justfying the bible?

[Abc]

how do christains (particually christian leftists) justify the HORRIBLE content in the bible? such as not only supporting slavey but saying if a man rapes his female slave then she is to be wipped and he is not to be punished (lev 19:20) supporting death for homosexuals (lev 20:13) and the worst that i have found if a man rapes a women in a city and she does not cry out lound enough for anybody to hear it is to be assumed she is enjoying it and she is to be stoned to death (due 22:23-22:24) and these 3 are not even the tip of the iceberg , i'm not trolling i really wondor how the hell christain leftists get around this stuff? :confused:

[Winter]

Notice all those examples you have just given are from the Old Testament, so many Christians will say, "WELL, that's the OLD testament. God had to reveal himself to these tribal people on their terms."

[Drace]

God kills 2.2 million people in the Bible, Satan kills 10.

[ComradeMan]

Interesting point. A couple of points I would make.
1. Which Bible and which books? There is an old saying that the Bible is a book of contradictions. For instance, all males must be circumcised on the 8th day but then you shall not mark or cut your body as the gentile in another part. I have studied the 613 mitzvot and there is some very "dodgy" stuff in there too.
2. The language of the Tanakh can be very mysterious and the Aramaic Targum more so, even the rabbis are not always sure what a word actually means and given the cultural and historical abyss that separates us from the time when the scrolls were written even the interpretation of seemingly "clear" concepts and words are open to debate. Here is one example from the New Testament- "Jesus turns water into wine". Apparantly "turning water into wine" was an Aramaic metaphor for making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Jesus went to the wedding found a lot of people who were not enlightened, spoke to them, they became enlightened and thus he made a good job out of a bad one- he turned "water" into "wine". This puts a different slant on things.
3. I have read a book "The Secret of the Exodus" that basically re-interprets the Aramaic Targum and seems to imply that most of the references to God in Genesis-Joshua refer to the Egyptian pharaoh, Ay- Adon-Ay- Aten-Ay after Atenism the monotheistic heresy of Amarna. You have to read the Bible very carefully and selectively to sort out what is "spiritual" and what is pseudo-historical or folk memory. If this book is correct in its analysis it would suggest that a lot of what God allegedly said and did wasn't actually God at all!!!!
4. Christians will, as stated above, say that the Old Testament is nullified by the grace and sacrifice of Christ and thus is not valid, historical facts question that "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", but that is what they will most likely say.
5. Torah righteous Jews will not accept that the Torah is anything other than divinely inspired so to question it is tantamount to heresy- so you cannot discuss it with them much in the same way that devout Muslims cannot, through their very religion, debate the Qu'ran.

In my own opinion anyone who attacks or defends the Bible based on a literal interpretation of the standard version is a fool.

I would also add that 99% of human history has been and still is reactionary and so we cannot really apply modern/humanistic/socialist principles to historical facts which are de facto reactionary to varying degrees.

Finally, never forget, the "devil can use scripture for his own ends". :)

Peace to you!

[mikelepore]

We don't have enough wisdom to be aware of God's secret plan.

***

"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm."

-- William Cowper

[Chambered Word]

Notice all those examples you have just given are from the Old Testament, so many Christians will say, "WELL, that's the OLD testament. God had to reveal himself to these tribal people on their terms."

I'm pretty sure according to the New Testament all the Old Testament rules apply as well, or so I've heard.

[red cat]

I'm pretty sure according to the New Testament all the Old Testament rules apply as well, or so I've heard.

I have discussed this stuff with some christian communists. They said that the bible was altered by the ruling class to confuse the masses. :)

[mastershake16]

Well, understand that the authors are writing in a certain time period and they can't just magically write stuff that would be WAY ahead of their time. That's why in the Christian Scriptures the world is a totally different place and more liberal ideas exist. In the Christian Scriptures, God is a lot more forgiving and less brutal. The Christian Scriptures are TOTALLY different. To blame the authors for writing what they did about slavery and other topics in the historical time period they were living in is stupid.

Joshua slaughtering EVERY living thing in Jericho is brutal, but that's just the story of the Israelites conquering more land written in a holy context. God said the walls would fall. Did they actually fall? No. Does it make their God seem more powerful? Yes.
Also remember the first Israelites were NOT monotheistic. They were Henotheistic and the writers wanted to prove that their God was more powerful than any other. It was basically a contest. They said "Hey, our God created the whole world with a wave of the hand and in 7 days it was done. How long did it take your god?" ( For the Babylonians it took an unfathomable amount of time) The writers had to prove that their God was the most powerful.

I could go on and on but basically...

The writers had to write what would make sense in their surroundings and time. They didn't have the gift of being able to see that in a few thousand years, that what they were writing would be considered "wrong". So before you make judgments, look at when and where the books were written and the culture at the time. Also, one line could be from the original author, but the next could've been added in 500 years later.

I hope I kind of answered your question haha

[ComradeMan]

Never forget too, that a lot of the Old Testament/Tanakh is metaphorical/symbolic. I read a rabbinical commentary that talked about "man being made in the image of God" and it alluded to the fact that what was meant was that "man is part of God", not that man looks like God. It's all lost in translation.

Did the walls of Jericho really fall? Or did the walls of ignorance, from the Old Testament point of view, fall down and the people of Jericho "accept" the God of Israel? I think to understand the Bible you need to read the original languages and do a lot of research too- especially for the metaphors that are so lost in today's times.