The God of the Bible is Immoral

First, let"s consider the evidence that the God of the Bible is morally good. God is the author of life " Acts 3:15. God commands us to love even our enemies " Mathew 5:44 God instructs us to be gentle, self-controlled, good, and faithful " Galatians 5:22-23 God instructs us to be peacemakers " Matthew 5:9 God instructs us to be merciful " Matthew 5:7 God says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with everything you are and to love your neighbor as yourself. He says that every command from God should be seen through this filter and apply with this in mind " Mark 12:29-31 These are just a few of the many, many ways that the God of the Bible shows himself to be morally good. Now let us consider the way that Pro has misunderstood some passages in the Bible. He brings up four issues, which fall broadly into two kinds of errors. I will deal with the latter two first since the error in this case is more obvious and easier to understand. Pro sites human sacrifice from Judges 11:29-39 and cannibalism from Leviticus 26:29, 28:53, and Jeremiah 19:9. In each of these cases Pro has failed to grasp that the Bible records some things which it does not condone. There is nothing in either of these passage in which God commands people to these actions, or even anything to suggest that God condones these actions. In the Judges passage, Jephthah acts entirely on his own. He makes a rash and foolish vow, and then foolishly violates God"s command not to murder by keeping this vow. At no point are we told that God approved of any of Jephthah"s action. In reality, this passage serves to illustrate Jephthah weakness as a rash and selfish leader who did not follow the Lord. In the passages that Pro says are cannibalism, the Bible is describing the horrors of war. While these passages likely include some hyperbole, cannibalism in the face of starvation because of war was not under heard of in the ancient world. God never commands or approves of such actions in these passages, but the harsh reality of the horrors of war are brought to the forefront. Concerning Pro"s former arguments, Pro has failed to consider the cultural differences that are important in understanding these passages. First Pro points out that the Bible allows slavery. This is true, sort of. The problem is that Pro is thinking of slavery in terms of post-enlightenment American slavery. It was based on race and involved capturing people against their will and forcing them into slavery. In ancient Israel slavery was an economic institution under which most people sold themselves for a set period of time. The slavery of the Old Testament functioned more like what we would call indentured servitude. According to Exodus 21:2, "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year he shall go free without paying anything." Pro brings us events in the 31st chapter of Numbers. This records a war between Israel and Midian. War is horrible. People die. In this case Midian did strike first and God calls for a counter-attack. God says to "take" the unmarried women. "Take" in this case probably means as wives. There is no mention of slavery anywhere in the passage. At the time arranged marriages were the norm and those who were orphaned by war were usually betrothed to someone with the expectation that the girl"s husband (or his family if he and the girl were still too young to marry) would care for the girl"s needs. The only way this could be immoral is if Pro argues that arranged marriages are themselves immoral. I think that Pro will have a difficult time arguing that arranged marriages are immoral even in cultures which accept arranged marriages. Pro also brings up passages in the New Testament where Paul tells slaves to respect their masters. Here we need to remember that Paul was writing to Christians. One of the most common themes in Paul"s letters is to sacrifice our right, privileges, and freedoms for others. Paul continues this theme, telling those who are slaves to sacrifice for their masters. Paul is not supporting slavery. He is supporting self-sacrifice. Paul sees nothing dishonorable about being a slave. In First Corinthians 7:21 he writes, "Were you a slave when you were called? Don"t let it trouble you " although if you can gain your freedom, do so." Paul shows no interest in the social institution. Instead he shows interest in how people live. He is not advocating social rebellion. He is advocating selflessness and thinking less about what we want and more about how to help others. Finally, Pro says that God commands genocide. This is probably the most confusing of Pro"s arguments since it relies on major cultural shift. We live in post-enlightenment wester society. We believe that the individual comes first and that the society is subservient to the individual. So to us saying, "And we utterly destroyed them, ... utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city," then we take that to mean that every individual must die. Pre-enlightenment middle-eastern society did not think that way. They believed that the society came first and the individual was subservient to the society. Neither view is right or wrong. They are just different ways of thinking about how society and the individual relate to each other. In that pre-enlightenment mindset, saying "utterly destroy them" does not mean each individual dies. It means the society dies. Everyone who is part of the culture must be destroyed to the point that the culture no longer exists. The culture of violence must be destroyed, but the individuals who abandon the culture may live. Probably the best example of this is seen in the Amalekites. The Amalekites were vicious nomads, famous for attacking villages, murdering most the people, taking all the food, and leaving the survivors to starve to death. God warned them to change their ways. He gave them hundreds of years to repent. However, generation after generation maintained the same pattern until it became clear that the culture of the Amalekites would never change. The God told the Israelites to "attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (First Samuel 15:3). And we are told that Israelites eventually do this under King David. The Amalekites are totally destroyed. Then we come to the book of Ester a few hundred years later. In Ester we are introduces to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite. Agag was the king of the Amalekites, and here we meet his descendant long after the Amalekites were "destroyed." This helps us see that the "destruction" called for is not a literal destruction of every individual, but a destruction of a violent culture. This was not genocide, but end of a violent culture. Conclusion: Pro has pointed out issues that might appear immoral on the surface, but once we look at what is really going one we see that Pro is mistaken. We also see a God who calls people to good things, not to evil.