The Faulty Defense of Old Testament Atrocities
“God Has the Right To Command Anything Evil or Nonsensical, Because He’s God!”
Preface: The Insanity of Fundamentalism
Due to the insecurity of many Christian leaders. and due to a fallacious and even pagan view of inspiration, Christians have not intelligently and prudently questioned their faith, which leads to the naive assumption of God condoning moral evils in the false guise of righteousness. The problem with fundamentalism is its insistence on epistemic moral nihilism as a way of displaying so-called humility to their critics. Christian fundamentalism despite its measure has incited many into naive reasoning and strict denial of any moral evil proposed in the Bible. Why? Because naive simplicity is a method of the sluggish mind, and it is a boulder for fearful minds. Christianity suffers from the fundamentalists, because of their rigid minds refusing to reform themselves, which is ironic for some since there are Reformers by name but Deformers by nature. Simply, they are afraid of change, and indeed, afraid to rationalize their faith since it requires much thought rather than sluggishly dismissing things based on circular reasoned bias.
Most Christians claim their texts are “inspired” by a god, and yet, none of them can ever agree on what those texts claim. Fundies (i.e. Fundamentalists) argue that people who deny the doctrine of inerrancy become arbiters of truth for themselves; on the other hand, Fundies are arbiters of truth since they must determine which interpretation is true according to their own naive intellect, including the diverse canons, diverse manuscripts, and even distinguished translations. This is why some Fundies desperately attempt to argue out of naive ignorance that the Bible (like the KJV) has been perfectly preserved. Or when the Bible makes primitive claims like Flat-earth cosmology, apologists like Dr. Craig will simply dismiss it out of favor for their beguiled ideals. And some Christians have desperately embraced Flat-earth cosmology as a genuine belief. The doctrine of inerrancy beguiles the many to reject realistic ideas about diverse manuscripts, incites many to deny scientific evidence, and causes the many to desperately conceal ideas in the Bible that contradicts science, history, and even sapient logic. I commend Christians who have chosen to question their theology and deny Biblicism, but I don’t commend believers who tirelessly and naively persist in defending their idolized notion of the Bible.
Some will argue that I didn’t try hard enough, or I’m not of the Spirit, so you can’t understand self-contradictory texts to be harmonious, or they’ll say I didn’t even try to reconcile at least one contradiction. In the past, I did try to reconcile such contradictions, but internally, I knew this was out of dishonesty and could debunk such attempts of reconciliation in my mind. To be honest, I was never a hard-core fundamentalist devoid of sapient philosophy, nor did I ever consider the Bible as the word of God, because I honestly read it and found no such thing ever claimed for the Bible. Thank God it’s fallible, because the nonsense I just described for these fundies is all true since in order for them to reject this foolish doctrine is to see the reality of the texts. Indeed, I was always open to the possibility that the Bible had contradictions, but because of mainstream influence, I wasn’t permitted to think this way. Regardless, I decided to not deal with such nonsense, because in my own mind, I never considered any of these insane extremes. My only aim in Christianity was to restore our lost communion with God, not meaningless disputes over the Bible’s supposed inerrancy.
Here are some websites dogmatically affirming the nonsense and evils of the Old Testament:
Refutation of Eric.com (Italics: Phillip)
The violence of the Old Testament preserves the messianic bloodline. The seed of the woman; the offspring of Abraham; the prophet like Moses; the greater Joshua; the son of David: in all these ways, God promises to maintain a lineage that would bring forth a messiah. The violent scenes of the Old Testament show us the way that God preserves the promise of messianic deliverance that drives the Old Testament.
In other words, if the enemies of God ultimately defeat the people of God, then the promise of God will fail. If God doesn’t protect his people from their enemies, then the line of Jesus is cut off, and there is no salvation. If not for the violence of the Old Testament, then, you and I are headed toward hell right now.
The extreme rationale that fundamentalists seem to argue leaves my mind deeply offended and shocked! The Messiah didn’t come to save us from hellfire of any kind, but He came to give us an abundant life and save us from the predominance of sin (Matthew 1:21; Titus 2:14; John 10:10). The fact that God took thousands of years to save humans from eternal hell demonstrates stupendous moral incompetence and irrationality of the supreme degree. Also, since God is all-powerful and sovereign, He doesn’t need to destroy His so-called enemies to preserve the messianic lineage; in fact, God didn’t destroy any anti-Christians to preserve the legacy of Christianity, so this person’s argument is false.
The violence of the Old Testament purifies the people of God. A primary reason that God calls his people to defeat his enemies is so that the surrounding nations do not lead Israel astray through idolatry and sin. God knows that his people will join others in sin if they do not beat them first.
This call to purity is precisely why we see a pattern emerge in the violence of the Old Testament. While God fights for his people in their faithful obedience, he fights against his unfaithful people in their sinful rebellion. Victory for the pure; defeat for the impure. Exodus for the faithful; exile for the unfaithful. It’s not until the perfect life of Christ that a new Israel comes as the only faithful One of God and achieves the ultimate crown of victory.
The violence of the Old Testament inspired Jews to kill Christians, inspired Christians like Martin Luther and John Calvin to kill their opponents, and even inspired the Quran/Koran which manifests today as ISIS. Violence in its cruel forms doesn’t purify people from their sins, which even Jesus condemned in His beatitudes and rebuked Peter for it (Matthew 5:9, 26:52). If God inspires people to murder in His name, He inspires people to do evil in the future, so then, God either made a great mistake, or He never commanded such moral evil. Some people will argue that was temporal, but it acts as a contradiction morally to what God now commands us to do; it also demonstrates that God changed His moral values, which means He changed His moral nature arbitrarily. Some people will argue that people will kill either way, but the fact that the Old Testament inspired both Jews and Christians, even Muslims to kill people severely demonstrates the moral incompetence of the deity that fixed its supposed inspiration.
The violence of the Old Testament prophesies the judgment of God. As God’s people conquer God’s enemies in victory, it declares to the surrounding nations that Yahweh is the rightful ruler of the universe. And when God’s enemies conquer God’s people in defeat, it declares to Israel that rebellion, even by God’s people, is worthy of judgment.
The violence of the Old Testament signals a real-time foretaste of an end times reality for everyone: those who reject the King will receive his wrath. The Old Testament enemies of God received the military judgment of God in conquest. All those who are outside of Christ will receive the spiritual judgment of God in hell.
The doctrine of eternal torment, which is a greater evil than the Old Testament atrocities, inspires many Christians to defend the other evils displayed in those stories. God told the nation of Israel to be a light to the nations in the same way Jesus told us to do the same, and yet Jesus never advocated for us to be violent, so as to supposedly prefigure God’s judgement at the end of times (Acts 13:47; Isaiah 42:6; Matthew 5:14–16). If God is the same in every era and He didn’t command us to be violent, then we must deduce that God never commanded the Israelites to assume violence and the destruction of others.
The violence of the Old Testament patterns the atonement of Christ. In the cross and resurrection, we see the convergence of the Old Testament’s holy war pattern. Jesus is the conquering messiah who God fights for in victory because of his faithful obedience. But Jesus is also the substitutionary wrath-bearer who God fights against in judgment because he takes on our sinful rebellion.
At salvation, we are united to Christ so that he grants us the victory we don’t deserve and bears the penalty we owe. Covered by the righteousness of his shed blood, God sees Christians as his faithful people who he enables to find lasting victory in spiritual warfare by the power of the Spirit.
More nonsense since God didn’t punish Jesus on the cross, nor was it His ideal will to reveal the Father’s heart through that medium. Jesus didn’t portray violence at the Atonement, but demonstrated forgiveness and peace to His abusers. I go more in detail in my other articles, which perfectly demonstrates that Jesus wasn’t a victim of God’s egoistic wrath. Posts like: Contra Penal Substitution, Expository of Cain’s Offering, Penal Substitution Delusion, and even Penal Substitution Fallacy. The fact that Jesus didn’t fulfill the Old Testament based on the exegetical reading is evidence that the Jews mentally projected their violent tendencies unto God’s image.
Refutation of “Misreading Augustine” (Italics: vjtorley)
The author of this article attempts to debunk the claims of DBH, but I am not attempting to defend his claims since I’m not certain what his exact intentions were when he made his claims. He may have misspoke, or made memory flaws. Perhaps, someone will bring this to his attention, but anyway, I’ll refute possible assumptions that this article proposes about the Church Fathers.
In his interview, Simon Smart put the following question to David Bentley Hart: “Dawkins and Hitchens especially attack the God of the Old Testament as a moral monster. How do you respond to those criticisms?” Dr. Hart responded by making a sweeping assertion:
But all the Church Fathers, uh, you know, say, “Well, of course, we read this allegorically,” and they didn’t — and that doesn’t mean reading it as if you believed that there were messages encoded secretly in the text. It’s just that the ancient understanding was that it serves as a spiritual text to the degree that the mind of Christians read it and allegorize in relation to the- the truth that they believed was revealed in Christ. (Bold emphasis mine — VJT.)
This is breathtakingly ignorant. Let me begin with a passage often cited by “Gnu Atheists” when attacking the Old Testament: the story (2 Kings 2:23–24) of how the prophet Elisha cursed a band of youths who mocked him for his baldness, and of how two bears suddenly came out of the woods and tore 42 of the youths to pieces.
The biggest confusion among Christians is the application of textual allegory and spiritual allegory, which are separate notions. Textual allegory is embedded in the ad litteram text, and thus, was intended by the author to be read that way as well as should be read that way. However, spiritual allegory is not only a philosophical way to read things described in the Old Testament, but it also depends on the mind of the exegete and his criteria for using it. Perhaps, David is describing a number of saints in his my mind, but in relation to Augustine, perhaps he actually thought that spiritual allegory uncovered the author’s intentions despite mystical inspiration. This notion is somewhat problematic, because spiritual allegory isn’t embedded in the biblical texts, perhaps by God, but not by the authors.
The earliest Christian writer to discuss the morality of God’s actions in this passage was Tertullian (c. 160–220 A.D.), in his work Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter XXIII. Marcion (85–160 A.D.) was a second century heretic who wanted to jettison the Old Testament, since he believed that the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with the God of the Old Testament, and that the God of the Old Testament was a different person from the God of the New Testament. In the passage below, Tertullian responds to an objection of Marcion’s, that Christ loved little children, whereas the wicked God of the Old Testament sent bears to kill little boys for mocking Elisha:
But see, [Marcion says], Christ loves the little ones, and teaches that all who ever wish to be the greater, need to be as they; whereas the Creator sent bears against some boys, to avenge Elisha the prophet for mockery he had suffered from them. A fairly reckless antithesis, when it sets together such diverse things, little children and boys, an age as yet innocent, and an age now capable of judgement, which knew how to mock, not to say, blaspheme. So then, being a just God, he did not spare even boys when disrespectful, but demanded Honour to old age, and more particularly from the younger: but as a kind God he loves the little ones to such a degree that in Egypt he dealt well with the midwives who guarded the child-bearing of the Hebrews, which was in peril through Pharaoh’s edict. So here too Christ’s disposition agrees with the Creator’s. But now for Marcion’s god, who is opposed to matrimony: how can he be taken for a lover of little ones? The whole reason for these is matrimony. One who hates the seed must of necessity detest its fruit. (Bold emphases mine — VJT.)
Tertullian, when confronted by the heretic Marcion about this passage where God sends bears to kill 42 boys, did not allegorize it away. Instead, he accepted its literal meaning, and defended God’s behavior as morally justified.
First of all, Tertullian wasn’t part of the orthodox dogmas of the Church, instead he was a heterodox writer who taught the doctrine of Eternal Torment. Because his views of hell are distorted, it perfectly explains why both Tertullian and Augustine embraced the divine atrocities since if God is justified for a greater evil like Eternal Torment, then the acts in the Old Testament are merely child’s play. It’s sufficient to say as well that individuals like these two weren’t of moral exemplar, but were men of depraved minds who justified evil things in the name of God. Marcion in his reading of the Old Testament is justified despite his philosophical errors. As for Tertullian’s assessment, he thinks God abusing children is justified, but my argument is that abuse doesn’t justify abuse in return, which even our Lord said, “But to those of you who will listen, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27–28). If even the Lord commands us to bless those who mistreat us and God cannot stand being mocked (or of His holy ones), then such a god is not only hypocritical but also inferior to us in terms of patience and endurance. Jesus commanded this because this is who the Father truly is, not what the Old Testament claims at an ad litteram level.
Lastly, Tertullian later forsook his faith and joined the cult of Montanus, so even this isn’t a person one would want to learn from. Because of his doctrine of hell, he said to the wicked, “At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness” (De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX). The same logic applies to Augustine who according to Milman said, “With shame and horror we hear from Augustine himself that fatal axiom which impiously arrayed cruelty in the garb of Christian charity” (Latin Christianity, I, 127). He was also considered the first to advocate religious persecution of others due to his influence from the Old Testament atrocities and infernalist view of hell as Augustine, “[was] the first and ablest asserter of the principle which led to Albigensian crusades, Spanish armadas, Netherland’s butcheries, St. Bartholomew massacres, the accursed infamies of the Inquisition, the vile espionage, the hideous bale fires of Seville and Smithfield, the racks, the gibbets, the thumb- screws, the subterranean torture-chambers used by churchly torturers” (Farrar’s Lives of the Fathers). None of these men were orthodox by means, but were men who suffered from perverse teachings about God. So then, it’s plain as to why they didn’t allegorise these horrendous passages since they themselves were depraved men with depraved doctrines of moral insanity.
I could go on here, and discuss how the literal historicity of this passage was universally accepted Christian theologians as diverse as Matthew Henry and John Wesley, until the late 19th century, but I think readers get my drift. I might add that Jewish commentators also accepted the historicity of this passage (see the article on Elisha). Some of these commentators faulted Elisha for yielding to his anger in cursing the boys; but others insisted that they were not boys, but young men. It should be noted that John Wesley held the same view.
Firstly, the historical acceptance of God punishing others so as to gratify His wrath isn’t a universal opinion among the Church Fathers. Simply stating one or two horrendous figures of the Early Church isn’t sufficient grounds to dogmatically assert that everyone agreed on the the level of adsurdum (i.e. absurd in latin) and moral garbage in the Old Testament. Honestly, Hart supposedly makes one mistake and this person thinks he suddenly knows the patrisics more than him. Plain arrogance to be frank. Though Hart isn’t far from being wrong about the Confessions. The blogger cites from Augustine that he believed Moses comprehended every mystical interpretation of what he wrote, which partially contradicts Hart’s claim about the Confessions; however, I said “partially”. Why? Because Augustine said in the Confessions XII.18: “Provided, therefore, that each of us tries as best he can to understand in the Holy Scriptures what the writer meant by them, what harm is there if a reader believes what you, the Light of all truthful minds, show him to be the true meaning? It may not even be the meaning which the writer had in mind, and yet he too saw in them a true meaning, different though it may have been from this.” Therefore, Hart wasn’t entirely wrong to suggest that Augustine speculated that mystical interpretations given by any Christian might differ from the author’s actual intentions for the written texts. It is possible to speculate that he assumed Moses knew the deeper meanings (given his high status), whereas other writers of the Bible did not.
This person also seems to confuse literal restatements as historical opinions of the Fathers despite the fact that’s equivalent to me saying, “Harry went to Hogwarts,” which wouldn’t convey that I believe Harry was historical. So in this respect, Hart at least knows that the ad litteram that some Fathers spoke on wasn’t intended to be understood as historical, but simply to build upon the narrative through spiritual exegesis (OR ALLEGORESIS). Paulinus of Nola follows this example as he says, “For the sons of Delphinus shall be numbered among the sons of Aaron, though not those who offered before the Lord strange fire and were consumed by that divine flame which they had quenched in their own hearts. May the hearts of your sons burn not with the wicked fires of lusts and worldly allurements, but with the fire which the Lord came to kindle in us. Of that fire He says: ‘I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, if it now be kindled?’ So I pray that no greed, or lust of the eyes, or baneful love of temporal goods blaze with polluting flame within me, for this is the fire which is strange before the Lord. ‘May our God Himself, who is a consuming fire, recognize His fire in me, so that I may say: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?’ This fire enlightens hearts and destroys sins, puts out the darkness which brings death upon us, and kindles life-giving light. If my lamps perpetually burn with this fire, I shall make bold to say: ‘Though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me.’ Enlightened by this flame, fired by the heat of this blaze to thirst for the living water and to long for the Lord, I shall truly say: ‘As the heart longs for the fountains of water, so my soul longs for Thee, O God. For with Thee is the fountain of life; and in Thy light we shall see light’ ” (Paulinus: Letter to Delphinus 20.7). Paulinus isn’t actually affirming the historicity of people being burned by the divine fire in an egregious sense, but rather he builds upon that narrative to teach that God’s fires are only intended to purge sinners from their sins as a means of redemption, not retribution. He demonstrates moral allegory or tropology which is a type of spiritual exegesis, so then, not everyone from the Church affirmed those divine atrocities.
Secondly, Origen of Alexandria is of the view that God didn’t commit those atrocities or acts of vengeance in the Old Testament as he says, “[He] composed a texture of both kinds in one style of narration, always concealing the hidden meaning more deeply; but where the historical narrative could not be made appropriate to the spiritual coherence of the occurrences, He inserted sometimes certain things which either did not take place or could not take place; sometimes also what might happen, but what did not: and He does this at one time in a few words, which, taken in their “bodily” meaning, seem incapable of containing truth, and at another by the insertion of many…Now all this, as we have remarked, was done by the Holy Spirit in order that, seeing those events which lie on the surface can be neither true nor useful, we may be led to the investigation of that truth which is more deeply concealed, and to the ascertaining of a meaning worthy of God in those Scriptures which we believe to be inspired by Him” (De Principiis IV.1). Origen believed that those narratives as described in the Old Testament weren’t historical, but were implemented in the texts to read through spiritual allegory rather than to be accepted as genuine histories. Origen believed that one should read the Jewish scriptures in a way that’s worthy of the concept of God, which indeed doesn’t sound like what the author of the article claimed about the universality of the patrisics’ historical opinions of the Old Testament. Also, in the Koine Greek, historia doesn’t mean history in the modern sense, but instead it relates to what the narratives says rather than the modern confusion of semantics.
Third of all, Gregory of Nyssa also denies the literal narrative for a better message inspired by the Spirit of allegory as he says, “It does not seem good to me to pass this interpretation by without further contemplation. How would a concept worthy of God be preserved in the description of what happened if one looked only to the history? The Egyptian acts unjustly, and in his place is punished his newborn child, who in his infancy cannot discern what is good and what is not. 110 His life has no experience of evil, for infancy is not capable of passion. He does not know to distinguish between his right hand and his left. 111 The infant lifts his eyes only to his mother’s nipple, and tears are the sole perceptible sign of his sadness. And if he obtains anything which his nature desires, he signifies his pleasure by smiling. If such a one now pays the penalty of his father’s wickedness, where is justice? Where is piety? Where is holiness? Where is Ezekiel, who cries: The man who has sinned is the man who must die and a son is not to suffer for the sins of his father ? 112 How can the history so contradict reason? 92. Therefore, as we look for the true spiritual meaning, seeking to determine whether the events took place typo-logically, we should be prepared to believe that the lawgiver has taught through the things said. The teaching is this: When through virtue one comes to grips with any evil, he must completely destroy the first beginnings of evil” (Life of Moses 2.89–101). Even Gregory uses the Jewish scriptures to counter the narrative that’s displayed in Exodus, and like Origen, he says that such a story is not worthy of the concept of God, so it must be read typologically or spiritually. LINK TO MY OTHER POST: The Apostolic Hermeneutic Revived.
Lastly, he tries to cite Tertullian as an early writer as a way to convey his authority on the matter of true exegesis of the Old Testament. Granted, he was an early writer but “early” isn’t always a criteria for true orthodoxy since even early figures like Papias taught the wrong doctrine concerning the millennium, and even Marcion predates Tertullian by decades, so does this mean we should accept his claims instead of Tertullian? Even Celsus who was born decades before Tertullian stated that certain early Christians allegorised the horrendous passages in the Old Testament, even before Origen, Paulinus, and Gregory (Contra Celsus 4.38). Celsus according to Origen also says, “[He] says: ‘The more modest of Jewish and Christian writers give all these things an allegorical meaning,’ and ‘because they are ashamed of these things, they take refuge in allegory’ ” (Contra Celsus 4.48). One of the respected Jews of antiquity, Philo of Alexandria, during the time of Paul, didn’t interpret those passages in the Old Testament as true historical events, but as symbols and hidden philosophical truths, so even in his writings, he says, “But I disregard the envious disposition of these men, and shall proceed to narrate the true events of Moses’ life, having learned them both from those sacred scriptures which he has left as marvelous memorials of his wisdom, and having also heard many things from the elders of my nation, for I have continually connected together what I have heard with what I have read, and in this way I look upon it that I am acquainted with the history of his life more accurately than other people” (De Vita Mosis, I, I). Even Augustine admits that Ambrose didn’t consider the literal reading of the Scriptures to be always teaching an accurate view of God, “I was glad … that the old Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets were set before me in such a way that I could now read in a different spirit from that which I had had before, when I used to criticize your holy ones for holding various views which, plainly, they never held at all. And I was happy when I heard Ambrose … recommend most emphatically … this text as a rule to go by: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. So he would draw aside the veil of mystery and explain in a spiritual sense the meanings of things which, if understood literally, appeared to be teaching what was wrong” (Confessions 6.4). So then, allegorising horrendous passages in the Old Testament and denying those false portraits of God aren’t some post-modernist ideology or even neo-Marcionism. It’s what actual Christian orthodoxy dictates rather than the skewed views of heterodox writers.
St. Augustine replied to the charge that the God of the Old Testament is a moral monster in Contra Faustum Book XXII, paragraph 79:
79. Let no one, then, be so daring as to make rash charges against men, not to say against God. If the service of the ministers of the Old Testament, who were also heralds of the New, consisted in putting sinners to death, and that of the ministers of the New Testament, who are also interpreters of the Old, in being put to death by sinners, the service in both cases is rendered to one God, who, varying the lesson to suit the times, teaches both that temporal blessings are to be sought from Him, and that they are to be forsaken for Him, and that temporal distress is both sent by Him and should be endured for Him. There was, therefore, no cruelty in the command, or in the action of Moses, when, in his holy jealousy for his people, whom he wished to be subject to the one true God, on learning that they had fallen away to the worship of an idol made by their own hands, he impressed their minds at the time with a wholesome fear, and gave them a warning for the future, by using the sword in the punishment of a few, whose just punishment God, against whom they had sinned, appointed in the depth of His secret judgment to be immediately inflicted. That Moses acted as he did, not in cruelty, but in great love, may be seen from the words in which he prayed for the sins of the people: “If You will forgive their sin, forgive it; and if not, blot me out of Your book.” The pious inquirer who compares the slaughter with the prayer will find in this the clearest evidence of the awful nature of the injury done to the soul by prostitution to the images of devils, since such love is roused to such anger. We see the same in the apostle, who, not in cruelty, but in love, delivered a man up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Others, too, he delivered up, that they might learn not to blaspheme…[S]uch was the intention of Moses, the servant of God, when he cut down with the sword the makers and worshippers of the idol; for his own words show that he so entreated for pardon for their sin of idolatry as to ask to be blotted out of God’s book if his prayer was not heard.
St. Augustine here affirmed the literal historicity of the events that the Gnu Atheists commonly refer to as Biblical atrocities, but added a twist: the terrible punishments that the Israelities suffered in these incidents ensured their forgiveness in the hereafter.
Augustine argues in defense of God based on many faulty premises. For one, he confuses resentment as righteous anger since resentment repays evil for evil, while righteous anger (if it’s rooted in love) should be disciplinary and redemptive rather than conferring permanent harm. Also, if the devil and sin already harm the sinner, then it is needless for God to intervene and repay evil for evil since not only does it contradict His ontological goodness, but also it would incite the many to hate Him on justified grounds, or inevitably perceive Him as an abuser rather than the source of all good. And for Moses to show more compassion on his brethren than the God of supposed mercy demonstrates a god inferior to human compassion; thus, such a reading about God is unworthy to affirm. As for the twisted end, it sounds more like Augustine is sugar-coating the perceived moral evil, so as to make it more justified in appearance.
Counsel: Contra Fundamentalism
A word of caution, don’t feel pressured to believe these things just because the mainstream affirms it. Submitting blindly to the mainstream is cowardice in my humble assessment, and even sluggish and naive reasoning to support these “apologists”. There’s no reason to portray God worse than He is, nor is there any reason to blindly accept every narrative of the Old Testament. Don’t be ashamed or think one slanders God by denying these horrendous passages, because to affirm a god that’s extremely vengeful and abusive is slander to the true God revealed by Christ. If one has issue with this, let me remind you that the Old Testament suggests “literally” that God is a tempter despite James contradicting that notion (2nd Samuel 24:1 CSB; James 1:13–15), suggests that He commanded the slaughter of children by the sword despite many “biblical” Christians being pro-life (1st Samuel 15:3; Didache 2), and suggesting that God punishes the future offspring for the sins of the father despite Ezekiel contradicting that claim (Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 5:9–10; Ezekiel 18:19–20). If we are required to reject literal narratives like when God spoke to David about counting Israel, then we should all have the right to reject narratives that suggest God commanding moral evil or outrageous abuse towards others. Amen? Amen!
