And the Lord hardened the Pharaoh's heart

Willum · Post by **Willum** » Fri Apr 07, 2017 4:40 pm

Exodus 7:3-4, is there any Bible verse that brings so much discontent to a believer's heart?
It destroys not only the unsubstantiated claim of free-will, but demonstrates God cruel and manipulative.

Skipping all the apologetic excuses, the Egyptians were evil, the Pharaoh was a dictator, they didn't brush their teeth after stealing all their slaves' garlic, etc., if we back it up, don't we discover that it was God, not the Pharaoh who was mistreating and harming the Jews?

Because, let's face it, the Biblical account is unlikely the first time God would have had to hardened his heart.

In all that time, couldn't God had softened the Pharaoh's heart, long before then?
In short, isn't God himself to blame for the suffering of Moses' people?

Please justify your answer with scripture.

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Mon Apr 17, 2017 12:24 pm

[Replying to post 59 by OnceConvinced]

OnceConvinced wrote:
Ok, I'm not waiting any longer, I'm eating the bun now.

1. This might not BE the most scientific experiment ever, but perhaps the yummiest?
2. This completely useless sentence is to conform to the restrictions against one sentence posts.

OnceConvinced · Post by **OnceConvinced** » Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:52 pm

marco wrote:
OnceConvinced wrote: Ok more than 5 minutes has passed and the raspberry cream bun remains in front of me still. Uneaten. YHWH has failed the test. Now according to the story in Kings that means we can now declare that he is a false god.

What's good enough for Baal should surely be good enough for YHWH.

Ok, I'm not waiting any longer, I'm eating the bun now.
You acted incorrectly, even immorally, OnceConvinced. Deuteronomy 6:16 tells us:

"Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah."

You obviously forgot all about Massah (who, I believe, is in the cold, cold ground according to the song.)

Luke 4:12 has it: " And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

So it's not as if you hadn't been warned about using your raspberry bun wickedly.

Could it also be considered wicked to tempt Baal? Perhaps Baal's followers acted immorally when they tested him?

But I think you're missing the point of my test.

I know that the bible forbids us to test God (He probably knows he would fail most of them anyway), but the point of the test is not to test God, but to demonstrate how ridiculous it would be to deem a god to be non-existent or a fraud because he didn't pass my test. So the same should also apply to Baal. Baal failed the test set by Elijah. He also failed my test of eating the bun. That in no way means that Baal is a false god or non-existent just as my cream bun test does not prove the God of the bible to be non-existent.

So the story in Kings shows an absolutely absurd idea that it's possible to prove a god like Baal to be false or imaginary because he failed a test. It is completely illogical to brand Baal as a fake because of the test. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. A real God would know that arranging such a test would prove absolutely nothing... at least when it comes to the divinity of Baal anyway.

In fact the story tells us that YHWH is willing to undergo tests sometimes to prove himself, which it clearly not the case in this day and age. Now he won't even eat a cream bun! The story doesn't even prove that YHWH is the mightier god. He set up his own test for Baal. It could be that Baal chose not to play ball, just as YHWH refused to play ball when it came to my kind offer of a raspberry cream bun.

OnceConvinced · Post by **OnceConvinced** » Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:07 pm

Blastcat wrote: [Replying to post 59 by OnceConvinced]

OnceConvinced wrote:
Ok, I'm not waiting any longer, I'm eating the bun now.

1. This might not BE the most scientific experiment ever, but perhaps the yummiest?

I would rather have had an actual cream donut but the cafÃ© had sold out. Maybe Baal and God prefer cream donuts to cream buns and actually ate the ones from the cafÃ© before I got there?

Blastcat wrote: 2. This completely useless sentence is to conform to the restrictions against one sentence posts.

Have I not proven that it's silly to deem a god to be non-existent just because he failed some arbitrary test? If so then my test has served its purpose. Thus we can declare that the test Elijah staged against Baal in the bible was in no way proof that Baal was imaginary or a false god. It could be that Baal still exists, is a real god and still has some followers. He just doesn't like to prove himself.

marco · Post by **marco** » Tue Apr 18, 2017 3:07 am

OnceConvinced wrote:

But I think you're missing the point of my test.

I know that the bible forbids us to test God (He probably knows he would fail most of them anyway), but the point of the test is not to test God, but to demonstrate how ridiculous it would be to deem a god to be non-existent or a fraud because he didn't pass my test. So the same should also apply to Baal. Baal failed the test set by Elijah. He also failed my test of eating the bun. That in no way means that Baal is a false god or non-existent just as my cream bun test does not prove the God of the bible to be non-existent.

I was being frivolous, OnceConvinced and I agree with the excellent point you are making. Biblical stories don't usually stand the test of scrutiny. If they remained as stories that would be fine. When we extract high lessons from them, that's where error comes in. The test that irritates me every time I read it is the one the Lord gave to Abraham, about murdering his own son.