Here’s a comment I read at a Christian blog today:
I think the example of David is an example of the importance of cultural context. In fact, when I read most of the OT, I see a people that by todays standards, are so evil, corupt, imoral etc. A violent people. And their God demanded the most cruel and bloodthirsty acts – that today we would be appalled at.
The key is to realise that they were different times, a different culture, and God spoke to them in a way they could understand. Which means, when we read those accounts, we need to bear that in mind. For his time, David was the epitomy of spirituality and holiness – but by our standards, he was a savage, murderer etc.
This comment, short as it is, overflows with bullshit, so I’ll put on my hip boots and get right to my response.
First, the comment writer states that it was appropriate for the OT god to require his chosen people to offer him brutal, bloody sacrifices because people were awfully, dreadfully violent back then. They just wouldn’t have been able to get behind a gentle god who listens to sappy love songs, loves the fragrance of candles and incense, and looks fondly on churches with tall steeples. They would only respect, fear and worship a deity with an appetite for carnage. So, instead of being honest about his affable nature and teaching his chosen people a better, more uplifting and peaceful way to live, the Almighty Omniscient One – Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, El, Shaddai, whatever his name is – reduced himself to their pathetic, primitive standards. Of course he did. It’s what any self-respecting, benevolent deity would have done in his place.
Second, it’s interesting that the comment writer labeled the OT deity as “their god.” He lives in the 21st century Western world. Blood sacrifice is not the norm in today’s tidy, refined – dare I say, enlightened? – Christian church. After all, violence is passé (except in the cases of abortion providers). Moreover, in addition to the legal issues involved, can you imagine trying to shampoo all that blood out of the carpets every week? Yikes! The problem with the writer’s distinction, however, is that, according to orthodox Christian theology, the god of the OT is identical with the god of the NT; they’re the same guy. Now, Jews can keep the OT god and ignore the NT one; their theology allows that. But, Christians have to accept both of them and they can’t cheat by calling them two different gods. Hey, they chose the theology, they’re stuck with it. Some Christians emphasize the NT god, whom they perceive as revealing his true, gentle nature; they don’t pay much attention to the temperamental deity in the OT. Other Christians embrace the wrathful OT god; they pay lip service to the NT god and his son/alter ego/twin/clone/??? Jesus. The comment writer, a professed Christian, doesn’t get to disavow the OT god who, in his own words, “demanded” blood sacrifices, including the Mother of All Human Sacrifices that occurred about 2,000 years ago. To apply the comment writer’s own standard, he can’t divorce the NT from the OT context which it purports to fulfill. “Their god” is “his god.”
Third, the notion that, even though David was, by our current standards, a savage, he was actually a really good guy compared to his peers – the epitome of spirituality and holiness in his time – is nonsense. If that were so, then the prophet, Nathan, wouldn’t have called out David for committing adultery and murder. He would have just let it slide, because, hey, that’s the kind of stuff kings did in those days (as Mel Brooks said, “It’s good to be the king”). According to the Bible, even the OT god, who was regularly drenched in blood himself, was so repulsed by David’s behavior that he required satisfaction (in the form of yet another sacrifice – a human one – David and Bathsheba’s firstborn son) before he would delete David’s name from his shit list. It’s clear, from the biblical story’s context, that murder and adultery were just as socially and culturally repugnant when David did them as they are now; even his allegedly corrupt, immoral, evil peers realized that he had not behaved like a holy man when he committed those atrocities. David was no better, morally, than any of them, and, quite likely, a lot worse than many. (An aside: what both the text and its context fail to make clear are why an innocent child was killed instead of David, and how that death appeased god’s wrath toward David).
In closing, I found this comment writer’s attempt to use the concept of contextualization to excuse
a) the cruelty of his god, and
b) the wickedness of a biblical hero
totally unpersuasive. Biblical scholars can give this exegetical (although eisegetical may be more apt, in this case) method whatever fancy name they want. In this case, it smells like special pleading to me. And special pleading smells like bullshit.
– the chaplain
Vinny
August 18, 2010 at 10:44 pm
No doubt this Christian decries the moral relativism and situational ethics of non-believers.
Sarge
August 19, 2010 at 7:13 am
Yeah, the David thing…
Heard many a preacher report him to be “…a man after god’s own heart…” usually displaying a supercilious smile and self-affirming nod.
Basicly, ol’ Dave did a good job of brown-nosing, it seems to me, so he got away with a lot of shit.
Dave sounds like a lot of the upper crust around here and in national life: mean, ambitious, “pragmatic”, a traitor when it suited him, a womaniser, a me-firster, a thief, couldn’t/wouldn’y keep his kids in line, used others to clean up the messes he made, BLAMED others for the messes he made…
Nope…Dave, himself sounds strangely modern!
alex-a
August 19, 2010 at 9:28 am
I also love it how the Bible is supposed to be a perfect immutable truth directly from God (which is why we have to follow everything it says, including Leviticus), but you have to put it in historical context. So, when it says “death to adulterers”, it means “death to adulterers”, but when it talks about eating feces or cracking babies’ heads against the rocks, it’s out of context. I still remember how one of my teachers (who had a Methodist minister for a husband, and was a devout Christian herself) was telling me about Psalm 137 that I had to remember that people were violent, there was a war going on, and all that stuff about zeitgeist. That never settled with me well.
In other words, Christians need to decide between eternal immutable dictates of the Almighty and a somewhat historical biased account that depends on cultural interpretations. It can’t be both perfect and imperfect at the same time.
Brian M
August 19, 2010 at 7:50 pm
I’m not sure how a writer who has right before him the history of the Twentieth Century (and the 21st!) can speak of how kind and gentle “we” have become. heck, even today, we have an elite who are gleefully raining robot bombs onto villages and wedding parties. Have things really changed, especially once one travels outside the cossetted centers of the modern system and visits, say, the Nigerian oil country, or, heck, The Congo. This shows a remarkable degree of almost willfull blindness.
uzza
August 20, 2010 at 12:14 am
Interesting that while all this was going on, Buddhism was spreading like wildfire throughout the Far East. No bloody sacrifices required for the people over there.
desertscope
August 20, 2010 at 11:40 am
Well, if it was OK to string up negroes who got all uppity into the middle of the 20th Century, certainly we can forgive the occasional child-raping genocide. I’m sure if the Amalekites hadn’t been annihilated, their descendants would agree.
Lorena
August 21, 2010 at 11:00 am
OMG! Thank you for the visual.
Peter
August 21, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Although, this comment will most likely be met with ridicule and you probably don’t really care, I will share it anyways. In reference to you comment on blood sacrifices: Through animals sacrifice, Israel was taught that the consequences of sin was death. The animals were innocent and had to pay the price of the people. This was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Jesus, who is the Lamb of God. Jesus, who had no sin, became the sacrifice for our sins. There are no more sacrifices because Jesus has fulfilled the law of God. The entire OT is about Jesus, and Jesus applied it to Himself. If you wish to understand Christianity better, feel free to talk to me about it.
desertscope
August 22, 2010 at 2:09 am
OT about Jesus? I must have the abridged version…
Peter
August 22, 2010 at 8:36 am
In the OT, God was explaining what He was going to do and what His plan was through symbols and prophets. God used people, from Adam to David, to foreshadow Jesus Christ. Much of the NT, is actually made up of quotes from the OT. Jesus said the following to the Jews in reference to the OT:
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
(Joh 5:39-40 ESV)
Below is a prophecy given by Isaiah in the OT of the coming Jesus:
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
(Isa 53:2-12 ESV)
the chaplain
August 22, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Peter:
It’s funny how the vast majority of Jews in Jesus’ time didn’t interpret that Isaiah passage as having anything to do with Jesus. I know the standard Christian apologetic answer to that objection. It’s more likely, however, that – rather than being stubborn and hard-hearted – the first-century Jews who rejected Christianity had good reasons for doing so.
And, you do realize that no one actually knows who wrote that passage from John, right? You don’t think it was written by “John, the beloved disciple” do you? And, you also realize that it’s highly unlikely that Jesus (whoever he was, if he was) actually said the words ascribed to him in that verse (see below for more on that)?
Your contention that “Much of the NT, is actually made up of quotes from the OT” is mistaken. Roger Nicole, cited in a book edited by Carl F. H. Henry (a conservative Christian scholar), said that direct OT quotes comprise only 4.4% of the NT. He also said that, if one includes OT allusions and indirect references scattered throughout the NT, then about 10% of the NT is comprised of references and quotations related to the OT. I don’t know how your math works, but, in my math, 10% does not equal “much.”
Here’s another interesting statistic Nicole noted: The amount of NT material comprised of the sayings of Jesus is similar to the OT figure – only about 10% – shockingly low, IMO. It seems to me that, if Jesus is everything he’s supposed to be, his teachings should merit more than a measly 10% of the NT. For comparison, consider that Paul wrote nearly 1/3 of the New Testament. I ask you, who should be more prominent in Christian scripture – the savior of the world, god’s own (and only) son, or an evangelist?
Here’s some more interesting stuff. When the Jesus Seminar sought to establish the probable authenticity of Jesus’ sayings, they examined the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and one non-canonical gospel – the Gospel of Thomas. They determined that only about 18% of the Jesus sayings are probably authentic. This means that Jesus’ teachings comprise less than 2% of the NT. Considering the role he allegedly plays in Christianity, Jesus didn’t say very much. At least, he didn’t leave a record of having said much. BTW, since you cited John, I’ll note that the Jesus Seminar found almost none of the Jesus sayings recorded in John to be authentic.
Granted, there’s a fair bit of other NT material that alludes to Jesus, but it’s largely interpretive. The book of Acts is primarily about the apostles, not Jesus. And, the epistles give us far more insight into how Paul and other NT authors interpreted Jesus, and added to his ideas, than they give us about Jesus himself. As for the book of Revelation, I’ll just say that that someone had access to some powerful (and frightening) hallucinogens and leave it at that. In short, it seems to me that neither the Bible nor Christianity actually have much to do with Jesus Christ.
Peter
August 23, 2010 at 2:47 pm
So, since you consider it highly unlikely that Jesus said the quote from John, I assume you still consider it possible. I do consider 10% “much”. Although, I don’t consider it “most”. But, that is just a matter of opinion.
It doesn’t seem to me, from your argument, that you understand the gospel. Jesus works through His people. The book of Acts, is the book of the acts of Jesus Christ through His apostles. Christianity is not based on a person’s works or attempts to be good. Its not about following Jesus’ teaching. He didn’t tell the apostles to remember His teachings, but to remember Himself. The Christian life is the very life of Christ being lived through us. That is why we are Christians, or “little christs”. As Eve was taken out of Adam through his sleep, we are taken out of Jesus through His death, and we share in His life.
Jesus came to end all religion, by offering us a new life free of guilt, His life.
the chaplain
August 23, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Which gospel would that be, and which works are manifestations of Jesus living and working through his “little christs?” The ones that condemn gays? Or the ones that accept gays into Christian fellowship? The ones that condone murdering abortion providers? Or the ones that support a woman’s right to choose how to manage her own body and reproduction? The ones that condone hunting and persecuting witches? Or the ones that don’t believe in witches at all? The ones that allow people to seek medical attention when they’re ill? Or the ones that eschew modern medicine completely? All of these positions and actions are taken by so-called “little christs.” Is Jesus Christ schizophrenic? If not, then he needs to show some of these “little christs” the errors of their ways, so they can get with his program.
The Christians who have perpetuated their religion for the past 2,000 years obviously missed that memo. Don’t bother telling me that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. That’s another case of special pleading, which is what got the OP started in the first place.
Mark
August 22, 2010 at 9:49 am
David was an adulterer and murderer also. He had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah sent to the front line during battle to die a certain and speedy death.
Out of all the Old Testament characacters, I find Noah and Job to be much “holier” than David.
Peter
August 23, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Not everyone who claims the name of Christ, belongs to Him. Jesus said:
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
(Mat 7:22-23 ESV)
In addition, true Christians still make mistakes. We aren’t perfect. Part of being a Christian, is knowing you are depraved. Why else would we need a Savior? We have a new life in Christ, and He is constantly forming us into the perfect image of Christ. We should be amazed that He would want to work through us, or that He could use creatures as poor as we are.
Perhaps, you have never been among Christians who hold Christ as central.
the chaplain
August 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Perhaps you’ve never read very much of this blog to find out a bit about me before jumping to stupid conclusions.
Peter
August 23, 2010 at 5:02 pm
You are correct, I have not read much of your blog. I don’t know you. I have read some of your posts and your “about me” section. I didn’t mean to jump to any conclusion, I simply stated a possibility. You have the right to say whether it is a valid possibility or not. I have enjoyed our conversation though. I do hope that the glory and grace of Jesus Christ will be revealed to you. If you ever wish to learn more about my beliefs, let me know. I enjoy talking about Jesus.
PhillyChief
August 24, 2010 at 10:28 pm
I don’t mean to interrupt you biblical scholars, but is there any evidence for any of these gods yet? No? Then the exact percentage of lines for the character Jesus in the Christian bible is a meaningful argument because why? Did I miss something?
the chaplain
August 25, 2010 at 9:35 am
No, you didn’t miss anything. Performed in moderation, mental masturbation can be entertaining.
IMO, this particular act climaxed a couple of days ago.
OneSmallStep
September 1, 2010 at 7:25 pm
So … is what the people did back then evil, or not? Because the quote says that by today’s standards, we’d seem them as evil or corrupt. However, if we were to have someone behave in the OT manner today, I assume that many Christians would declare that such behavior is immoral and against God. So if the behavior is immoral, then the behavior is wrong/evil. And God can’t do or order evil. Yet God ordered the very behavior He declares to be immoral 2,000 years ago, and yet says that it’s wrong now?
Objectively speaking, the behavior has remained the same. So the good or evil is … what, relative to the time period?
the chaplain
September 1, 2010 at 8:31 pm
OSS:
That seems to be the gist of what he was saying.
Perhaps when atheists engage in relativism, it’s evil, but when Christians engage in relativism, it’s divinely inspired.