I’ve been reading Richard Carrier’s recent post about Docetism. Docetism, as you’ll know, is the idea that the Christ’s human body was illusory. Carrier questions whether this idea existed as a belief system in ancient times; the term, he says, was invented by modern theologians to describe a few vague notions that appeared only towards the end of the 2nd century.
He finds no evidence for Docetism as a movement at any time and certainly not when the books of the New Testament were being composed. Along the way, however, he discusses 1 Timothy 1:3-4, written either in the late first or early second century (and therefore not by Paul who died in AD 64):
…Command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work – which is by faith. (My emphasis)
‘Myths and endless genealogies’: interesting. What could these myths and genealogies be? Where were they to be found? In what way did they promote controversial speculations? How did they deplete faith?
The ‘myths’ are mentioned again in 2 Timothy, also not written by Paul but by someone using his name, again in the late first or early second century:
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
Not, you’ll note, ‘(they will) turn aside to false doctrines or heretical teaching’, which is how this verse is usually interpreted and applied by nit-picking evangelicals today, but ‘they will turn aside to myths‘. Some in the early second century church were being distracted by such myths – spurious stories about Jesus – and the writer(s?) of 1 and 2 Timothy feel compelled to warn against them.
The author of 2 Peter, who certainly wasn’t Peter/Cephas, issues a similar warning in his letter of 80-90:
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16)
What can these myths have been? What ‘cleverly devised stories’ about Jesus were circulating in the late 1st century and early 2nd? There were no ‘Docetic’ texts at this time, no ‘Gnostic’ ones, none of the more far-fetched, downright weird gospels, which all appeared later.
The use of ‘genealogies’ in 1 Timothy is a clue. Which documents with ridiculously contrived genealogies were circulating in the churches of the late first and early 2nd centuries? We know of none – apart from Matthew and Luke’s gospels. Could the forgers of 1 & 2 Timothy and 2 Peter be referring to these? Did they object to the fictional backstory Matthew, Luke and Mark had created for their heavenly saviour? Were these the myths to which believers were turning to instead of gazing heavenward at the ‘majesty’ of the celestial saviour who was soon to come in power to the Earth, as 2 Peter 1:16 suggests?
It certainly could.
rejectingjesus, 
Carrier has been selling this puzzle for quite a while. Like his books that aren’t there. Because they were destroyed idea.
I think he needs to include Colossians in the mix and 1st John. Maybe there are some answers.
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I’m not sure Carrier drew the conclusion that I did. He merely makes mention of those rather odd remarks in 1 & 2 Timothy and 2 Peter. Be that as it may, you don’t really address the point, do you. Saying, ‘Ho hum, it’s Carrier; we don’t need to take any notice of him,’ is not an argument.
So, once again, you fail to address the point, just as you did when koseighty presented you with a list of failed prophecies from the Hebrew scriptures. You’re very selective in what you’ll discuss. Just as you are in the God you believe in. Here’s what you wrote on your blog recently:
‘But what God do I believe in? There are a lot of Gods these days, and most of them are not the God I believe in. There is, for example, the God of the Christian Nationalists. Their God is not my God. My God does not command the overthrow of the government. There is the God of the Crusaders. Their God is not my God. My God does not command violent and bloody crusades over land or other religions. There is the God of the name-it-and-claim-it or prosperity preachers. My God is more interested in how I live than what I have. I could go on. But this list of what my God is not does not answer the question: what God do I believe in?
The answer: I believe in the God who GAVE his only Son that if I would believe in him I might have everlasting life.’
All of these versions of God can be justified by the Bible, and are. Your version is just the same. You isolate one of his supposed properties – his penchant for blood sacrifice – and proclaim that that makes him the only real God.
Your God is a cherry-picked God, and you have the nerve to criticise Carrier (and me) when you think he’s doing the same sort of thing.
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All of these versions of God can be justified by the Bible
I have been following the climate change controversy lately. One news outlet, FOX, calls climate change a crock because heat waves come and go. But that is a measurement of a year now and then. The real measurement is the retreat of the glaciers. That same is true of the measurements of God’s so called genocidal actions and endorsement of nationalism, or theocracy. They represent a very small piece of the whole picture.
Instead of looking at the trees and missing the larger picture of the forest, look at the forest.
Genocide* The Bible records only one that could be considered genocide. That is the flood. But geology and the reading of the flood epic as regional rather than global tell us that the flood did not destroy all human life but the eight saved in the ark.
Every other event you and others point to were not genocides. Small populations were killed – and that motivated by justice and not caprice – and never was there genocide as we define it, the killing of whole ethnic groups. Even the Canaanites were not destroyed; they were largely absorbed into Israel in the region that Israel claimed.
Nationalism. The same is true of the Nationalism by force. The nation of Israel is the only legitimate example. And Israel was very small. In ancient times the empires of Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome were far more “nationalistic” and expansionist and sometimes violently so. And they were not driven by God. They were anti-God if you measure that by how they treated Israel.
The Bible never suggests that Israel would or should become an empire. It does not suggest that Christianity would become an empire. There is no suggestion that it should become even a nation among the nations of the world. It says that the kingdom of God would permeate all the nations, which it has, but not become a nation.
Jesus boiled what the Bible said about God down to two. He loves the world, and he loves it so much he gave. He loves justice as well, and he loves it so much that he will punish evil and uphold righteousness both in the case of individuals and in the case of nations.
There are of course more characteristics than these, and all combine in one God. But these, it seems, are the characteristics most hated by those who dislike God and would like to do away with him.
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Of course. You’re right as usual.
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“ Genocide is defined in § 1091 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. There is Federal jurisdiction if the offense is committed within the United States.”
DOJ
Don:
“Every other event you and others point to were not genocides. Small populations were killed – and that motivated by justice and not caprice – and never was their genocide as we define it, the killing of whole ethnic groups.”
You’re wrong as usual!
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Show me where.
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Don:
“ Small populations were killed – and that motivated by justice and not caprice –”
Small populations were killed
Allow that to sink in.
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The Midianites…
Deuteronomy 31:15-18:
15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
1. How did they determine which girls had not slept with a man?
2. How is this not genocide?
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goyo: 1. How did they determine which girls had not slept with a man?
Fun fact: There is not now, nor has there ever been, a reliable (i.e. accurate) way to test for virginity. This applies to the Old Testament as well as the New Testament’s Mother™ of Our Lord™®©.
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I think marriage would suffice. Most cultures, as i India and Western cultures, have a mark of marriage.
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The passage goyo quotes tells us how to distinguish between a woman who has slept with a man and a girl who hasn’t slept with a man. The latter would indeed be ‘girls’: children. The Israelites heard their God tell them to make sex slaves of female children.
Don, this is the God you believe in.
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Sorry, wrong again, Neil. God told them to take them as slaves and treat them as wives with all the privileges and responsibilities a Hebrew owed his wife. Actually, even more. He could not divorce her.
What in the world would a child do if she was not cared for? You guys love to write in here “sex slaves.” (Are you writing in how you would treat such a child?) No one was treated as sex slaves by Hebrews who followed God’s law.
By the way, many children were left as orphans in the Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese wars. And many were adopted by American families. I know some of them. What the Bible requires is not at all different.
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So let me see if I’ve got this right. On God’s orders, the Israelites slaughtered the fathers, mothers and brothers of these Midianite children and then carted them off to be forcibly married to their parents’ murderers. They had no say in the matter and these ‘marriages’ existed only to legitimise (for the children’s captors, not the children themselves), the rape of young, orphaned, traumatised females whenever their ‘husbands’ felt like it. This, you say, is not sexual slavery. It was actually an arrangement initiated by God that everyone involved thought absolutely marvellous
Your claim that refugee children being adopted by benign Americans is not analogous with this deplorable situation, unless you’re suggesting the males of these families ‘married’ the children and had sex with them whenever they wanted. Is this what you’re saying? It certainly looks like it.
Finally, your suggestion ‘we’ talk about sex slaves because it is how we would treat children ourselves is cheap, offensive and obscene. It’s the low point of all the drivel you’ve posted here over the years and on your own blog. You show yourself to be contemptible and entirely unChristian. A retraction and apology is called for.
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Is this what you would do? I hope not, so why take the story in this direction?
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Not an apology then.
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In the ancient world of 1500 BC girls had no choice regarding marriage. Marriages were arranged by the parents. This was true of virtually all cultures. Until very recently, that had been the custom in India.
And only recently in India has there been out of control sexual abuse of women or girls. That has been the product of relaxed standards – and the influence of the West, like England and America. Maybe you are too immersed in this culture to think that it might be different.
In those ancient cultures, women were particularly dependent on their fathers and husbands because there was no real option for work that would support them – except for prostitution. And that was far more frowned upon than it is today in the West where women prance around on stage nearly naked before thousands of fans including women who would like to emulate them and sexual perversion is mainstreamed. And you judge the standards of ancient Israel? How tragically ironic. Judge the out-of-control cultures of England and America.
You judge the customs and laws of these ancient cultures by the customs of England and America. Maybe you can imagine nothing else. Maybe you are too much a child of this age. Maybe that is why you make this transference of modern sexual confusion and perversion to ancient cultures.
I fear for our culture. The culture of ancient Israel was far more virtuous.
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Piffle.
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Apparently, virginity is just something you know “in your heart.” Like knowing Jesus is Lord™®©.
Also, there’s a lot more of it going on out there than you’d reasonably suspect.
Virgin births claimed by 1 percent of U.S. moms: Study
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/virgin-births-claimed-by-1-percent-of-us-moms-study/
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OMG! Shades of “Mother Mary”!!!
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Don:
“Show me where.”
Don:
“never was there genocide as we define it, the killing of whole ethnic groups.”
DOJ definition:
Genocide is defined in § 1091 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
See that part, “in whole or in part”…
That’s where you’re wrong!
When god says “kill all men, and kill all women, and take their children away…
What’s left?
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In each of these cases these were tribes belonging to a larger people group. When Israel destroyed the Amalekites, the Amalekites remained, and you can read of further deprecations they made upon Israel. The same was true of the Midianites and Canaanites. They were not eliminated in any genocide.
The contradiction is that you and others damn Israel and God for acting in self-defense – and that is what this was – while ignoring the terrible destruction we brought upon our enemies in the modern age and the Indians and African slaves in America and England in the recent past. Not to speak of the genocide the Germans inflicted upon the Jews or Japanese upon their enemies.
You condemn Israel and let our own genocides slide by.
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No. The example of Israel’s various God-directed massacres and genocidal acts was introduced to illustrate an aspect of your God that is used to justify Christian nationalism. It is just about the only aspect (or version) of God represented in the OT.
That you don’t like it has nothing to do with us condemning the ancient Israelites while letting modern nations off the hook. It’s to do with you cherry-picking the version of God you’re prepared to believe in.
You are following the argument, aren’t you?
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The example of Israel’s various God-directed massacres and genocidal acts was introduced to illustrate an aspect of your God that is used to justify Christian nationalism.
And you use them to justify your animosity toward God. Neither are justified. They are introduced to illustrate God’s justice. In every case these commands to destroy Israel’s enemies were not capricious commands. They were in response to out-of-control violent opposition to Israel or in the case of the Canaanites to egregious immorality that culminated in a child sacrifice Molech worship. The altars there still there as testimony.
It is just about the only aspect (or version) of God represented in the OT.
You are kidding. You must have a very abbreviated version of the OT. There is God’s love for his chosen people. (Whom God intends to be the people through whom he will give his Son the Savior and Messiah for the world.) That is the primary message of the OT. Included in that is God’s love for the foreigner. That is the reason for the commands to protect foreigners. In addition to that is God’s love for all, Gentiles and Hebrews, who will tun to Yahweh in faith and hope.
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God’s justice: massacre your neighbours.
God’s love: exile, slavery, incessant punishment.
God’s intention: fail to send the prophesied Messiah.
God’s love for the foreigner: massacre your neighbours.
This is the story of the Jewish scriptures.
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Yours, Neil, not mine. I think that is the reason for your finding the story of God’s interaction with man unpalatable. The good thing about it that you see the severity of God’s judgement. Paul said something like that in Romans 11.
21 for if God didn’t spare the natural branches [the Jews] neither will he spare you [Gentile believers]. 22 See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
God was as severe toward his chosen people as he was toward any foreign tribe. More so I would say when I consider the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem. There we are talking millions. And then again in the Holocaust – six million.
He will be as severe towards believers today who fall. I fear for America. We have been and certainly have thought ourselves Christian and chosen. But as I look around today, we are anything but. Will we experience God’s severity? I fear we will.
We dare not minimize the severity of God.
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Isn’t it you who is doing that, limiting God’s severity with all your excuses for him (he didn’t order genocide, just the occasional massacre; he didn’t allow the Israelites to make sex slaves of captive children, they had a lovely life in enforced marriages; he’s really a cuddly teddy bear when you get to know him, etc). The God of the OT, your God, is irrational, capricious, spiteful, vengeful and murderous. He’s also nationalistic which is why modern Christian nationalists call on him to support their cause.
In reality, however, he doesn’t exist and never has done. He’s a reflection of the harshness of life as experienced by primitive tribesmen; the most unpleasant character in all of fiction as Dawkins so aptly puts it.
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Goodness and severity of God. It is an old tune that you and I will likely live long enough to see played once more as we reach the crescendo.
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I’m certain we won’t, just as the ‘crescendo’ predicted by the false Messiah didn’t happen within his disciples’ lifetime either. Just as it didn’t arrive when thousands of other brainless prophets of the past 2,000 years said it would. Yet you guarantee it’s going to happen in the next, what? 30 years given our respective ages?
Congratulations. You’ve just joined the end of a very long line of failures.
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You are a climate change denier? I would not have guessed it.
Climate change is creating all on its own the collapse of earth’s ecosystem and social systems. We will likely live to see that. In fact, we are seeing it already in famines, crop failures due to drought and floods. climate migration, mass extinction, and shortly the collapse of the ocean ecosystem. And we are experiencing the tension between nations caused by these things. I’d call that a crescendo.
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You know fine well your original mention of a crescendo was a reference to the End Times, God’s intervention, Jesus’ return and other such nonsense.
It’s a blatant dishonesty, and a non-sequitur, to claim my challenging this means I’m somehow a climate change denier.
You’re as alarmist about the climate as you are about morality and culture. Why not instead do something about it? Do you still drive a fossil-fueled vehicle, for example? I don’t. I gave up my car 18 months ago and take steps, literally, to reduce my carbon footprint. So how about you? What are you doing to make the world a safer place?
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You know fine well your original mention of a crescendo was a reference to the End Times, God’s intervention, Jesus’ return and other such nonsense.
Yes. I do know, and the connection is intentional. And it is biblical. The things we are observing related to climate change are all included in the end times prophecies of Jesus, Paul, and the Revelation. As are the human activities that contribute to climate change.
You’re as alarmist about the climate as you are about morality and culture.
I am only repeating the warnings of scientists, all of them coming from a secular background.
Why not instead do something about it?
Good point. I too have reduced to minimal my use of gasoline driven cars. But I am retired and do not drive as much as previously. I live in a place where power is produced by water and wind. I reduce my consumption of unnecessary products, especially those that are over packaged. I recycle when that is possible.
But I do not think that climate warming is only the result of human CO2 production. I think it is more subtle and complex and incudes a natural cycle of the sun. The last global warming occurred 12,00 to 14,000 years ago before any human contribution of CO2.
But this warming IS made more rapid by humans which adds to the warming by building cities that trap heat, by cutting down trees, by replacing native plants with managed agriculture. All these reduce the cooling effect of native foliage and increase atmospheric CO2 by burning wood or reducing the CO2 reservoirs of natural ecosystems. Fossil fuels of course contribute.
Bottom line, we have not managed the earth God gave us well. We contribute to warming by ALL our activities and we have done so in increasing measure because of the population explosion of the last century. Too many people misusing the earth in almost every way possible is the human component.
And climate warming will be the driver of the events described in the Bible as end times.
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Amazing! For once we are in agreement. At least for two paragraphs. I’ll leave it to you to work out which though I will give you a clue: they’re not ones that mention God or the Bible.
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Don:
“God told them to take them as slaves and treat them as wives with all the privileges and responsibilities a Hebrew owed his wife.”
Where does god tell them that?
Chapter and verse, please.
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Don:
“ No one was treated as sex slaves by Hebrews who followed God’s law.”
Of course not…their soldiers were different when they were out killing other villagers with swords and knives. They killed in a “loving” way, so when they returned home with their captive “girls”, they sent them to Sunday School.
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Don:
“ women prance around on stage nearly naked before thousands of fans including women who would like to emulate them and sexual perversion is mainstreamed. ”
What the hell are you talking about?
Don:
“ Maybe you can imagine nothing else. Maybe you are too much a child of this age. Maybe that is why you make this transference of modern sexual confusion and perversion to ancient cultures.”
I thought the reason god was killing all those “barbaric people “ because they were practicing “perversion” in your eyes, no? Isn’t that why god says “kill them all”, because they were perverted?
Don:
“And only recently in India has there been out of control sexual abuse of women or girls.”
India has a rape culture that has been going on for a while.
You do know they marry children there, right?
Don:
“ I fear for our culture. The culture of ancient Israel was far more virtuous.”
Yeah, we’re not allowed to invade our neighboring counties and murder everyone who doesn’t follow the same religion as us…pity our culture!
Don:
“ When Israel destroyed the Amalekites, the Amalekites remained, and you can read of further deprecations they made upon Israel. The same was true of the Midianites and Canaanites. They were not eliminated in any genocide.”
Oh, so all that killing was okay…they didn’t really kill everyone!
Don:
“ The contradiction is that you and others damn Israel and God for acting in self-defense – and that is what this was –”
God didn’t do anything, because god doesn’t exist!
So how was this self-defense?
Don:
“ You condemn Israel and let our own genocides slide by.”
Like Neil said, you’re getting off topic. We’re talking about the barbaric god of the OT…let’s imagine a scenario:
Russian troops invade a city in Ukraine…they kill all the men, women, and male children, and take all the girl children back to Russia with them.
Sounds normal, right?
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Neil:
“ Finally, your suggestion ‘we’ talk about sex slaves because it is how we would treat children ourselves is cheap, offensive and obscene. It’s the low point of all the drivel you’ve posted here over the years and on your own blog. You show yourself to be contemptible and entirely unChristian.”
It’s amazing how anyone can spend such time and energy defending the indefensible.
The more he talks, the deeper the hole he digs himself and his god into.
Let’s justify murder and sex slavery and call it the “good news”!
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Don:
“ the terrible destruction we brought upon our enemies in the modern age and the Indians and African slaves in America and England in the recent past. Not to speak of the genocide the Germans inflicted upon the Jews or Japanese upon their enemies.”
Wait…I thought if you left a few people surviving, that wasn’t “genocide”:
Don:
“ When Israel destroyed the Amalekites, the Amalekites remained, and you can read of further deprecations they made upon Israel. The same was true of the Midianites and Canaanites. They were not eliminated in any genocide.”
The Indians, Africans, and Jews still exist!
See?…no genocide.
It’s all “happy killing”!
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Smile. Words. I am simply appropriating your words and using the definition you supplied. In none of the modern cases except perhaps the Holocaust was there an attempt to destroy a whole ethnic group. But there was terrible destruction of people.
And there wasn’t an attempt to destroy a whole national or ethnic group of people in the incidents in the Bible you call genocide.
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Of Myths and Men
On the subject of myths, it’s interesting to watch the UFO/UAP hearings.
What do we have?
Several witnesses have seen unidentified lights or objects.
One witness hasn’t seen anything first-hand but claims to have interviewed several actual, although unnamed) witnesses. This one non-witness was the only source for claims of alien spacecraft and even alien bodies. He claims that people have been “harmed or injured” to cover up his claims. He claims to fear for his safety because he’s revealed this info.
This witness provides no actual evidence for his claims.
The government has denied his claims.
The jump from “unidentified” to “space aliens” is completely unevidenced.
The TV show The X-Files popularized the phrase I Want to Believe in reference to supernatural, paranormal, and alien phenomena. And this is what we see in the hearings. The leap from “unidentified” to “space aliens” is completely faith based. You have to want to believe the conclusion in order to see any evidence of it.
For example, one of the things the one witness claims is that alien spacecraft crash so often that an entire government agency exists to collect the pieces and the bodies. To believe this, you have to believe that advanced civilization(s) build craft that can travel faster than light to traverse the unimaginable vastness of space but the damn things just crash when they get here. All the damned time. To make that leap requires you want the conclusion more than reason.
Fun aside: One thing I’ve seen more than once in the discussions around this – from people who understand the vastness of space — is that these aliens aren’t from space. They’re from other dimensions! 😅 😂 🤣
Anyway. We still have no actual witnesses of the space alien claims. Just some guy who claims to have interviewed the unnamed witnesses. Where have we seen that before?
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I watched that question and answer also…after the witness said “yes, the bodies are non-human”, the lady questioning him should have said,
“Evidence please “
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If Don has taught us anything over the years it’s that asking for evidence is unreasonable in the extreme.
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What’s a reasonable way to look at UFOs/UAPs?
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I’ll take your word for it as I cannot stand to watch his videos! I guess he’s just too “down-home” to me. Plus his various movements and ums and ahhs irritate me no end. Also, who is “he” that his opinion is so valid on miscellaneous (but especially politics) topics?
HOWEVER … having said this, I realize I’m in the minority and he’s quite popular among MANY folks.
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To sum up, he notes the efforts of the U.S. government to de-stigmatize reporting UFOs/UAPs. He concludes the government is spending money on research and encouraging planes, ships and others in and out of the military to report odd sightings is a way to increase military and intelligence surveillance of what may well be devices other nations are using to surveil the U.S. Basically, deputizing all the cell phone cameras out there for intelligence gathering.
His theory has the advantage of being based in things we know humans do with no reliance on things that haven’t been shown to exist.
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We’re watching now as the right tries to gaslight the entire nation on the treatment of slaves. And I watch in horror as people accept and repeat the lie, “Slavery was good for black people.” This lie only serves the racists on the right.
And here in this little microcosm we watch the resident apologist try to gaslight us all about his Super Sacred Holy Book. He boldly lies, contradicting what is plainly written for all to see. But he lies with an arrogance and confidence that no doubt has fooled many into believing what he has to say.
But why lie about what The Book says plainly? Because the god he claims is Good™ is a moral monster – as anyone not indoctrinated can plainly see.
But I guess Don has realized that the only way to win souls for Jesus is to lie about The Book.
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Evidence please, Kos. Follow the history of the interaction between the Israelites and the tribes that surrounded them. Using one passage to declare genocide or God an immoral monster won’t do.
I do not mean to exonerate Israel in every instance. In fact, God does not exonerate Israel when they are wrong. He brought the nations of Assyria and Babylon against them to punish their violence and immorality.
The enslaving of captive enemy whether men or women or children is treated as a separate issue in Deuteronomy 21.
When you go to war against your enemies and [Yahweh] your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her. (Deuteronomy 21:10–14 NIV)
The reality of the situation was that an unmarried and unattached woman or girl was at risk in ancient societies and would have had a hard time surviving on their own. Being married was protection. However, the law allowed a slave girl whose husband divorced her to go wherever she wished. I would guess that few made that choice. We certainly have no record of any.
The captives of war or slave, whether man or woman, had the additional good fortune to be under the laws of Israel and the possibility of adopting those laws and the blessings of a citizen of Israel. It seems that many did, and their children were received by the Israelites as Israelites.
The other laws for treating women honorably and morally covered the treatment of slaves as well. Rape was always immoral and subject to judgment. Sexual intercourse between a man and a women was covered by laws to prohibit immorality and promiscuity. For example, sexually violating a woman/girl was forbidden and the man was required to marry the girl – if her father allowed – and treat her as his wife. (Exodus 22:16-17)
Making captives sexual slaves was unknown (show me an example if you think otherwise.) and violated every provision of the law.
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Far too long, Don. I’m too tired to wade through it in an attempt to cut it down. Please try to be more succinct.
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Don:
“The other laws for treating women honorably and morally covered the treatment of slaves as well.”
Somehow I don’t see how the words “honorably and morally” go with “slavery”.
You really are trying to gaslight us…at least, thank you for admitting god sanctions slavery.
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Well, think of people who are so poor they can’t survive. The slavery laws provided a social safety net and at the end of 6 years a grubstake for a new start.
The slavery laws required that Hebrew slaves be set free every six years.
The slavery laws allowed for the protection of enemy captives who would otherwise have been killed.
The slavery laws protected women who were slaves by giving them the status of a wife.
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As demonstrated in the above comments, he’s had to backtrack on his claims that “it’s not genocide in the bible…to…”it’s god’s severity”.
And, “it’s not genocide”…to…”it’s just words”.
As Neil and you have pointed out he’s straight up lying!
Here’s two examples:
Don:
“ God told them to take them as slaves and treat them as wives with all the privileges and responsibilities a Hebrew owed his wife. Actually, even more. He could not divorce her.”
No god did NOT! I asked him to show me where…no answer.
It’s funny…what “privileges” would a child slave have?
Don:
“ Goodness and severity of God. It is an old tune that you and I will likely live long enough to see played once more as we reach the crescendo.”
The “crescendo” Don refers to is definitely the “end times”, yet he accuses Neil of denying climate change.
I’ve got my old Hal Lindsey book around here somewhere Don…
How does it feel to defend the indefensible Don?
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Biblical scholar Dr. Dan McClellan explains why there can be no “objective standard of God’s word.” Basically the Bible is self-contradictory and the death of the author is a thing. He gives a fun example using sex slaves:
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