by oompa 47 Replies latest watchtower bible
After a few beers, I get dizzy when I concentrate too deeply on Ezekiel's "wheel within a wheel" prophesy where it is moving in all directions and eyes looking everywhere.
If people focus on it for an extended period of time, I normally leave the room.
Rub a Dub
Two dudes get in a fight. How likely is it that the wife is going to jump in and help unless her man (i.e. her livelihood, social anchor, owner, etc. in the ancient Jewish culture) is really getting his butt kicked?
So hubby's getting his butt kicked, wife jumps in and grabs the other guys balls.
RESULT: OFF WITH HER HAND!! How dare she touch the Holy Hand Grenade(s)!?! Gotta love those priorities! Oh, and BTW, while you are "amputating her hand", "Your eye must feel no sorrow." That's all part of the deal.
Deuteronomy 25: 11, 12
Open Mind
Any that refer to taking the enemies foreskins as war trophies.
Having to impregnate your brothers widow even if she is really ugly and stinky.
Having to kill your new bride if she doesn't bleed on your wedding night.
There are plenty of disturbing scriptures. Sweetstuff's Judges 19 has certainly got to be up there as one of the worst. Slightly disturbing, but more totally irrational is the following -
Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers." He also said, "Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave." (Genesis 9:20-27 NRSV)
What on earth is that all about? Noah goes on a bender, strips off and crashes on his bed. Ham pops into his tent and sees his father spreadeagled and showing off his family jewels, so he tiptoes out and tells his brothers. They in turn walk backwards (LOL) into Noah's tent and cover him up. Noah wakes up with a steaming hangover and after having a big strop condemns poor old Canaan to a life of slavery.
Go figure.
Some say Nakedness met intercourse. That would give Noah reason to curse someone!
As I said in a recent post: I would cite the stories of the conquest of Canaan, the explanation given for the destruction of Judah and Israel, the murder of almost all life (most of it innocent, non-human life—while I’m on the subject, I’d like to speak in defense of the 300 foxes Sampson hurt, the animals killed in the plagues of Egypt, the swine Jesus allowed the demons to kill, etc.) in the Flood story, Jehovah’s murder of 70,000 of his children for David’s “sin,” the murder of the firstborn of Egypt (Cf. esp. Ex. 4:23 and 13:15), God’s killing countless Egyptian and Assyrian soldiers, Jehovah’s killing the child of David and Bathsheba for their sin, Jehovah’s destruction with fire from heaven and a bear from the forest of the honest soldiers and foolish children who made the mistake of interacting with Elijah and Elisha, the murder of witches, the murder of rebellious children, the murder of women who did not scream when they were raped, Jehovah’s murder of his children by snakes, plagues, fire and stones from heaven, famine, and sword for assorted cultic transgressions, and the countless bloody fantasies of the prophets (including the Christian prophets Jesus, John, “Peter,” and others who did not become part of the canon). Violence of one sort or another is easily the most common subject in the OT, and most of it has the sanction of Jehovah. If I were to think that the primary characteristics of Jehovah represent something other than a literary character produced by a number of persecuted minorities, I would feel obligated, though he might be far more powerful than I, to oppose his tyranny, narcissism, and erratic behavior. If you are not distressed by many of the stories in the OT, I think you either fail to take them seriously or, always identifying with the "righteous few," fail to identify with the humans and animals annihilated by his wrath. It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God, who is a man of war. I’m willing to admit that a primitive part of me enjoys the violence. I can get into the spirit of the Psalmist who asks God to break and tear the teeth out of the mouths of the wicked and longs to see the “righteous” bathe their feet in the blood of the dead (cf. Ps. 68:23): “Like a slug melting away as it moves along, like a stillborn child, may they not see the sun” (Ps. 58:8). I have a little more trouble getting into the spirit of Psalm 137:9. However, violence represents a failure to heal, to persuade, and to attract. The great holy texts of the Daoists and the Buddhists, for example, are much more consistently compassionate and peaceful.
The one about the poor guy who tried to stop the ark of the covenant from falling over and who was struck dead always got to me. The explanation being that 'nobody was allowed to touch it' so therefore he 'deserved' to die really gets me. So, I guess he should have let it crash to the ground and splinter, then the almighty might have sent a plague to wipe out his family or a whole city...whatever. The point is that you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't.
Also, I don't have to elaborate on all the repulsive scriptures quoted here that deal so horribly with women. Positively gruesome! Sounds like taliban justice. Makes me glad I wasn't alive during old testament times. The men were nothing more than undisciplined savages and raiders.
LHG
This should perhaps go in a "bizarre scriptures"-thread instead, but:
I find it very strange that when Jehovah had decided to punish his people with poisonous snakes(!), and they then repented, Moses was told by God to fashion a bronze snake and put it on a stake, and everyone who looked upon that bronze snake would live. (Numbers 21:6-9)
Erm... In other words, "Do exactly what I just told you not to do; make a graven image of a snake from bronze, and look up unto it as you would an idol. No no - don't simply look up into the sky like you do when you pray to me: look at the bronze snake Moses has crafted. That's right. That's what I want you to do."
Makes sense...
I find the accounts in Judges disturbing, but historical accounts are different from other puzzling/disturbing accounts. For example, you'll find nowhere in Judges that God commanded those behaviors; the events are simply recorded as what people did, the phrase "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" being the major theme from whence all the action sprang. Some of the stories (like Judges 11) seem (to me) to be written to show just how crazy the story could get, with all of society getting involved: threatening visitors, sexual violence, frozen-cold indifference, careless oaths, war, kidnapping... yahoo! We're capable of all kinds of fun.
Harder verses are the ones which we have trouble understanding from the cultural/historical context. Harder because we think that Western "2007" current values are the epitome of all values, and that God should have known that back then and given them all 2007 values back then if He were really doing things right. But I wager that in a few years things we might see changes like polygamy will being a new right, incest being 'private choice', public sex being protected "speech", infanticide being permissible for economic reasons, and so on. And we will think that 2007 was archaic in understanding morality. Morality seems to be a moving target when we look at history and culture.
The hardest verses (and the ones I am drawn to) are the ones where God seems to contradict Himself. Was God lying in Genesis? Perhaps not. Fellowship with God is possibly life of the most important kind--and their fellowship was destroyed immediately. (I notice that God didn't abandon them during the following years, either.) ...Awakened's point about God ordering an image to be made, in order to be healed, is an anomaly, yet is rich with content. I think it gives a nudge to what trinitarians say about Christ being the reflection of God, or a kind of interface, which is easier for us to connect with than a vague "sky" God. It's food for thought.
bebu
