GM4: The Biblical Passages (Isaiah 13:15-18)

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4) and belongs to the subthread GM4′s treatment of the Biblical materials

Isaiah 13:15-18

In response to “the idea God is all forgiving” GM4 offers a brief excerpt from the Book of Isaiah 13—a chapter in which the destruction of Babylon, or more precisely the Neo-Babylonian Empire, is prophesied. This prophesy certainly contains some nasty elements, but there’s at least two major issues we need to take into account before trying to draw any conclusions from the text.

The Purpose of Life by William Lane Craig.

I’ve just watched a very interesting video in which William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens respond to the question: “What is the purpose of human existence?”

The person putting the question suggested that for theists the purpose of human existence is found in serving God, to which Craig gives the following reply;

GM4: The Biblical Passages (Second Kings)

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4) and belongs to the subthread GM4′s treatment of the Biblical materials

Second Kings

Here GM4’s objection is a pretty simple one:

“In Second Kings, God sends lions to kill people who don’t believe in him. Lions! Can you imagine the suffering?”

The reference is clearly to 2 Kings 17:25 and, sure, being attacked by a lion is not at all pleasant. The full story, however, is nowhere near as simple as GM4 suggests and we’ll again have to do more than scratch the surface of the text top get near to the full story. We’ll see that the victims of the lion attacks are guilty not merely of disbelief in God, but of roasting infant children alive in ritual child sacrifices. This, together with the absence of any person who might have spoken against such practices, provides a coherent explanation of why God used such drastic means to achieve his ends.

GM4: The Biblical Passages (Exodus 32:26-29)

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4) and belongs to the subthread GM4’s treatment of the Biblical materials

Exodus 32:26-29

So he [Moses] stood at the entrance to the camp and shouted, “All of you who are on the Lord’s side, come here and join me.” And all the Levites gathered around him. Moses told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone—even your brothers, friends, and neighbors.” The Levites obeyed Moses’ command, and about 3,000 people died that day. Then Moses told the Levites, “Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord, for you obeyed him even though it meant killing your own sons and brothers. Today you have earned a blessing.”

At first blush, this looks pretty damning as far as God is concerned, but the story is actually a far more interesting one than this small snippet indicates. When we look at the narrative, we find that we have a small story within a story here. The larger story involves God interacting with Moses, the small story involves Moses interacting with the Israelites. You’ll need to bear with me because this is likely to be longish, but if you want the short story: GM4 has omitted the crucial opening verse from the above in which we are told that “Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, much to the amusement of their enemies” (v.25). This collapse of order, rather than idolatry  or a divine command, is given as the motive behind Moses’ actions. Verse 25, it turns out, is a critical antecedent to the “so” of verse 26.

GM4: The Biblical Passages (Numbers 31)

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4) and belongs to the subthread GM4’s treatment of the Biblical materials

Numbers 31

GM4 states that “In Numbers 31 God orders Moses to take sixteen thousand virgins as war booty, thirty-two of which are sacrificed.”

Given the picture used to illustrate this claim (shown at right) it seems the concern is with the “sacrifice” of these girls, not with the issue of war-booty. If so, I have to say (and this is with as much charity as I can muster) this is an outright error of stunning proportions. If not, well things are still pretty bleak. It’s not just what GM4 says here, but also what GM4 fails to say, that’s telling. Bear with me as we work this one through. You’ll be surprised, I think, to see just what this apparently simple comment tells us about the superficiality of GM4’s entire approach.

GM4: The Biblical Passages (Introduction)

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4)

Right at the center of the challenge to Christian faith from GM4 is the claim that the Old Testament portrays God as an “evil, war-mongering, maniacal, ethnic-cleansing, mass-murderer.” To make that case GM4 appeals to six passages from the OT; Exodus 32:26-29; Numbers 31; Second Kings; Isaiah 13:15-18; Jeremiah 9; and Ezekiel 9:5-7.

GM4: Straw-men and Idols

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4)

If you’ve seen the movie The Last Samurai you’ll be familiar with the scene in which US military advisor, Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is ordered to lead a force of raw conscripts against battle-hardened Japanese Samurai. Protesting the recruits’ lack of readiness, Algren demonstrates the point by instructing one of the recruits to shoot him. The catch is that Algren has drawn his pistol and informed the startled young man that if he doesn’t shoot, he will himself be shot. After Algren fires off a couple of rounds by way of “encouragement” the now utterly panicked soldier fires at Algren and misses by the proverbial country mile.

The point? Well simply to introduce the idea of “arguing a straw-man.” Some suggest this metaphor comes from the military using straw dummies for target and bayonet practice, but whether that’s so, it certainly carries the idea of  setting up a target that’s nice and easy to attack precisely because it’s a simplified version of the real thing. And just as the hapless recruit in The Last Samurai found stationary targets on the firing range much easier to shoot at than somebody who shoots back, so people find simplified, even distorted, versions of Christianity a far easier target to attack than the real thing.

GM4: Simplicity This Side of Complexity

This post is part of the series; God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4)

One of my favorite quotations is Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

His point, simply put, is that when we try to make a complex problem simple, we end up with something not worth having. But if we can sit with the complexity long enough, to actually tease it out in a substantial way, then we end up with something of rare value indeed.

I think it helps at the outset to recognize that the morality of God’s behavior as reported in the Old Testament falls into this category. It’s not a simple problem, and folk who are looking for simple answers “this side of complexity” are going to short-change themselves.

God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer? (GM4)

A couple of days ago a Facebook friend asked me to give my response to a YouTube clip entitled “God: Merciful? Maniac? Mass-Murderer“—I’ll be labeling it GM4 for short. Essentially GM4 tries to argue that certain Christian claims about God are contrary to the portrayal of God in the Old Testament. My initial reaction upon watching the video is that it doesn’t do so in a particularly compelling way.