A group of people is not defined by a 3000-year-old folklore collection. You can’t infer anything about the text this way.
You'd be surprised. Especially Jews, which are an ethnoreligious [1] group.
Are you implying the Old Testament is not historical? Or not accurate with regards to history?
Or what do you mean by folklore?
Sure, as someone interested in history, I certainly take the Torah as accurate history. And I think that not a few ancient historians and archaeologists would do the same, irrespective of their views on Genesis 1.
For example, and I am referring to the entire Tanakh, I understand that Hezekiah was a real king in history who built a real tunnel which people really walk through today. I have no problem with that. I wouldn't consider that "folklore".
As someone interested in the historical method, I understand that the fact of an event, whether it happened or not, does not depend on the perceived likelihood I myself or others impute to it. I don't have any Naturalistic presuppositions. I don't subscribe to Naturalism as a philosophy, nor would I mistake it for science. So I won't immediately grab at revising the date for say Isaiah if he happens to mention Cyrus ahead of his birth.
Coming back to Genesis 1, you're forcing many literary and scientific issues if you want to tie Genesis 1 down (and dismiss it) as claiming a 6,000 (or 7,000) year old earth.
From a purely scientific perspective, the "age of the world" discussion needs to be wary of Hume's is-ought distinction. It would be a mistake to assume that the laws of physics have always been (and always will be) as they currently are. That would be to derive an "ought" (they must always have worked this way) from an "is" (the way things work today as we observe them).
In fact, from a literary point of view, if we read as far as Genesis 3, we see that Genesis itself suggests a seismic shift in the way things work, when death enters the world.
The point of Genesis 1-3 is that the world as we know it, is markedly different to the way God created it. I don't think we should overlook that.
So I see no contradiction between science and the Bible. In fact, I think they encourage and support each other.
Sucks to be Job's family though. I guess God winning his bet was more important than this love and compassion in that case.
But in my experience Jews aren't any more violent than Christians
I'm pretty sure any religious group can find something in their teachings to justify any possible position from complete non-violence to outright aggression.
It's not a mere bet, it's a story about life -- one of the more profound in literature, religious or not.
It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its
literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it
"the greatest poem of ancient and modern times" [1]
"Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy."
The book of Job itself suggests a historical context from the very outset, see Job 1:
"In the land of Uz there lived a man..."
It would be a mistake to reduce the book's message to a mere "moral tale" (although it is at least that - and much more).
Judaism has also developed a lot since antiquity. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, it developed into Rabbinic Judaism with a number of rabbis creating authoritative interpretations of the Halacha, or Jewish law. One such famous rabbi was Maimonides who lived in the 12th century.
Melvin Tinker provides historical background on the Canaanites and the question of justice vs genocide here:
https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction-Melvin-Tinker/dp/178...
As far as the Egyptian first-born, was God not patient and slow to anger? Was that the first plague or the last plague? How many years had the Egyptians oppressed another people? How many Israelite children did the Egyptians not kill? Did the punishment not fit the crime? Is God not just?
‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’
“Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’ If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right— if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.
“Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”
Jesus, in John 10:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”
But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
seems pretty fked up to me :)
I don't know anything about rationalwiki.org, it's the first site that showed up when I googled "old testament character punished"
Each statement is linked to Biblical verses though, so any objections would be to the spin they put on it rather than disputing whether those passages are actually there.
Basically, old testament Yahwe is a weird dude. Very thin skinned with a hare trigger temper. He's a sociopath who "tests" people by murdering their family among other atrocities. He does have his bro's back though. He sent 2 bears to maul 42 youths to death for mocking Elijah's bald head.
We were taught the bible every day by our splendid primary school headmaster, who had been a Spitfire pilot in WW2, and he seemed to focus on the most unpleasant bits of the Old Testament - even at at tender age this did not create a particularly positive impression of G. Years, later I did wonder if old Mr C was being just a wee bit subversive with us.
I'm sure it does. You're a product of the Enlightenment and when you read you read the Bible you interpret it as a product of the Enlightenment.
If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate you need to remember who the Bible was written by and who it was written for. A Bronze-age Middle-Easterners is going to get a very different message from the Bible than you are.
Whoever lives his life according to the "What would Jesus do?" doctrine is likely a nice fellow, although a little extremest perhaps. Whoever lives his life according to the "What would YHWH do?" doctrine is a raging psychopath you'd be advised to stay away from.
According to Jesus, "What would Jesus do?" and "What would YHWH do?" are one and the same, see John 14:
"Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”"
"Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?"
Only if you remove or add to the context in which both were given.
The principle of eye for an eye was to __restrict__ compensation to the value of the loss, where the wickedness of man would otherwise tend to overreach. One has only to see Lamech for an early example of judicial overreach: "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."
And if you study the Sermon on the Mount in context, you will see that Jesus was not in fact referring to the OT when he said, "you have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" but I say to you..." but rather to the Pharisees' weakening, distortion and misuse of the OT.
The historical Jesus (according to all the earliest accounts, for which there is superfluously excellent textual reliability according to textual criticism) had a very high view of the OT, and deepened the OT, see the context of the Sermon on the Mount:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the __Pharisees__ and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."
If I were predisposed to look for puerile contradictions in the Bible, I am sure I would find as many as I would give time, but Jesus himself saw none. I would encourage you to take Jesus more seriously.
No. The principle was to restrict the scope of revenge. Yes, in the OT gouging someone's eye out to "compensate" for one of your family members having their eye gouged out was "fair compensation." But the NT turns completely against that idea. That's what "turn the other cheek" means.
While the Bible is so full of contradictions that you certainly can find support in some verse for whatever theory you want to prove, the concept of mercy and forgiveness is just not emphasized as much in the OT as it is in the NT.
I think rather the principle is one of justice. Lamech is an example of revenge (not justice). Revenge is never given to men by God ("It is mine to avenge; I will repay").
"But the NT turns completely against that idea."
No, not at all, or when last did you read the Bible carefully?
Jesus taught plainly that to turn against the words of Moses at all even in the slightest is to turn against Jesus himself.
Jesus taught plainly that if you won't accept the words of Moses, you won't accept Jesus' own resurrection from the dead.
"the concept of mercy and forgiveness is just not emphasized as much in the OT as it is in the NT."
That is a gross misrepresentation of the OT. You've fallen for Marcion's error and worse.
With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
For you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.Why try to whitewash the bible? The old testament Jehovah was a vile sociopath. Jesus is a cool guy with a dad that has some screws loose. I grew up in a fundie family, the hoops fundies jump through to justify old testament idiot God are ridiculous and I have no time for that.
Understanding (and understanding in context) is not whitewashing. There's excellent scholarship in the bible, from religious and non-religious authors.
Knee-jerk reactions about "vile psychopaths" are not that.
For one, the "old testament Jehovah" was the person who gave life, the universe and everything to the people who died (e.g. in Sodom) anyway. So it was his to take. Psychopathy applies to people, not gods.
fuck off, that's gross. as humans if we ever create AI we'll (hopefully) do it in the context of a robust ethical framework, and yet all knowing Jehovah couldn't fucking do some due diligence? Jesus fucking Christ, how pathetic of him.
Sure, it is now. But it (probably) wasn't gross back when the bible was written.
The bible is a piece of art/propaganda written to support the sense of tribal unity and to ensure political power stays with the right people. The God, therefore, is just a character - a literary device - from a book written 3k years ago for a very specific target audience. We are not that target audience and we lack the cultural context to decipher the intended meaning - the meaning that the authors had in mind when writing. It's entirely possible that to the authors and their readers the biblical stories were about mercy (or whatever).
And it's not "whitewashing". Nobody denies that OT God is a mass killer. They just claim that - for a fictional character - being a mass killer (or a god for that matter) was very differently perceived 3000 years ago in a middle of a desert.
sigh
you've clearly never dealt with fundies. I was raised by people who taught me that literally every word was divine and that the entire bible is a historical document (there are millions of these idiots across the globe). These people will bend over backwards to explain to you how the wholesale murder of babies was totally justified. They'll even do it with a straight face.
You and I both agree that the Bible is no different than Harry Potter, and God happens to be a bad guy in the first half.
There are millions of people who live their lives believing that the entire bible is a 100% historical document. Having unshackled myself from these morons, this topic can be a bit of a sore point for me ;)
Then I read a comment saying that there is no morality without god and saw my previous comment above downvoted... I initially tought that you overreacted (not that I don't understand your reasons for it 100%!), but now I'm not so sure... :)
There are no grounds (rational or otherwise) for objective morality outside of God.
See Hume's "is-ought" dilemma.
And if you're into Atheism see also Sam Harris' debate with William Lane Craig.
hopefully we can do better than OT god, otherwise we're in for rough ride.
That's the Devil's oldest lie, and his favorite.
"otherwise we're in for rough ride."
That's what we've been witnessing ever since.
There's some horrific brutality and violence in the Old Testament. But the overall story is one of Yahweh's love and compassion for his people in a world where everything is falling apart around them. The same theme carries through into the New Testament.
If the Old Testament is really as bad as people say then Judaism really has a problem. But in my experience Jews aren't any more violent than Christians.