your interesting and insightful thoughts.

[Compassionist]

Modify your statement to read "the fundamentalist/literalists' concept of the Biblical God is evil and unworthy of praise and worship" and I'll agree with you without reservation; but that does not, of course, equate to atheism. There are other concepts of God, even among theists who take the Bible seriously, though not literally.

I understand your point. I am curious as to how you interprete the various stories in the Bible. For example, the creation stories (there are two contradictory ones), the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, the massacres of the Amalekites, Canaanites and Medianites, the various plagues on the Egyptians including the death of their first born, the story of Jonah and the whale, the story of Job...

A fair and serious question, and I shall attempt to answer it honestly.

There are many views, among the rabbis of old, among modern religious authorities, and among secular Bible scholars past and present, on all those passages. Those various views are ALL to be taken seriously, and one or another, or more, might be applicable depending on the issue at hand. There is never one, single, inarguably right answer, on any particular passage. The layers of meaning to be found in the Bible are multiple, and can and do change in every generation. Jewish tradition says that 600,000 men heard the voice of God at Sinai because there are 600,000 ways to read the Torah -- and that tale isn't meant to be taken literally, either. For the non-fundamentalist and the non-literalist, the Bible is not a book of easy answers, but a book of questions; a springboard for debate, not a Final Authority. It is not the end of the conversation, but -- almost literally -- the beginning.

If you want some specific guidance, I'd pick up a few commentaries and annotated Bibles. Oxford is good; the Jewish Study Bible is, too. There are many more, but be aware of the perspective of the editors and authors. Good scholarly commentaries are not hard to find, but fundamentalist screeds purporting to be commentaries are everywhere.

...the story of the virgin birth of Jesus, his miracles, crucifixion and resurrection, etc.

I have no comment on the New Testament. It is no longer my book, since I am no longer a Christian. I will say that if you look at some modern Christian theologians and scholars, you will find similar sentiments about the NT among them. Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, Schubert Ogden (under whom I studied directly), the Niebuhrs, Teilhard de Chardin, and on and on. You'll find that even the "neo-Orthodoxy" of Karl Barth is not the same as hardshell Southern fundamentalism. You'll also learn that modern fundamentalism, and specifically "Dispensationalism," is not traditional, historic Christianity, but rather new; it is less than 200 years old.

I do not say that the Christian religion is false, because I don't think that it is; as I have often said, we Jews claim only to know how God spoke to us; if He chose to speak to some other peoples in different ways, that is no business of ours, and we have no warrant to say that He did not. And "God speaking" may or may not be a metaphor; as in all these matters, people may believe what they wish to.

Do you see them as literal truths or as allegorical fables?

There are many more ways to view these narratives -- and all the REST of the Bible, which is not all narrative -- than just those two.

How do you justify seeing these stories as allegorical fables when they read like literal truths?

Pick up any book of fiction. Does the text actually begin by saying, "Now this isn't literally true; it's just a story"? Besides, I don't have to "justify" anything; I don't have to "justify" my current understanding of, say, American politics or global warming, either. My views on the Bible, like my views on all those things, are evolving and changing, as they are supposed to -- and as, in Jewish teaching, the understanding of the whole community is supposed to.

More to the point; in ancient times those literary distinctions did not exist. There was no bright line between history, myth, genealogy, fable, hero story, scientific analysis, moral teaching tale, tradition of memory, fantasy, ecstatic vision, polemic parable, objective reporting, and so on. All was just STORY. These are the redacted oral traditions of the Jews, along with some other documents of various kinds. Trying to find a steel-riveted, absolutely correct way to read them and use them as a Guidebook to Life and Doctrine misses the point entirely.

It's not just how we vs. you judge particular passages; it's about our entirely different attitudes toward this book, its nature, and its purpose. If you're looking for the literal, direct Word of God, you won't find it here -- in my opinion. Also in my opinion, the very nature of the book itself rules out that approach. If the Bible was meant to be a book of simple, easy answers, why are there contradictions in it, as you yourself have pointed out? Simple answer; it wasn't so intended. We are SUPPOSED to argue and debate about it, and use our OWN brains to understand the truth -- and that may and will change across centuries.

Please help me understand better the non-fundamentalist/non-literalist stance about the Bible and Christianity. Thank you very much.

I hope this has helped. It's a radical change of approach, and it's not easy to accept or to make oneself; but at bottom, it's about HUMANS accepting responsibility for their own moral decisions and actions, and not seeking some Authority that will make it unnecessary for us to think for ourselves.

Yes, your post has helped me look at the Bible in a humanistic way as a work of people instead of being the Word of God. I especially agree with your last paragraph about humans figuring things out for themselves instead of looking for some external Authority.

[cnorman18]

If you want some specific guidance, I'd pick up a few commentaries and annotated Bibles. Oxford is good; the Jewish Study Bible is, too. There are many more, but be aware of the perspective of the editors and authors. Good scholarly commentaries are not hard to find, but fundamentalist screeds purporting to be commentaries are everywhere.

Some personal favorites:

• JPS Torah Commentary
• The Torah: A Modernd Commentary - Plaut
• Etz Hayim
• Jewish Study Bible
• The Five Books of Moses - Alter
• New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: NRSV

By the way, Berlin (Jewish Study Bible) has a really good commentary on Esther published by the JPS.

Very much agreed. I own and use all of those, except the Plaut (which I shall go out and purchase forthwith).

I'd also recommend a new book that's a bit of an oddity, but certainly worth consulting: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Levine and Brettler, eds., from the Oxford University Press. I consider it essential study material for Christians AND Jews.

[cnorman18]

I like what you said. First, we have to decide whether the Bible is TRUE. IF it is TRUE then I find such a God to be EVIL. IF it is FALSE then what it says is irrelevant.

Hi, Compo! I agree with you about liking like what cnorman said . But I don't agree with you that we have to decide whether the story is true before we can make a moral judgement on it.
Making moral judgements is what most stories are about. The truth-claim of the particular story is not relevant to whether we judge the character good or evil, brave or cowardly, honest or dishonest etc.
Personally, I think the genocides in Canaan are sufficient to indict Jahweh as a psychopathic butcher in the mind of any unbiased reader. Lopping the hand off one feisty lady pales into insignificance.

And that, of course, is a perfectly valid and viable conclusion; but it might be wise to consult the centuries upon centuries of commentary and speculation that are available, as opposed to making your own snap surface judgment and assuming there's nothing more to learn or consider beyond it. Those very passages have been grist for the mills of Jewish debate for centuries; "How could God order such a thing?" and that's only the beginning. As I have written elsewhere, it rather often appears that those accounts were polemic propaganda written long after the fact to promote a political agenda, and have nothing to do with either the nature of God or actual history. Claiming that those stories reflect the actual nature of a real God is rather like claiming that The Green Berets proves that Colonel Mike Kirby, the character played by John Wayne in the film, is a bloodthirsty warmonger.

As I have said so many times and about so many things: it's just not that simple. And as I have also said: it's weird that both atheists and fundamentalists insist on applying this kind of simplistic, surface approach to a very ancient set of LITERARY WORKS.

Oh, and by the way, it's either "Yahweh" or "Jahveh." If you're going to use the German J, then you're obligated to use the German V as well. Either pronunciation, of course, is incorrect. Scholars don't know with certainty what it WAS, but it wasn't either of those.

[Jayhawker Soule]

If you want some specific guidance, I'd pick up a few commentaries and annotated Bibles. Oxford is good; the Jewish Study Bible is, too. There are many more, but be aware of the perspective of the editors and authors. Good scholarly commentaries are not hard to find, but fundamentalist screeds purporting to be commentaries are everywhere.

Some personal favorites:

• JPS Torah Commentary
• The Torah: A Modernd Commentary - Plaut
• Etz Hayim
• Jewish Study Bible
• The Five Books of Moses - Alter
• New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: NRSV

By the way, Berlin (Jewish Study Bible) has a really good commentary on Esther published by the JPS.

Very much agreed. I own and use all of those, except the Plaut (which I shall go out and purchase forthwith).

I'd also recommend a new book that's a bit of an oddity, but certainly worth consulting: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Levine and Brettler, eds., from the Oxford University Press. I consider it essential study material for Christians AND Jews.

Thanks for the recommendation. I ordered the text and should have it by the end of the week.

Plaut (z''l) deserves to be better known. He is one of those people (like King and Heschel) whose memory truly is for blessing.

[cnorman18]

If you want some specific guidance, I'd pick up a few commentaries and annotated Bibles. Oxford is good; the Jewish Study Bible is, too. There are many more, but be aware of the perspective of the editors and authors. Good scholarly commentaries are not hard to find, but fundamentalist screeds purporting to be commentaries are everywhere.

Some personal favorites:

• JPS Torah Commentary
• The Torah: A Modernd Commentary - Plaut
• Etz Hayim
• Jewish Study Bible
• The Five Books of Moses - Alter
• New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: NRSV

By the way, Berlin (Jewish Study Bible) has a really good commentary on Esther published by the JPS.

Very much agreed. I own and use all of those, except the Plaut (which I shall go out and purchase forthwith).

I'd also recommend a new book that's a bit of an oddity, but certainly worth consulting: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Levine and Brettler, eds., from the Oxford University Press. I consider it essential study material for Christians AND Jews.

Thanks for the recommendation. I ordered the text and should have it by the end of the week.

My pleasure. You taught me a valuable lesson in my first week or so here, and I haven't forgotten. Glad to have a chance to partially repay it.

Plaut (z''l) deserves to be better known. He is one of those people (like King and Heschel) whose memory truly is for blessing.

I'll see if I can snag a copy somewhere. Sounds like a real mensch.

[Jester]

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[ttruscott]

...

If the Bible is true, then the Biblical God is evil and unworthy of praise and worship. If the Bible is false, then the Biblical God is imaginery and unworthy of praise and worship. In either case, the Biblical God is unworthy of praise and worship. I don't know whether the Bible is true or false. You are welcome to prove to me that it is true. In the mean time, I will continue being an agnostic compassionist humanist.

OR: the Bible is true and it shows a GOD who is the epitome of righteousness and justice (but this is misunderstood since HIS justice looks to the non-saved like cruelty and no matter how many times they hear it, they refuse to go to HIM and find out which it is), so He is emminantly worthy of praise and worship.

Praise GOD,

Ted

[Autodidact]

...

If the Bible is true, then the Biblical God is evil and unworthy of praise and worship. If the Bible is false, then the Biblical God is imaginery and unworthy of praise and worship. In either case, the Biblical God is unworthy of praise and worship. I don't know whether the Bible is true or false. You are welcome to prove to me that it is true. In the mean time, I will continue being an agnostic compassionist humanist.

OR: the Bible is true and it shows a GOD who is the epitome of righteousness and justice (but this is misunderstood since HIS justice looks to the non-saved like cruelty and no matter how many times they hear it, they refuse to go to HIM and find out which it is), so He is emminantly worthy of praise and worship.

Praise GOD,

Ted

If any other being or person committed the same actions, would you consider them just or righteous? For example, if a ruler orders his soldiers to stab the enemy's babies to death, would that be just or righteous, in your view?