Wasa wrote:
As a Christian, Ros, are you offended - as I was - when someone who identifies him/herself with your beliefs using Christianity to spew forth narrow-minded, elitist propaganda? I know when I was a Witness, I really hated it when a fellow Witness was being an obvious prick and offending people.
Yes, it is offensive. I'm not very tolerant of literalist fundamentalism for its abject ignorance because if reflects very negatively on God and Christianity. Fundamentalists are worse than the Watchtower for disowning science and common sense imo, not to mention basic Christian principles such as "judging". I was in born-again fundamentalism before I was a JW, and I'm less tolerant of their doctrinalism than I am of WTism, generally speaking. I've often said: Christianity is wonderful. Too bad man and religion give it such a bad name.
SFF wrote:
As an afterthought though, didn't the old testament God Jehovah have the Israelite's destroy all kinds of what he considered pagan people who worshipped pagan Gods with no consideration many times for women, infants, and children, and even livestock?
Well we can certainly surmise that the scribes of such events believed it was the will of God/Jehovah/Yahweh. That doesn't mean that it was. Remember, the word "pagan" did not mean "idolatry". Pagan, like Gentile, was anything and anyone not Jewish--that's all. Everything not Jewish was pagan. Pagan <i>worship</i> was evil because it was idolatry.
How many times have you known religious people, particularly fundamentalists, who believe that everything that happens to them is God's will, or the answer to some prayer, or punishment because they did something wrong, etc. etc. etc. I have always known educated and intelligent people who happen to also be religious, and they will pray for something to happen--say, recovery from a sickness, or for someone else--and regardless what happens they will interpret it as answer to the prayers. I tend to think people in Biblical times were no different than they are today. Strongly religious people tend to credit and/or blame God for everything. That's how I think some of the Bible writers were at times. I think we can trust that many of the names and events were real, but the writer's religious beliefs strongly sway how the story is told, just like people today. Try to imagine how a political event might be recorded if it were covered by Rush Lindbaugh and Ted Kennedy, respectively. :D)))
Consider the Bible story of Elisha at 2Kings 2:23-25 where children were mocking Elisha, he cursed them in God's name, and two she-bears came out and tore up 42 of the kids. The implication is that God obeyed Elisha's curse to punish the children for chiding him. Well, it doesn't exactly say that. Let's try another scenario:
Elisha, a balding fellow, is wandering up the road toward Bethel near a forest.
A large gang of children from the town see the old man and begin running along the forest road chiding him.
The noisy rambunctious gang of kids get too near a couple of mama bears in the nearby woods, and get attacked.
Elisha, who is cursing them for harrassing him, believes it was God who make the bears do it, so that's the way he wrote about it. (Even then, it doesn't really say that God made it happen.)
Another example from Genesis 38:6-10:
6 And Judah took a wife for Er his first-born, and her name was Tamar.
7 And Er, Judah's first-born, was wicked in the sight of Jehovah. And Jehovah slew him.
8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
9 And Onan knew that the seed would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give seed to his brother.
10 And the thing which he did was evil in the sight of Jehovah: and he slew him also.
My conclusion: Two of Judah's sons died. Judah believed God did it, so that's the way he wrote about it. We don't know why they died.
Abraham's descendents, the Israelites, were a crude, tribal, nomadic people on the outskirts of the first cities of what we call western civilization. The "sons of Abraham" were unsophisticated, uneducated, wanderers, shepherds, bedouin, unlike the people in the new city states where science, arts, math, writing, banking, trade and commerce were suddenly developing on the world scene.
The fact that it is the history of the uneducated nomads that survived the milleniums, more than any of the others, is one of the marvels that I find most fascinating. Nevertheless, they were people with human nature, not different than people are today. How much of what we read today is 100% accurate. (Interestingly, it was bedouin shepherd boys who discovered the "Dead Sea Scrolls" that have brought light to some of the Bible mysteries today.)
I can tell you I know some very educated people that when they get on subjects of politics or religion, you can't trust their interpretation of almost anything. I think some of the Bible writers were pretty human. They gave God credit/blame for a lot of their actions because that is how they believed.
That's why I think Jesus said, speaking to His Father:
"I have revealed you [or, "your name"] to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word."--John 17:6
The Israelites never did really understand God. They understood Law. Christ rejected their understanding of God. Christ revealed His nature--that is, to the extent possible to humans.
Jmo,
~Ros