For those of you that know the story - you can skip the intro
and fast forward to about the 7 minute mark.
So. The guys at The Bible Project copped out. I'm not surprised. Kinda disappointed though. My problem with this is this about that: I'm not a prude, and I won't stand for being lied to, or deliberately misled.
So - anyone - correct me if I'm wrong. I am asking about all this because I don't know - but here's the story as I understand it. Unlike the Bible Project guys, I am not going to shy away from something because I am afraid that thinking about it might give me some unpleasant conclusions:
A traveller takes up lodging in a strange town. Some drunken, Jewish queers circle the house and call the man out so they can sodomize him. So he says no way - take my wife instead? So, he throws her out, she gets raped and killed. When they're finished, he picks up her body, cuts it into 12 pieces and sends the pieces out as some kind of invitation to his allies to make war on the town. They go to town, wipe it out... almost decimating the entire tribe that lived there. But then, just to prove they're not all bad - they worry about finding wives for the last few that they didn't kill?
Can somebody tell me that I misunderstood that? I am not trying to be a dink or offend anyone... but I am looking at that, and I can see why Hitler hated joos! HAR HAR HAR!!! So what is the Christian stance on them? Are those mutts really God's chosen people? I am trying to take my faith seriously but this - this is a figurative intellectual pie in the face! I am starting to have some serious reservations about this faith business.
The rotten wood is starting to burn.
Not that I'm a noted biblical scholar or theologian, but I'm awake.
ReplyDeleteThe Jews are God's chosen people. The Lord had a lot of different people to choose from, but He chose the Jews. Why, I couldn't tell you, but He did.
Now what the Jews were chosen for was to wait for Jesus to arrive, and when He finally did arrive, follow Him and convert everyone to Judaism / Christianity. Christianity, mainly, because Christ and all. It would be a while before Christ arrived, and the Lord didn't tell the Jews exactly when He'd be here, so - they screwed everything up.
The Jews were expecting a king (Jesus) to have the leadership skills of Attila the Hun, the diplomacy of Genghis Khan, and look like a cross between Doc Savage and Conan the Barbarian. What they got was a man the probably looked pretty average and went around healing people and talking about love and stuff. And He showed the Jews the error of their ways.
The Jews didn't like that. So they rejected Him in a major way.
Enter the gentiles. We, those who were not Jewish, were glad to have Him. Hence, Christians and Christianity.
Anyway, getting back to your original question, there's a ton of very violent wars, battles, and deeds listed out in the Old Testament, and that's just the stuff that got written down. But you have to remember something here. There's no Bible as yet, there's no Holy Spirit as we know it, and no Jesus to forgive us. What they had was the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. They also had any number of religions that practiced human sacrifice and other rituals you wouldn't believe. The world was a rough place. Some places were so bad that the Lord wanted them wiped out completely, no matter who did the wiping out.
And that's my take on it for tonight.
Well that makes the best sense of it possible, WL. I am no scholar either.
DeleteI have found Matthew Henry's Commentary to be helpful. It's available free on most electronic bible apps, but it's worth having in paper, too.
ReplyDeleteI will check it out OC.
DeleteGlen, I think you have to take the book of Judges in context. If you read the beginning and the end of the book, it says "In those days there was no king in Israel". The Jews essentially continued to fall away from their faith - in other words, act like most of us do. Every time things got bad they would repent and call for God to deliver them - and He did, via the judges. But sure enough, they eventually forgot and end up right back where they were.
ReplyDeleteIn that way the book is really about the depravity of the human heart absent God's life changing spirit. Think about it: the fact that the Jews, the people that had God's law, engaged in the behavior in the book should show that we are all - absent God's grace - sinners, and pretty vile ones. The book is a history - a history of failure. Left to ourselves, we pretty quickly foul things up.
Well thanks for all you guys for clearing that up. I had to hit the brakes on the bible and do a full stop and sort this all out before moving on.
DeleteTB I think stuff like this is probably the major turn off for Christianity. Looking into the mirror at your own warts and pimples is too much for some and the faith requires that daily. But then you look at the warts and pimples of our ancestors - and it's a lot to take in.
Real spirituality isn't easy. I had to dig out a couple of the wife's texts and do some real digging to square this. I disagree with the guys at the bible project - we can't take the easy way out and ignore inconvenient voices from the past that we don't want to hear... because I am convinced that if we do, the same depravity and self destructive self absorption will take root again.
Hmpfffff, I've SEEN it, come to think of it.
Hello Glen,
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to a post by Dr. Michael Heiser that talks about Judges 19.
https://www.biblestudymagazine.com/bible-study-magazine-blog/2017/5/25/the-most-horrific-bible-story
Dr. Heiser is a very interesting fellow. Really smart.
For several hours worth of good Bible exegesis search OyTube for "Celebration Church Heiser" and watch all four sessions of the "Supernatural Seminar" series. Really good stuff. Eventually you'll probably want to read the book of Enoch. Here's a link to a copy of the 1917 translation by Charles. https://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/index.htm
I hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Pat
Well thanks, Pat! I will check it out!!!
DeleteThanks for stopping in!