Questions about the Bible , I ask as I read

[aneeshm]

Here is a thread dedicated to my questions about the Bible and its God . I have started reading the Bible in its dead-tree form in the past few days , and I want to ask questions to Christians regarding the interpretation they give to certain passages which , to me , seem a bit strange or otherwise inappropriate .

Query 001 :

I'll begin with a query I have around the part I am now reading . In Exodus 7.3 to 7.5 , God appears to be telling Moses that he will deliberately harden the heart of the Pharoah so that Egypt will suffer plagues in order that Egypt may know that the LORD is the LORD . This seems incompatible with the Christian ideal of a loving and kind god . Could a Christian please clarify ( this is a request I will be making a number of times in this thread ) ?

Status :Answered

Query 002 :

My next query is :

Exodus 34.12 to 34.16 :

12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. [a] 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

15 "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

This passage seems to me incredibly intolerant of polytheist idol-worshippers , such as the Hindus . Does this mean that no understanding is possible between Hindus and Christians ? Does it mean that the Christian God does not accept Hinduism as a true religion ? It tells Christians to "break the altars" of others , to "smash their sacred stones" . Is such behaviour acceptable by any standard of decency ?

I ask - why does God say this ?

Status : Answered

Query 003 :

In Genesis ( I'm going back a bit , I know ) 25.29-34 :

Was it right of Jacob , a man of God , to deny his brother food when he was starving ? Has Jacob no familial love for his brother that he has to use such tactics to gain Esau's birthright ?

Status : Currently Under Discussion

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I can give the Mormon answer, but it doesn't apply to anyone else. We believe (as do many) that the Bible contains a number of translation errors, and accordingly Joseph Smith in the 1830's began what he held to be revelation from God that would fix these. This Joseph Smith translation, as it is known, may not actually be more true to the original but it does reflect what we believe is the original intent. According to this, it was not God but Pharoah who hardened his heart.

Another answer would be simply that the authors of the Old Testament sometimes projected their own attitudes into God's actions. Thus because they felt Pharoah was hard-hearted, God must have made him so.

 

[Truronian]

Similar things happen frequently throughout the Old Testament, its quite bloody. Most Christian's take the New Testemant as more literal and the Old Testament as a parable.

 

[Sidhe]

Get used to making this point, the God of the Old Testament is a jealous brooding and wrathfull God, who's will and justice are beyond question, all will eventually see his wisdom and know his love and divine justice, but it is not for man to know or question his ineffable plan. That's a general hard and fast rule for the Old testament of which I have by no means read all of it. I can't answer your point specifically but I do know that the Chrsistian God and the OT God are different, in the NT God has stepped back from direct intervention in mans life, and a new covenant is upon the Earth, one of Love compassion and good will to all men. Try not to compare the two directly but apreciate that they were both written for two very different societies as guides to live by and thus the rules may seem archaic barbaric and nonsensical by our standards, even God's rules.

General guide and approach: might be useful, enjoy.

As a simple interpritation though: essentially if God revealed his presence via an angel to Pharoah and demanded the Jews be free, scaring the living hell out of Pharoah, how then would this have been recieved by Egypt? The Pharoah is weak shall we not go and take back our slaves? I think in order to drum home the point the whole of Egypt had to know God's supreme power, and to fear him.

Now here's a real specualtive point, later when the jews moved on the Canaanites, the Canaanites asked the Philistines for aid, knowing they were unable to help they requested aid from Egypt, we have record of this in Egyptian Heiroglyphs, now the Egyptians flat out refused, why do you think an army so powerfull refused to help? Was it the fear of God, was his divine plan to strike fear into the Egyptians so deep that they would cease to trouble the Jews ever again? Just a wild stab in the dark, but you never know.

 

[Elrohir]

Good question Aneeshm. There are different views on the subject.

The Hyper-Calvinistic view (Which I do not hold, by the way) is that God is fully in control of everything. As such, they would take that passage literally, and would say God literally made Pharoah's heart ("Heart", of course, referring to his mind or soul, not to his literal heart) to make him repress the Israelites, so that God could free them, and show His power.

I would take the view (More of an Arminian one, although I dislike that label) that Pharoah does not make anyone do anything that would be wrong, or that itself would be wrong. Thus I would say when it says that God "hardens Pharoah's heart" it's less a actual reference to an actual action, and more a figure of speech for saying that God allowed Pharoah's heart to be hardened, even though it was to the detriment of the Israelites, and even the Egyptians.

 

[warpus]

The Bible makes perfect sense once you accept that it's fiction.

 

[ChrTh]

Wait until you get to the part when God tells Moses (and the Jews) that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and then a short while afterwards essentially orders them to take out the Canaanites (I think that's who it is). "Thou Shalt Not Kill" should actually be read "Thou Shalt Not Kill Each Other"

There's a huge Us vs. Them undercurrent in the early Old Testament. If you weren't the Chosen People, God was not on your side.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

But it can be overestimated the degree to which God in the OT was just a "smite and destroy" God. Certainly, this comes up a lot in the first few books, which are more historically oriented; however, the prophets (whose books appear at the end of the OT even though they weren't always chronologically later) often speak of God's love and mercy. The story of Jonah, for instance, illustrates that God loved even those who weren't of the chosen people.

I also don't think that "fiction" is the right word. I think that it is impossible that none of the historical events in the Bible happened; but even those that didn't aren't quite fiction in the normal sense, any more than the myths of the Greeks or the Norse. Some books can be seen as fiction (such as Ruth, Esther, or Jonah) but not most. Also, many are actually poetry (Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) or general wisdom (such as Proverbs) or the writings and counsel of the holy men of the nation.

 

[Elrohir]

Wait until you get to the part when God tells Moses (and the Jews) that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and then a short while afterwards essentially orders them to take out the Canaanites (I think that's who it is). "Thou Shalt Not Kill" should actually be read "Thou Shalt Not Kill Each Other"

There's a huge Us vs. Them undercurrent in the early Old Testament. If you weren't the Chosen People, God was not on your side.

It was understood to be not "kill", but "murder" then, and in modern day English it would be better translated "You will not murder", as it is translated now. That's one reason why I don't like the King Jame's version; the language has changed since then; we need to keep the message accurate and the same, but use terms that people can understand.

 

[MobBoss]

The Bible makes perfect sense once you accept that it's fiction.

Very nice...that brings so much to the relevance of the thread it left me speechless.

@crth. You are confusing "thou shalt not kill" with "thou shalt not murder". I do believe the correct translation of that commandment is "murder", not "kill" thus killing as part of a war or conquest would be perfectly acceptable.

@anneshm. From my point of view this had to happen so that the miracles to free the Hewbrews would occur. Even in the face of such miracles, the Hebrew people were a moaning and grumbling lot....so much so that God had to let an entire generation die off while they wandered the desert for 40 years. I strongly suspect that the Hebrews were so ingrained in their servatude they may not have opted to leave Egypt at all without the occurance of the miracles.

 

[Sidhe]

Agreed Elrohir it is murder I asked for a direct translation from the Torah on another thread, it also makes more sense for an ancient society for it to be murder even though it deliberately points out later that war is exempt.

Of course Jesus changed this view and said you should never strike down an enemy but that's later in the back somewhere

 

[Elrohir]

Agreed Elrohir it is murder I asked for a direct translation from the Torah on another thread, it also makes more sense for an ancient society for it to be murder even though it deliberately points out later that war is exempt.

Of course Jesus changed this view and said you should never strike down an enemy but that's later in the back somewhere

Yep. I don't know why anyone would think war wouldn't be exempt anyway; this was a very bloody period of history. If the Israelites hadn't fought, they would have died. (God could have protected them, of course, but it was better for them to do it themselves.)

 

[ChrTh]

Yep. I don't know why anyone would think war wouldn't be exempt anyway; this was a very bloody period of history. If the Israelites hadn't fought, they would have died. (God could have protected them, of course, but it was better for them to do it themselves.)

I don't know, from my (admittedly New Testament) perspective, War is still Murder. It's one thing to defend yourself, it's another to be ordered to invade.

And the 20th century was slightly bloodier.

 

[warpus]

Very nice...that brings so much to the relevance of the thread it left me speechless.

Unfortunately not typeless.

OP is trying to make sense of the Bible; I was just trying to provide a helpful context in which it would all make sense.

 

[Elrohir]

I don't know, from my (admittedly New Testament) perspective, War is still Murder. It's one thing to defend yourself, it's another to be ordered to invade.

And the 20th century was slightly bloodier.

War is full of killing, but not necessarily murder. There is a distinct difference. As for the invasion thing; the Canaanites had turned their back on God, and sacraficed human beings to idols. They were hardly a bunch of peace-loving natives cruely attacked by the Israelites, or anything like that.

In terms of total bodycount, yes. But during this period of history, pretty much everyone was fighting someone, all the time. There were at least some periods where countries weren't fighting each other, in the 20th century.

 

[ChrTh]

Unfortunately not typeless.

OP is trying to make sense of the Bible; I was just trying to provide a helpful context in which it would all make sense.

Then you failed in your point; fiction still requires a strong consistency else it fails in its goal. Just because something isn't consistent doesn't make it fiction, and just because something is fiction doesn't make it inconsistent.

EDIT: I feel the need to add following: the idea that the bible is fiction is just as laughable as the idea that the bible should be taken literally. We have plenty of external evidence that many of the events detailed in the bible (the Captivity, Maccabees, travels of Pauls, etc.) did occur. The events did take place. Now, I know your thinking is that 'oh it's about religion, so it has to be fiction', but that's a wrong belief to have. To use a non-biblical example, Constantine may or may have not seen a Cross before battle; it doesn't matter though because he legalized Christianity regardless. God may not exist; it doesn't mean the Jews didn't flee from Egypt or get conquered. There's a reason colleges offer a course on the bible as a historical document. In your current state of intellectual development, you may as well be a creationist.

 

[Mathilda]

There's a huge Us vs. Them undercurrent in the early Old Testament. If you weren't the Chosen People, God was not on your side.

I agree with this.
In the OT all the nations clearly have their own gods and the one OT tells about is the one for the jews. In the NT someone then gets the idea that this particular one should be adopted by everybody..

 

[GoodSarmatian]

That's why I like the old testament .
It's full of sex and violence.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Above post reported for trolling, because it has no relevance to the question posed by the thread starter.

Regarding the OP, Exodus 6 opens like this:

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country."

2 God also said to Moses, "I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, [a] but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. [c] 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

(from here)

I think you must be speaking of another passage that isn't in Exodus 6, but anyway, I guess that it's a case of God being thorough, so to speak, in order to show to what extent the Egyptians wouldn't take a hint, because even after the worse (and by your OP, possibly unecessary) plagues, Pharaoh still decided to chase after the Israelites and capture them once more.
So in the other possible case, you might have been asking the question "Why didn't God show more of His power, so that the Egyptians would have gotten the hint and not chased after the Israelites? That way he wouldn't have had to drown six hundred thousand Egyptian soldiers who were only following orders.". Now counterfactual history is generally bunk, but I think it's an interesting idea.

You've got plenty of other answers, though, and I don't hold any sort of religious authority, nor have I done any professional studies. So I don't really know for sure.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

He is right though, there is a lot of sex and violence in the OT. Sometimes it is glorified, sometimes it is condemned, but it is there if you know where to look. Some of it gets a little weird too.