The Immoral God

[Miles]

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I only say "immoral" because I don't feel god's actions as described below are moral.


Question 1: is owning other human beings as property moral?
Question 2: is accepting a burnt human offering to oneself moral?

God says "Yes."

1) Leviticus 25:44-46
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.


2) Judges 11:30-32:
30 Jephthah made this vow to the Lord: “If you in fact hand over the Ammonites to me, 31 whoever comes out the doors of my house to greet me when I return safely from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer that person as a burnt offering.”
32 Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord handed them over to him. [God accepts and keeps his part of the bargain]

and

Judges 11: 34-39
34 When Jephthah went to his home in Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no other son or daughter besides her. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have devastated me! You have brought great misery on me.[a] I have given my word to the Lord and cannot take it back.”
36 Then she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me as you have said, for the Lord brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37 She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”
38 “Go,” he said. And he sent her away two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains. 39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. . . . . [Jephthah keeps his part of the bargain ]

Now,

if you don't feel I've properly understood either of these pieces of scripture please clue me in.
if you do feel I've properly understood both of these pieces of scripture do you feel the god of Abraham is still moral or not? If so, why?



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[RJG]

If god exists and the Biblical accounts of its actions have any truth to them, god is very immoral and its actions should be ignored.

[theophile]

Question 1: is owning other human beings as property moral?
Question 2: is accepting a burnt human offering to oneself moral?

There is an important context that the biblical narrative sets up in order to situate these troubling scenes, and give meaning to them. That context is God's plan for creation and humankind in it, how the world diverts from that course, and how we need to inch / fight our way back.

All of these horrible things - slavery, human sacrifice, etc. - must be read in the context of a fallen world, as symptoms of a world that has departed from the path that God intended, and as having no part in either the original design or end of creation.

To unpack that a bit more:

1) Consider the context of Genesis 1, where, originally speaking, humankind was shown to have a privileged place in creation, and was set the royal task of imaging God and taking on the further ordering of the world to support greater life and prosperity. This alone flies in the face of God wanting human beings to be slaves or burnt offerings.

2) Consider the context of Genesis 3, where humankind fails in its task, and instead of working with creation sets up an enmity and regressive cycle both internal to itself (/between husband and wife), with creation (/the serpent), and with God.

By the end of Genesis 3 we see the ushering in of a fallen world - a world that has departed from the original plan initiated by God in Genesis 1, to a world where everything must be considered perverted or fallen in nature. Where human beings, who once were seen as kings and queens of creation, may now be seen as chattel to be passed around, abused, or set up as a burnt offering to God. And where God's own words can be heard as justifying or even ordering such things (to wit, Genesis 1's "let them have dominion over..." can and has been used by human beings as justification for oppression or caprice).

3) The context of John's Revelation, where at last we see the world returning to a semblance of what it was always meant to be, and the layers upon layers of carnage and human wreckage that it took to get it there. (As an interesting point, you can look at the book of Job as a microcosm of history. Notice that Job has slaves in the beginning, but not in the end... It is as if to say that in the redemption of our humanity, such things as slavery will no longer have a place...)

It is within this context that these laws and troubling stories come about, and where they must be situated in order to find their meaning. Everything we see or hear post Genesis 3 in the biblical narrative must be considered fallen in nature, or as efforts (some better than others) of getting the world back on track, and not as part of God's plan or design for creation.

Even the law must be read in this way. Does a law that condones slavery have a place in God's ultimate plan? Absolutely not. But in a fallen world where slavery has become the norm, we can perhaps see the wisdom in a law that, while condoning slavery, is more importantly about trying to make life better for slaves, e.g., by granting them rights, or term limits, or days of rest and celebration. (Just consider US history for a moment, and what it took to break the back of slavery there... No easy feat. Not something to be eliminated in a day through law but rather a war of attrition between brothers... A war you could argue is still going on today, with legislation desperately needed to help move it on its way... With human wreckage continuing to pile up as black lives protest the oppression they face...)

This is not to say these laws are good in themselves, but only that, in a fallen world, they are something. Small signs of conscience, and of an historic effort to reorient creation to what it was always meant to be, and which was our task as human beings to fulfill in the first place. Not as universal mandates condoning slavery, but as measures designed for a certain time and place, to restore the original goodness of creation, or to at least inch the world that way.

Now, all that said, is God absolved of immorality? That, I think, would get into questions of power and accountability. Instead of doing that, I would rather point the finger at us, and remove the speck from our own eye before casting blame elsewhere. It was, after all, our job to order creation, and failure to see it through. It is, after all, our history that has resulted, and world that we have shaped...

It was not God but human beings who wrote those laws you cited based upon what they thought was good...
It was not God but human beings who burnt their daughters in offering because they didn't want to risk upsetting God...

[Difflugia]

The biblical notion of devotion [Hebrew "cheram"] is basically something "set apart " for God (made holy). Were all things set apart or given to God killed? No. A devoted thing could be kept for (kept alive for) sacred use. Notice The following definition of "charam"

So what? That's a painfully obvious strawman that doesn't address anything I've actually said. It doesn't even support your own point.

You originally asserted that human sacrifice was explicitly prohibited, then backed off to saying that while human sacrifice was apparently allowed, it wasn't what God really wanted in His heart. Now you're arguing what? That occasionally a sacrifice escaped death?

The people of Jericho were "devoted" to God by killing them. Joshua 6:17 is pretty clear about what the victorious Israelites were about to do:

And the city shall be devoted, it and all within, to Yahweh. Only Rahab the prostitute shall live, she and all within her household, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

6:21 then affirms what the Israelites did with their prisoners of war. They "took the city" in 6:20, so this was no longer the heat of battle. The victims are spoken of in the same breath as livestock. "To the victor belong the spoils."

And they devoted all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of a sword.

There's no ambiguity there. The phrase "with the edge of the sword" is an adverbial clause that describes how the devotion was accomplished. The act of cherem was carried out, executed if you will, on human beings with a blade. People were given to a god by cutting them to death.

If that's not human sacrifice to you, then you've stopped using words the way the rest of us do.

They're not pining for the fjords, either.

[Difflugia]

Now, all that said, is God absolved of immorality? That, I think, would get into questions of power and accountability. Instead of doing that, I would rather point the finger at us, and remove the speck from our own eye before casting blame elsewhere.

So, your response to the question of whether God is immoral or not is literally "look over there!"

[theophile]

So, your response to the question of whether God is immoral or not is literally "look over there!"

[Replying to Difflugia in post #14]

Pretty sure I said more than that. Please refer to all the text you ignored, where I said multiple times that slavery and burnt offerings were never part of God's plan and have no place in the world that God set out to create.

I think that's about as direct a way as possible to say that God is not immoral. That things such as slavery are on us, not God.

[Miles]

Question 1: is owning other human beings as property moral?
Question 2: is accepting a burnt human offering to oneself moral?

There is an important context that the biblical narrative sets up in order to situate these troubling scenes, and give meaning to them. That context is God's plan for creation and humankind in it, how the world diverts from that course, and how we need to inch / fight our way back.

All of these horrible things - slavery, human sacrifice, etc. - must be read in the context of a fallen world, as symptoms of a world that has departed from the path that God intended, and as having no part in either the original design or end of creation.

And read in such context these are god's decisions and his alone, and not at all reflective of anything concerning the original design or end of creation.

To unpack that a bit more:
1) Consider the context of Genesis 1, where, originally speaking, humankind was shown to have a privileged place in creation, and was set the royal task of imaging God and taking on the further ordering of the world to support greater life and prosperity. This alone flies in the face of God wanting human beings to be slaves or burnt offerings.

Really! Then why does he condone slavery and burnt human offerings? Someone twisting his arm? He certainly has no trouble condemning homosexual sex, something that harms no one, so why can't he condemn slavery and burnt human offerings to himself , something that does do harm. Know why? Because he sees nothing wrong with them, and no amount of your verbal tap dancing can change that.

2) Consider the context of Genesis 3, where humankind fails in its task, and instead of working with creation sets up an enmity and regressive cycle both internal to itself (/between husband and wife), with creation (/the serpent), and with God.

By the end of Genesis 3 we see the ushering in of a fallen world - a world that has departed from the original plan initiated by God in Genesis 1, to a world where everything must be considered perverted or fallen in nature. Where human beings, who once were seen as kings and queens of creation, may now be seen as chattel to be passed around, abused, or set up as a burnt offering to God. And where God's own words can be heard as justifying or even ordering such things (to wit, Genesis 1's "let them have dominion over..." can and has been used by human beings as justification for oppression or caprice).

3) The context of John's Revelation, where at last we see the world returning to a semblance of what it was always meant to be, and the layers upon layers of carnage and human wreckage that it took to get it there. (As an interesting point, you can look at the book of Job as a microcosm of history. Notice that Job has slaves in the beginning, but not in the end... It is as if to say that in the redemption of our humanity, such things as slavery will no longer have a place...)

It is within this context that these laws and troubling stories come about, and where they must be situated in order to find their meaning. Everything we see or hear post Genesis 3 in the biblical narrative must be considered fallen in nature, or as efforts (some better than others) of getting the world back on track, and not as part of God's plan or design for creation.

Even the law must be read in this way. Does a law that condones slavery have a place in God's ultimate plan? Absolutely not. But in a fallen world where slavery has become the norm, we can perhaps see the wisdom in a law that, while condoning slavery, is more importantly about trying to make life better for slaves, e.g., by granting them rights, or term limits, or days of rest and celebration. (Just consider US history for a moment, and what it took to break the back of slavery there... No easy feat. Not something to be eliminated in a day through law but rather a war of attrition between brothers... A war you could argue is still going on today, with legislation desperately needed to help move it on its way... With human wreckage continuing to pile up as black lives protest the oppression they face...)

This is not to say these laws are good in themselves, but only that, in a fallen world, they are something. Small signs of conscience, and of an historic effort to reorient creation to what it was always meant to be, and which was our task as human beings to fulfill in the first place. Not as universal mandates condoning slavery, but as measures designed for a certain time and place, to restore the original goodness of creation, or to at least inch the world that way.

Now, all that said, is God absolved of immorality? That, I think, would get into questions of power and accountability. Instead of doing that, I would rather point the finger at us, and remove the speck from our own eye before casting blame elsewhere. It was, after all, our job to order creation, and failure to see it through. It is, after all, our history that has resulted, and world that we have shaped...

OMG!!! this is a terrible mess of apologetics. You have my sympathies for your wasted efforts.

It was not God but human beings who wrote those laws you cited based upon what they thought was good...

So the Bible is no more than a book of lies and falsehoods concocted by man. Gotcha.

It was not God but human beings who burnt their daughters in offering because they didn't want to risk upsetting God...

Yup, because it was part of the bargain god agreed to and expected Jephthah to honor, why else would god have agreed to Jephthah's request? He wouldn't have. He would either have not handed over the Ammonites, OR handed them over and told Jephtheh not to bother burning anyone who came out of his house. BUT he did neither. God let Jephtheh burn is daughter in offering to himself because he saw it as the good thing to do. (And this is the god you choose to worship and adore )

Judges 11:30-32:
30 Jephthah made this vow to the Lord: “If you in fact hand over the Ammonites to me, 31 whoever comes out the doors of my house to greet me when I return safely from the Ammonites will belong to the Lord, and I will offer that person as a burnt offering.”
32 Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord handed them over to him. [God accepts the deal and keeps his part of the bargain]

39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. . . . . [Jephthah keeps his part of the bargain ]

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[theophile]

[Replying to Miles in post #16]

And read in such context these are god's decisions and his alone, and not at all reflective of anything concerning the original design or end of creation.

If I refer to the verses you've cited, it was Jephthah's decision to burn his daughter, not God's. Please point to anything in the text that says otherwise. And no, the Lord giving him victory over the Ammonites is not the same thing as the Lord making a decision to have Jephthah's daughter burned as an offering. You need to do better than that, cause all I see there is Jephthah's fault.

theophile wrote:
To unpack that a bit more:
1) Consider the context of Genesis 1, where, originally speaking, humankind was shown to have a privileged place in creation, and was set the royal task of imaging God and taking on the further ordering of the world to support greater life and prosperity. This alone flies in the face of God wanting human beings to be slaves or burnt offerings.

Really! Then why does he condone slavery and burnt human offerings? Someone twisting his arm? He certainly has no trouble condemning homosexual sex, something that harms no one, so why can't he condemn slavery and burnt human offerings to himself , something that does do harm. Know why? Because he sees nothing wrong with them, and no amount of your verbal tap dancing can change that.

You're missing my main point, or neglecting everything that I said afterwards (scoffing at it does not count as a rebuttal). Again, the basic structure of the biblical narrative is this:

1) God initiates creation with a direction in mind and hands off to humankind (Genesis 1)
2) Humankind takes things in a different direction (the result of which is slavery, burnt offerings, etc., etc.) (Genesis 3+)
3) Humankind works (sometimes better than others) to get things back on track (e.g., Revelation)

Laws condoning slavery and human beings believing God wants burnt offerings all happen within stages 2 and 3, i.e., the parts that are human responsibility. So stop putting it on God.

OMG!!! this is a terrible mess of apologetics. You have my sympathies for your wasted efforts.

Again, scoffing at what I said does not count as a rebuttal. Where are your apologetics? At least I've given a defense.

theophile wrote:
It was not God but human beings who wrote those laws you cited based upon what they thought was good...

So the Bible is no more than a book of lies and falsehoods concocted by man. Gotcha

Was the bible written by human beings? Absolutely. Are human beings fallible? Absolutely. That's different, though, than doing a careful reading of the text, and understanding that everything post Genesis 3 is in the context of a fallen world, and that we need to be mindful of that fact (which is to say careful in our interpretations of what is happening). This holds for the laws, too (not just the stories).

theophile wrote:
It was not God but human beings who burnt their daughters in offering because they didn't want to risk upsetting God...

Yup, because it was part of the bargain god agreed to and expected Jephthah to honor, why else would god have agreed to Jephthah's request? He wouldn't have. He would either have not handed over the Ammonites, OR handed them over and told Jephtheh not to bother burning anyone who came out of his house. BUT he did neither. God let Jephtheh burn is daughter in offering to himself because he saw it as the good thing to do. (And this is the god you choose to worship and adore )

Where did God explicitly agree to Jephthah's request? Jephthah gaining victory over the Ammonites is not the same thing as God making a pact. Sorry, but you adding text in parenthesis to that effect does not count. Again, you need to do better. All you are doing is making my case: that responsibility for these acts is on humanity, not God.

[Miles]

[Replying to Miles in post #16]

And read in such context these are god's decisions and his alone, and not at all reflective of anything concerning the original design or end of creation.

If I refer to the verses you've cited, it was Jephthah's decision to burn his daughter, not God's. Please point to anything in the text that says otherwise. And no, the Lord giving him victory over the Ammonites is not the same thing as the Lord making a decision to have Jephthah's daughter burned as an offering. You need to do better than that, cause all I see there is Jephthah's fault.

theophile wrote:
To unpack that a bit more:
1) Consider the context of Genesis 1, where, originally speaking, humankind was shown to have a privileged place in creation, and was set the royal task of imaging God and taking on the further ordering of the world to support greater life and prosperity. This alone flies in the face of God wanting human beings to be slaves or burnt offerings.

Really! Then why does he condone slavery and burnt human offerings? Someone twisting his arm? He certainly has no trouble condemning homosexual sex, something that harms no one, so why can't he condemn slavery and burnt human offerings to himself , something that does do harm. Know why? Because he sees nothing wrong with them, and no amount of your verbal tap dancing can change that.

You're missing my main point, or neglecting everything that I said afterwards (scoffing at it does not count as a rebuttal). Again, the basic structure of the biblical narrative is this:

1) God initiates creation with a direction in mind and hands off to humankind (Genesis 1)
2) Humankind takes things in a different direction (the result of which is slavery, burnt offerings, etc., etc.) (Genesis 3)
3) Humankind works (sometimes better than others) to get things back on track (Revelation)

Laws condoning slavery and human beings believing God wants burnt offerings all happen within stages 2 and 3, i.e., the parts that are human responsibility. So stop putting it on God.

OMG!!! this is a terrible mess of apologetics. You have my sympathies for your wasted efforts.

Again, scoffing at what I said does not count as a rebuttal.

theophile wrote:
It was not God but human beings who wrote those laws you cited based upon what they thought was good...

So the Bible is no more than a book of lies and falsehoods concocted by man. Gotcha

Was the bible written by human beings? Absolutely. Are human beings fallible? Absolutely. That's different, though, than doing a careful reading of the text, and understanding that everything post Genesis 3 is in the context of a fallen world, and that we need to be mindful of that fact (which is to say careful in our interpretations of what is happening). This holds for the laws, too (not just the stories).

theophile wrote:
It was not God but human beings who burnt their daughters in offering because they didn't want to risk upsetting God...

Yup, because it was part of the bargain god agreed to and expected Jephthah to honor, why else would god have agreed to Jephthah's request? He wouldn't have. He would either have not handed over the Ammonites, OR handed them over and told Jephtheh not to bother burning anyone who came out of his house. BUT he did neither. God let Jephtheh burn is daughter in offering to himself because he saw it as the good thing to do. (And this is the god you choose to worship and adore )

Where did God explicitly agree to Jephthah's request? Jephthah gaining victory over the Ammonites is not the same thing as God making a pact. Sorry, but you adding text in parenthesis to that effect does not count. Again, you need to do better. All you are doing is making my case: that responsibility for these acts is on humanity, not God.

Sorry, but your attempts to justify the Bible by pretending not to know what's going on is too much to bother with.

............Have a good day


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[Goose]

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I only say "immoral" because I don't feel god's actions as described below are moral.

That’s not much of a moral argument but your feelings are noted.

Question 1: is owning other human beings as property moral?

It’s just as easy to make the argument it is moral given the assumption of naturalistic evolution.

• 1. Animal ownership is moral.
  2. Humans are animals.
  3. Therefore, human ownership is moral.

[Miles]

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I only say "immoral" because I don't feel god's actions as described below are moral.

That’s not much of a moral argument but your feelings are noted.

Which is why I didn't say it was an argument.

Question 1: is owning other human beings as property moral?

It’s just as easy to make the argument it is moral given the assumption of naturalistic evolution.

• 1. Animal ownership is moral.
  2. Humans are animals.
  3. Therefore, human ownership is moral.

Or, as a Christian, to cut to the chase:
...........1. Human ownership is moral.


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