Old Testament Ethics

[steve]

Since this is currently a hot topic at this forum, I thought I would post a question and its answer that came up in my personal email today.

Problems with Old Testament ethics

Steve,
An opportunity has arisen to mentor a young man in prison who has doubts about the Bible. He struggles with a few things in the OT, such as (Genesis 19) why did God allow Lot to give his daughters to have sex with the men of Sodom vs8 (doesn't sound like a loving parent), and why (vs 30-38) a drunken Lot to allow his daughters to have sex with him? How was God at work in that? Also, how is the violence of Joshua any different than Islamic State? See Joshua 6:21 "they devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it-- men and woman, young and old, cattle sheep and donkeys". Why would a God of love command such wholesale slaughter? These are not easy questions for me to answer and I am seeking your wisdom.
Jim

------------------------------------------------------

Hi Jim,

Thanks for writing. Of the questions you mentioned, the ones about Lot's actions are the easier ones to answer. Lot is not recommended as a role model. He was a product both of his sinful nature and of his culture. The offering of his daughters to be raped was a cultural thing. The Middle Eastern idea of hospitality is that, when you bring guests into your home, you will sacrifice anything, including your life, for their protection while under your roof. This is still the case in the honor/shame-based cultures of the Middle East. It was a matter of honor for Lot to protect his visitors. He saw his daughters as being among the things he was willing to sacrifice to do so. There is no suggestion in scripture that he did the right thing.

His getting drunk and sleeping with his daughters, on the other hand, was a manifestation of his sinful nature. The Bible gives no indication of divine approval on this behavior.

Your friend has a misunderstanding of what the Bible is. Most of it is historical narrative. Historical narrative, when accurate, records good and bad human behavior, because both occur in human history. Some people may think that the Bible records stories, not because they are historical, but because they are moral tales illustrating divine values and preferences.

Such a misunderstanding would require that we identify some kind of divine approval of the wickedness of mankind that occasioned the flood, of Abraham's lying about his wife and calling her his sister, of Judah's fathering twins with his prostitute daughter-in-law, of Simeon and Levi's slaughter of the innocent men of Shechem, of Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery, of Pharaoh's killing of Jewish male babies, of David's sin with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband, of Amnon's rape of his sister Tamar, of Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Christ, of Herod's beheading of the apostle James, and of hundreds of other wicked acts recorded in the narratives. None of these things were done under divine direction, and none of them are said to have had God's approval.

The Bible (and its Author) cannot be blamed for telling the stories just as they occurred. God can only be held responsible for that of which He approved. Which brings us to the slaughter of the Canaanites—of which God's approval is clearly recorded.

On this question, I have a policy of pointing out to the questioner that the proper answer can only be appreciated by those who are on God's side in the controversy between God and sinful mankind. The unbeliever is generally not on God's side, which means that no answer given by a believer will satisfy him, and I needn't waste my time attempting the impossible.

The critic of God's ways is not looking to be satisfied, but to find fault. His assumption is that he is in the position to judge God—rather than the other way around. He believes that God must justify Himself before the court of the sinner's judgment—rather than the other way around. In other words, the unbeliever's whole orientation, in this matter, is the reverse of reality.

From this vantage point, the true answers about God's prerogatives will never be accepted. If the unbeliever wishes to understand such things, he must start at an earlier point, by coming to appreciate who God is, and who man is in comparison. Once a person has decided to take sides with God, good answers are forthcoming, but it is premature to discuss them with the unbeliever.

There is apparently a temptation, in the face of these criticisms, to become defensive (making our position appear weak). Seeing the way some Christians backpedal and explain away uncomfortable biblical passages, one gets the impression that they are embarrassed and apologetic for what God says and does. They make it look as if it is the critic who has made a strong case, and we have to desperately defend God against formidable attacks. The opposite is the case.

It is the skeptic who is standing in quicksand. He has no evidence for his position. He is ignorant of reality. His aggressive antagonism should not be mistaken for authority, but must be recognized as the response of desperation and fear that it really is. There is no validity in any man's criticism of His Maker. The Christian must not make apologies for God's revealed acts, as if to suggest that God really has been caught holding the bag and requires our services to make Him appear somehow less guilty. It is the believer who stands in the place of authority and truth. Let the unbeliever defend his position, if he can!

What can be clarified to the unbeliever is that the chasm between these Canaanite wars of conquest and the Islamic Jihad are as broad as is the chasm between truth and untruth—if Yahweh is God in reality and Mohammed's god is not. The true God has every right to decree judgment on rebellious man—whether through military action, through worldwide flood, or through fire and brimstone raining upon them. A false, non-existent god has no comparable right.

Both Israel and Islam claim God as the authorizer of their military conquests. The difference is that Moses and Joshua really were acting under God's orders, where Mohammed was not. The proof of this statement would be the same as the proofs that Israel was really in possession of God's revelation and that Mohammed was not.

If biblical Judaism has God as its founder, and Islam does not, then the difference between Israel's wars and Mohammed's is the difference between divine judgment and merely human war crimes. The claims of Israel, concerning their alleged divine authorization, do not stand on the same ground as do Mohammed's claims. The God who revealed Himself to Moses also brought ten supernatural plagues on Egypt and parted the Red Sea. The god who revealed himself to Mohammed—well, what did he ever do?

Another difference between the Canaanite wars and Jihad is that the latter seek to force conversion or death on all infidels. God never gave similar commands to Israel. Israel never encouraged unbelievers to convert to Judaism by threats of violence. God's object was not the conversion of Canaanites, but the annihilation of their wicked society, and the turning over of their land to a nation more worthy of its possession. Apart from the Canaanites (and the Amalekites) Israel was never commanded to exterminate any pagan nations, nor to convert any Gentiles by force to the worship of Yahweh. Israel was not engaged in an agenda of world conquest, as is Islam (though, of course, Christianity is, but by other means).

Again, these differences are not likely to be appreciated by unbelievers, but they are fundamental differences between the wars of Israel and those of Islam, and should be recognized.

Blessings!

Steve Gregg

[Paidion]

What can be clarified to the unbeliever is that the chasm between these Canaanite wars of conquest and the Islamic Jihad are as broad as is the chasm between truth and untruth—if Yahweh is God in reality and Mohammed's god is not. The true God has every right to decree judgment on rebellious man—whether through military action, through worldwide flood, or through fire and brimstone raining upon them. A false, non-existent god has no comparable right.

Both Israel and Islam claim God as the authorizer of their military conquests. The difference is that Moses and Joshua really were acting under God's orders, where Mohammed was not. The proof of this statement would be the same as the proofs that Israel was really in possession of God's revelation and that Mohammed was not.

On what grounds do you claim that Yahweh and Allah are two different Gods? "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God". The claim of both Judaism and Islam, is that there is one God, and that God is the creator of all things. When an Arabic Muslim becomes a Christian, he still prays to "Allah" since that is the word for "God" in his language.

The difference is not that Islam has a different God, but rather in the way that God's character is understood. As you say, "both claim God as the as the authorizer of their military conquests." Both do so on the basis of what their holy book says about Him. On what basis do you say Israel is right and Islam is wrong?

As I see it, both are mistaken about the character of God. Only Jesus the Son of God has revealed God as He truly is. Of course both also deny that God has a Son (except that Israel regards itself as God's son).

[steve]

I knew I could count on you, Paidion, to respond to this.

I deliberately did not say that Allah is a different god than Yahweh, because I am not sure whether that is the case or not (I have posted my thought on this at the Facebook page recently—see the post below, if interested). Allah may very well be the same God as Yahweh, but it was not He who revealed Himself to Mohammed or authored the Quran. A demon may speak deceptively about Yahweh/Allah.

I do not know whether the Quran was Mohammed's own creation, or whether it was revealed by a demon. I do know that Mohammed had "fits" which he interpreted as demon possession, until his wife convinced him that they were not demonically induced. That he may have been demon-possessed, and receiving revelations from demons, does not mean that the revelations were not referring (deceptively) to the true God. The true God has often been misrepresented by Satan's people (as Jesus pointed out to the Jews, in John 8).

I find it amazing that you, as a mature Christian, would have to inquire how it is that we know Moses' writings to be from God, while rejecting those of Mohammed. People do not generally advance as many decades in the faith as you have without having, at some point, examined sufficient apologetic material to know why Christians put their confidence in scripture. The testimony of Jesus about Moses' writings (e.g., Matt.5:17-18; Mark 7:9-13; Luke 24:25-27, 44; John 5:45-47) would be, to my mind, the most cogent of a large number of excellent evidences.

In my post (above), I mentioned that the God who revealed Himself to Moses worked signs and wonders to prove Himself to Israel, and appeared visibly in cloud and fire (and face-to-face with Moses). Yahweh at Sinai had 3 million eye-witnesses to His presence and His supernatural acts. The "deity" who gave Mohammed the Quran has no comparable credentials.

[steve]

Just so you might be aware of what I have said about the identifying of Allah with Yahweh, I will post here the contents of a dialogue that took place on the Facebook page “Steve Gregg—The Narrow Path." On December 18th, 2015, in response to the question whether Yahweh and Allah are the same God or not, I posted this answer:

This depends. Islam seems to have adopted the moon god and named him "Allah." However, "Allah" was already the name used by Arabic Christians in their referring to God, prior to Islam. Arab Christians still refer to God as "Allah," though the Christian's theology of God differs from that of Muslims, who use the same name! This generates confusion, to be sure.

If we identify a religion's god by its theology, then Islam's "Allah" is different from the Arabic Christian's "Allah." Obviously, Christians cannot adopt Muslim theology.

However, a case could be made that the true God is more than men's theories about Him. He is the one, true, and living God about whom people often make mistakes in their descriptions. A theology is a humanly-formulated collection of statements about God—but God exists as He is, quite apart from anyone's statements about Him.

One could make the argument that there is only one, true God, correctly described in Christian theology, who is incorrectly described in Jewish and Muslim theology. What if He turned out to be the same God, about whom Jews and Muslims are making serious mistakes in their theology?

Most of us would say that none of the Athenian gods were the true God. However, Paul said that the God, whom the Athenians had been worshiping ignorantly, was the God to whom he came to introduce them (Acts 17:23). That's a hard one to wrap my brain around.

We are inclined to equate God's reality with our set of opinions about Him, but if God is nothing more than someone's set of theological propositions about Him, then He has no objective existence, and every different theological description creates yet another "god." On this view, Calvinists and Arminians worship different "gods."

My children all have one father, but not all know me equally well. Some of them have imagined motives in me that do not exist. Others of them would describe me pretty accurately. However, I am still the same father, even when they are mistaken about me—because I have objective existence, not dependent on their imagined descriptions.

Are Jews, Muslims, and Jehovah's Witnesses actually worshiping the one true God, but each of them making separate mistakes in their understanding of Him? Or do have different gods altogether?

Fortunately, God knows the answer—which I do not. One thing I do know is that some misconceptions that people have about God are very destructive—even fatal—and we need to spread the accurate knowledge that we have received in Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, correcting their mistakes to the glory of God.

A correspondent objected, saying that the character of Allah, in the Quran, is too different from that of Yahweh to be the same God. Also, the God of Christianity is the Father of Jesus. In the Quran, Allah has no son.

My response was:

But wouldn't this argument also suggest that the Jews worship a different god than we do? Yet Jesus said to them that His Father was the one that the Jews called their God (John 8:54). Just trying to sort things out.

The same correspondent then argued that, because Jesus told the Jews that they were of their father, the devil, they were not worshipers of the true God.

I answered:

I did not suggest that the Jews were children of the true God (just as many church members are not children of the true God, even if they believe in the same God that true Christians believe in). Many people can talk about God without being His actual children. I also did not suggest for a moment that the Jews were worshiping God acceptably.

We were discussing whether the God of their religion was the same God as that whom Christians worship. I believe that Jesus identified the God of the Jewish faith as His Father. This is a very different thing from saying those who called Him their God were actually His children or that they worshiped God in a way pleasing to Him.

I think you are answering a different question than the one I am answering. In the visible church, most worshipers have the same God and the same Jesus in mind that we all have—but many of them are not worthy of Him and are not His disciples.

I believe the same was true with the Jews of Christ's day. All Jews had the same God in mind (namely, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), but some Jews (the faithful remnant) worshiped Him acceptably, while others were on very bad terms with Him, and were more aligned, in their lives and attitudes, with the Adversary.

If the difference in theology between Islam, Judaism and Christianity actually has the power to turn the one, true God into three different Gods, then God's actually identity becomes contingent upon what people say about Him. I have difficulty with this suggestion. The existence of a multitude of errors about God does not bring into existence a multitude of Gods.

The believer in the traditional hell doctrine sees the character of God very differently than does the annihilationist or the restorationist. However, I am not persuaded that this means there are three different actual Gods corresponding to these very different perceptions of Him. Similarly, if there is one, true God, then this reality is not challenged or altered simply by the abundance of misperceptions about Him that can be found among those who do not know Jesus.

It sounded as if someone thinks I am placing some stamp of approval on the Jewish or the Muslim religions, by the suggestion that there is one God and that they may be groping to understand and worship Him—however inaccurately or inappropriately they do so. The only appropriate way to worship God is by submission to His Son, to whom He has given all authority. This is why the Gospel must be preached. However, there are very many people (including many in our churches) who know there is such a God, but whose ignorance or rebellion keeps them from knowing Him as He is.

As near as I can tell, the God that they are rebelling against, or of whom they are ignorant, is the same God that we are worshiping and following in the light that Christ has brought to us.

My correspondent then said that the Jews, while claiming to worship the true God, were, in spiritual reality, worshiping Satan.

I responded:

I think we are speaking past each other, and I think I have discovered why. In the question, "Do Muslims worship the same God?" There are two factors under consideration—1) God and 2) the Muslim. I believe that you are talking about the Muslim, while I am talking about God. I am saying there is only one God. All people either worship Him acceptably, or worship Him unacceptably, or they ignore Him.

The God I have in mind is not one of the demons, but the God who created all things, and who was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If you ask a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim, they will say that this is the God they have in mind. However, the Christian knows more about that God than do the other two. We know something about the trinity and the deity of Christ, which they do not know. In my view, knowing everything about God is not the determiner of whether you believe in God. I also believe that many people who believe in the one, true God do not know Him at all. But their ignorance has no impact on who He is.

I think many, in considering the question, are focusing on the Muslim himself, and whether he really knows God, or is right in the sight of God. To me this is a different question than the one raised at the beginning of this thread. God remains who He is, regardless what anyone thinks about Him. The God I serve is not the product of my theological musings. It is the other way round.

Do I believe that the true God is the author of the Quran? Not at all. This was probably the work of demons, since Mohammed himself once believed himself to be demon possessed. However, the author of the Quran, whether human or demonic, wrote about one God. Of course he misrepresented the nature of that one God, just as the serpent misrepresented the nature of Yahweh when speaking to Eve. However, the God that Satan was talking wrongly about was the same God who had warned Eve to avoid the wrong tree. The God was the same God, whether Eve was quoting Him, or whether the devil was misrepresenting Him.

I believe the religion of Mohammed is demonic in origin. This does not entitle Muslims to fabricate an entirely new god. There is only one God. He is variously misunderstood by different religious groups.

Another correspondent added his objections as follows:

If it's not Christ alone it is no longer Christian. Only in this century is this even debated seriously. The only difficulty is people are afraid to offend others. The rest is just a lot of empty talk and tip toeing on egg shells. It's a sign of the times we live. Most Christians in past centuries would think us ridiculous to spend so much time agonizing over this.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of early Christian scholars centuries ago, and ask the same questions, I think there would be a unanimous consensus as to the obvious answer to this question. They would rightly say it's a different God they worship, as it's nothing more than an idol fashioned to their liking. Sure, you could argue Christians with this mistaken notions and preferences about what God or Jesus is like vary, but not that radically. No Christian for centuries would give serious thought to the possibility that these folks worship the same God. Perhaps that's their intention, but it's too radically different to be the same thing. If Jesus isn't the Son of God, then they cannot be worshipping God the Father. There's no getting around that. If Jesus had a divine Mother, than it's not the same Father.

I responded:

//If it is not Christ alone, it is no longer Christian.//

I am not sure where this fits the present discussion. We were not asking whether Muslims were Christians (they are not). Nor was anyone defining "Christian" by any other measure than "Christ alone." We were discussing an entirely different question. Did you find something here that you took to be saying a person can be a Christian without Christ?

I have a hard time believing that Abraham did not worship the same God Paul did, though Paul was trinitarian and Abraham was not. I am not sure I can follow you there—and it's not for fear of hurting anyone's feelings. I place my reputation among American Evangelicals more at risk by my stating such thoughts on this than if I spoke otherwise.

To say that the god-concepts of different Christians are not radically different from one another strikes me as a naive underestimation. It is hard to imagine two "gods" more radically different from those of Origen (whose God loves everybody, including the devil, enough to eventually save them all) and of Tertullian (whose God delights to torture sinners unceasingly forever).

In the earliest centuries, Christians' ideas of God varied very widely—from trinitarian to modalist to Arian. These people were all thinking of the God of Abraham and the Father of Jesus Christ. These differences did not disappear after Nicea.

Likewise, the God of Augustine and Calvin, who wants only a segment of the human population to be saved, bears more differences than resemblances with the God taught by the earlier church fathers. Yet, we grant that all of these different (seemingly mutually-exclusive) "gods" are, in reality, the same real God—simply misapprehended by some of His worshipers.

I am not sure you are right about the unanimous views of the early scholars on a point like this. In any case, I would trust Paul's attitude (which was quoted previously, from Acts 17) above those of the later Christian scholars.

A third correspondent added:

With all due respect Steve, I have to believe that it is false gods, demons or the devil that many of the alternative religions worship, and not merely the Father in an unacceptable manner (except perhaps true and faithful Jews, who do as you have stated, worship the same Father God of the Christians, but as not in Christ, it is in an unacceptable manner). Surely, we all would agree that there is only one true God, but is worshipping false gods the same as worshipping the one true God incorrectly? I have a tough one with that perspective. Maybe it is really just an issue of semantics.
If I remember correctly, Mohammad "received" a vision in a cave, supposedly Gabriel, as an apparition appeared to him. It's hard to imagine that was God deceiving him and not Mohammad merely misunderstanding how to worship God. That apparition was that of a deceiver. The same goes for Joseph Smith's vision and the Mormon faith. I could go on. Now several insightful theologians, and even one ex-Jesuit priest, have proclaimed that the Roman Church created Islam, and even had a hand in the creation of Mormonism, JW, and others. If that is truth, and the visions alleged by Mohammad and Smith were false (and other religious founders), then this is still a deception, and not of God, but what would appear to be worshipping a false God.
Lord knows I have been wrong about enough of the issues in this life to last for eternity, so I am no absolute authority, but his is how I perceive the issue.

My response was:

I have never suggested any theory that Mohammed or Joseph Smith received genuine revelations from God. In fact, I believe their revelations were demonic. That is not the issue raised in my earlier posts.

A demon spoke through a fortune teller, in Acts 16, saying that Paul and Silas were teachers of the way of salvation. Did she have a different Paul and Silas in mind? I don't believe so, but the fact that she spoke by demonic power does not change the identity of those of whom she spoke.

A demon possessed man said that Jesus was "the Holy One of God" (Mark 1:24). It seems that the word "God" here referred to the real God. Must we assume that the demon meant that Jesus was the Holy one of a different "god" simply because the words came from a demon?

I am not discussing the credibility or authority of any of these messengers. I am discussing the identity of the only true God—the same one Satan lied about in the Garden of Eden (Gen.3:1-5).

There is only one true God. Those who worship demons, according to Paul (1 Cor.10:20), are those who worship multiple gods. All gods, other than the one true God, are demons.

We are talking about people who speak of the one true God, the Creator of all things, and the one who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Jews and Muslims, if you ask them, will say this is the one of whom they speak—though you can't necessarily trust the things they will say about Him. They don't know Him. They don't know that He has a Son named Jesus. They need to know this.

However, when a Jew comes to realize this, and becomes a Christian, is He changing "gods"? Paul did not think so. In speaking to unconverted Jews, he described his own pre-conversion life as follows: "I...was zealous toward God, as you are today" (Acts 22:3). The "God" toward whom he had been zealous—though he had then conceived Him in a non-trinitarian way, and not as the Father of Jesus Christ—was the same God that he now worshiped better as a Christian.

When he spoke about "God", he assumed that he and his unconverted hearers had in mind the same God.

How are the Jews different from the Muslims, in this respect?...

[Jason]

Steve, while I think the motives you ascribe to the unbelieving questioner do fit a large swath of the population, I wouldn't assign such motives to all critics. The church has done a very poor job in educating both its own members and those on the outside, about the reasons for our confidence in the OT record. We might argue that there are countless apologetics resources available now, but until someone points this out to them, most wouldn't know it. I doubt the average unbeliever even knows what apologetics is.

To those critics who've read the arguments and refuse to open their understanding a bit, then they are probably as you describe. But I think mostly it's an issue of not being educated (or being miseducated by a secular world). I don't fault them for the church's failure, and perhaps God doesn't either. At least, I hope not.

Maybe I'm being too charitable toward these critics, but when they hear that Jesus commanded enemy love and Yahweh commanded enemy slaughter, it's very confusing. It's not that they are not on God's side, they're probably just really confused.

[morbo3000]

Steve said: ...the proper answer can only be appreciated by those who are on God's side in the controversy between God and sinful mankind. The unbeliever is generally not on God's side, which means that no answer given by a believer will satisfy him, and I needn't waste my time attempting the impossible.

I agree. You probably have in mind 2Corinthians 4:4

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

I would, however, differentiate between an antagonistic unbeliever and inquiry-in-good-will.

The antagonistic unbeliever is looking for excuses and ammunition to accuse God. They are bringing an existential crises to the subject. They aren’t coming to the text clean of bias. Their criticism is an implicit acknowledgment of a conflict they have with God or the idea of God, apart from the text, which they then bring to it.

The person who inquires-in-good-will may be trying to know/understand God better. By examining the historicity, sources, and bias of the author (not capitalized) of the text. Apologetics is not the straight line from evidence to conclusion you make it out to be. It is a spectrum.

If the unbeliever wishes to understand such things, he must start at an earlier point, by coming to appreciate who God is, and who man is in comparison.

Do you mean cosmologically? Or acceptance of the authority of the Old Testament.

I am cosmologically convinced in a creator. This leaves me in awe of my place in the universe, and humble about my inability to comprehend its ways. I can translate that into theological language and say that I am in awe on God, and come to him humble in my inability to comprehend his ways.

What I am not able to do is draw a straight line between events and divine intervention. I cannot say that it was God’s hand that reinstated the nation of Israel in Palestine. Nor that God was judging America when terrorists brought down the twin towers. Or that God is blessing me when I pick up a $100 bill on the streets. Or cursing me when I can’t afford to pay the rent. The reason I can’t make those claims is only because I just have no way of measuring divine intent to space-time events. He may very well be. And he certainly has that prerogative.

This is the problem the inquirer-of-good-will sometimes has with the OT. The OT interprets space-time events as caused by God. I do not doubt that he can do that. It is his prerogative. By legitimate measures, Moses was a real person and the exodus was real. But those who question its historicity are not on shaky ground. There are legitimate measures for believing that. And I don't think it's a legitimate argument that because Jesus referenced him, Jesus was God, and the gospels are perfect, therefore Moses was a historical person.

And I don't think this is necessarily a slippery slope. People of integrity... inquirers-of-good-will need to find ways to wrestle with the text without using their questions as excuses to permit things that make them uncomfortable.

[Paidion]

Greetings Steve,
I am sorry I misunderstood you, thinking that you were saying that the Muslims worshipped a different God from the God of Christians. I read the facebook exchange that you posted, and very much agreed with you.

If we identify a religion's god by its theology, then Islam's "Allah" is different from the Arabic Christian's "Allah."

Yes, that's a pretty big If.
If we identify a religion's god by its theology, then Calvinists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Orthodox, etc., all have different gods.

[steve]

Good point, Paidion.