That's the flaw. You have no idea how those people were living anyway, so perhaps they really all did deserve death. Of course, perhaps you have such a liberal outlook that you'd reject even God's authority to implement capital punishment, but I certainly do not.
Well, my point is that he doesn't try particularly hard to get these folks to mend their ways. He doesn't send a multitude of prophets, he doesn't tell Noah to go out and warn the people (Noah tries of course, but apparently God doesn't help much in this regard).
So God just goes straight to death for all. Which would presumably include dozens of innocent people, including children, and unborn fetuses (who you'll recall aren't supposed to be killed).
Seems like a dick move to me. And really, at the end of the day, that's what detestable means.
And where it says in Genesis 6 (Took wives among any they chose) that may well have referred to kidnapping.
Excellent point!
Honestly this passage does bother me. I really don't know what to make of it. One important thing with Biblical intepretation is you have to interpret the Old to fit the new, you can't interpret the New to fit the Old. I'm absolutely convinced by the message of the New Testament that there's no way we can actually put that passage into practice without disobeying the message at the New Testament. For the sake of this discussion I'm going to just content myself to say that its not applicable in the New covenant, but it is something I'd like to research and find out WHY it was there in the Old, or what situations it was referring too.
Puzzling isn't it. Quite honestly, as someone who's been through a life of religious education and embrace, and then realized it was all ridiculous, this is the sort of thing you always have to justify. Because slavery is one of those things that is wrong now, and always was wrong, whatever your King, Priest, or Judge had to say about it.
In a modern, Western country? Sure. But Israel was special as God's chosen nation. Old Testament Israel was an absolutely unique case and that law was clearly not meant for a non-theocratic country. In a country where the people literally heard God speak and saw Him do miracles, no, I don't think its detestable. In a modern country where this isn't the case, yeah, I'd say its pretty detestable.
Except that God doesn't say that it's only people who have seen his work that can (should?) be killed. There's actually sort of a separate clause for that about blasphemy and apostasy IIRC. God is giving the Israelites carte blanche to kill heathens.
It should not matter what type of government you have, that's messed up.
Another note, although I'm not absolutely convinced of it, it is possible that the death penalty being mentioned in the Old Testament doesn't mean they have to apply it in every case, but its there in order to show the heinousness of sin. I know a lot of Jewish rabbis throughout history have interpreted those texts that way since apparently throughout most of Jewish history the death penalty wasn't really used that often. Of course, its also possible that Israel rarely enforced God's will, and that conclusion would make sense based on the Bible. Jewish Law isn't my strong point, but I don't think which of those interpretations you take will affect how you live as a New Covenant Christian. I don't necessarily think the former interpretation would contradict the text either. Saying "The penalty for murder in Florida is death" would be a true statement, even though the penalty isn't ALWAYS death, at minmimum life is also a possibility. But you could still say the penalty is death, since it CAN be death, even if it does not always have to be.
The fact that the punishment for non-believers is death (and eternal suffering mind you) is acceptable at all is detestable. The fact that the Israelites may or may not have been lenient does not absolve God of this.
That the rapist got stoned? That absolutely doesn't strike me as detestable.
So you think an acceptable punishment for rape is torture and death?
That the woman got stoned? I think the idea there was that if she didn't scream while in the city, she wasn't actually raped. I get that its a pretty primitive assumption, but it wouldn't be a totally implausible one. We couldn't test for rape back then the way we have today.
What if the woman is threatened into not screaming? What if the woman screams in the city, but nobody actually hears her over the din? What if the woman didn't scream because she withdrew into a state of shock, which is a perfectly reasonable psychological reaction to rape*?
And these are objections I'm thinking of off the top of my head inside a minute or two. You'd think an all seeing God would be somewhat more lenient in the rules.
*Not screaming her protest would of course not mean she was enjoying it. Also, if the woman began to enjoy it (a remote possibility), would that make it not rape? I say no.
