The Bible is Full of Things God Doesn’t Approve of
Eye-catching
title aside, I wanted to write this as a sort of blanket response to critics of
Christianity who like to nitpick certain aspects of scripture, such as slavery,
polygamy, violence, and the like. The Bible is a collection of books, and these
books are from multiple genres, such as history, poetry, ethics, songs, and so
on. Focusing specifically on history, the Bible covers the history of the
people of Israel, and other parties, necessary to understand the scope of God’s
plan for humanity and the need for a savior. This history includes it all, and
doesn’t white wash any of the players involved, showing their triumphs and
failures. This is just the nature of a good historical narrative, and it doesn’t
mean that we should do everything
that the heroes of scripture that we learn about in Sunday school should do.
For
example, let’s take a look at David, the king that was described as being the
man after God’s own heart. You would think a great paragon of virtue for all to
follow, right? Not always. David for sure had his issues, from adultery, to
murder, to polygamy. God did not overlook David’s misdeeds, but instead brought
justice even to the king of his own people. David was not immune to discipline,
just because of his position (I can think of quite a few leaders in the United
States that have escaped justice because of their position) We can see this
with other Bible heroes, such as Moses, Peter, Solomon, Jonah, etc. It isn’t
that we should discount these people in the Bible as they were heroes and were
honored for their faith and deeds, but it does show us that even the leaders of
that age were fallible and in need of God’s grace. Indeed, it reinforces the
truth that the only one without sin in this world is Jesus.
For the
more general topics, such as the code of conduct for slavery, marriage, and
other topics, we need to understand the original Hebrew and Greek of scripture,
rather than read our modern ideas into scripture. Not to say that Biblical
ethics are wrong, but something like the Hebrew word for slave means something
different than what we think of when we see slave in English. Jon McCray of
Whaddo You Meme has done an awesome job showing this distinction in a 3 video
series that I will link below. I will let him explain in more detail, but a few
take home messages. Slavery in scripture is more nuanced that what we typically
think of here in America. Israelites could go into servitude for someone to
whom they owed a debt to as a means of paying off the debt. Once this was done,
the slave was released. Now, slaves could also be taken from conquered
countries or from immigrants to Israel, and they could be bequeathed to the
slave owner’s children. This may seem harsh, but what if the slave has nowhere
to return to? What if you have a refugee from a neighboring country that can’t
go back? It was a mercy to keep employing the immigrant.
I’ll
explore one more topic, as this question was part of my initial discussion with
an atheist colleague of mine that got me into apologetics, and that is the
topic of Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (or Exodus 22:16-17). These verses give a
commandment that follows as such: if a man comes across a virgin (woman) and
rapes (seduces) her, he is to pay her father a sum of money, marry the
daughter, and can never divorce her. A lot of people, not just my colleague,
point to this as a fault point of the Bible being a misogynistic piece of ancient
literature that should be ignored. So let’s take a look at this and see where
God’s head and heart are at when we gave this decree. Now, I have used both
sets of verses because they show that what is important here is that an
unmarried woman has had sexual relations with someone, by force or not (the Hebrew
words used to describe the seduction or rape can have multiple meanings, and
the Hebrew used here was not used to describe other sexual assaults, such as
the rape of Tamar). This has made the woman undesirable for marriage, and a
single woman making it through life on her own was an unheard of concept in
that day and age. The laws described in Deuteronomy and Exodus were present to
protect the woman from objectification, and to ensure the man fulfills his
marital duties to the woman, even if he tried to have just the sexual pleasures
without marrying the woman first. This was God looking out for the fairer sex,
and making sure that the man was responsible for his deeds. This once again is
not permission for men to go out and seduce every good looking woman they see
and marry them, as God designed marriage for one man and one woman. This is God
knowing that humanity is flawed and easily swayed by their sin nature, and God
laying down protections for his people.
I hope this helps you when you are discussing
Biblical history with your neighbors, and that we realize that when it comes to
history, scripture doesn’t whitewash, but presents things as they are so we can
have as full a picture as possible. With the pieces of scripture like we just
discussed, I know there are plenty of others that are taken out of context, or
without understanding of the original Hebrew, that could lead into an extra
part or two to fill out a possible series. Let me know if you think I have
covered these points well and if you would like me to take a look at other “trouble
spots” that you find in scripture. May God bless you and have a good rest of
your day.
References:
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