RetiredAg said:

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Jarrel04 said:

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RetiredAg said:

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Do you not see that your hermeneutic assumes and requires god be perfect and righteous thus you dismiss any evidence to the contrary and seek any alternative explanation to justify your preconceived position?

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Wait, your criticism is that a Christian hermeneutic operates on the assumption that God is perfect and righteous? What Christian hermeneutic doesn't start with that assumption?

I don't "dismiss" evidence. When a portrait of God looks nothing like Christ, who is the exact revelation of God, then one needs to dig deeper to better understand the "evidence". It's not dismissing it, but trying to understand it in a way that is consistent with the portrait of God revealed through Christ on the cross.

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Do you not see that with this reasoning you could turn any person place or thing into god? It doesn't allow for you to be wrong because the answer is predetermined and any contrary evidence is just misunderstood.

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People turn things into gods all the time. My concern is to have a consistent reading of Scripture, which is based on the core belief that God is perfect and righteous and that God looks like Christ. Genocidal portraits of God do not look anything like Christ, and since He's the "radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature", there must be something else going on in those texts. That's what a cruciform hermeneutic is meant to address. Yes, there are assumptions made, but that's part of faith.

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Perhaps a better way to phrase my objection is that this is not truth seeking behavior. This is deciding the conclusion then doing whatever necessary to conform the facts to your predetermined conclusion.

You may call it faith but I feel it is an unhealthy form of faith. This is why I make the point that you can turn anything into a perfect loving god if you presume it is perfect and loving then dismiss or contort evidence to the contrary to your predetermined conclusion. Does that make sense? There is literally nothing that could change your mind in this construct. That is why I say it is not truth seeking behavior.

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Perhaps a better way to phrase my objection is that this is not truth seeking behavior. This is deciding the conclusion then doing whatever necessary to conform the facts to your predetermined conclusion.

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I disagree. Truth is what I'm seeking. I just believe that that truth must be consistent with the portrait of God revealed through Christ. When it's not, then I seek to find how that distorted portrait testifies to Christ. The only "predetermined conclusion" I approach it with is that the truth must look like Christ crucified because that's what God truly looks like.

good nuggets said:

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(3) I think that this topic fits perfectly into a cruciform hermeneutic. The mating of fallen angels with human women is just one more attempt from satan to prevent the coming of Christ. RetiredAg this is a response to you as well.

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Oh, I don't see it as compatible with a cruciform hermeneutic at all. The cross reveals to us a God that is nonviolent, self-sacrificial and willing to become His own antithesis out of love for mankind. I also don't buy into the notion that the Canaanites were hybrid human/angels.

I see the literalist Christian responses have changed from vile to just plain crazy.

This is the part where we point out none of this is historical. I think this was mentioned earlier. The Israelite conquest doesn't appear grounded in anything more than legend. Fortunately those that defend it only do so in concept whether they realize it or not.

There was no great flood to wipe out the nephalim. The entire concept of cross mating with divine beings is a very primitive one. I guess angels are technically the same species since we can have fecund offspring.

GIGO.

Limiting your intellectual grasp of an argument/theorem to facts which refuse to consider alternatives really isn't a very enlightened position.

THis thread has an S-Ton of BSC. It's actually depressing.

UTExan said:

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GIGO.

Limiting your intellectual grasp of an argument/theorem to facts which refuse to consider alternatives really isn't a very enlightened position.

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I understand your position. The fact that I don't agree with it doesn't make me closed minded.

Aggrad08 said:

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I see the literalist Christian responses have changed from vile to just plain crazy.

This is the part where we point out none of this is historical. I think this was mentioned earlier. The Israelite conquest doesn't appear grounded in anything more than legend. Fortunately those that defend it only do so in concept whether they realize it or not.

There was no great flood to wipe out the nephalim. The entire concept of cross mating with divine beings is a very primitive one. I guess angels are technically the same species since we can have fecund offspring.

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I think that the bold is overstated.

Canaan was at one time ruled by Egypt. Then it wasn't. Then it was ruled by Israelites. So, there was some sort of conquest that brought the Israelites to power. It's tough to tell what that looked like, though, through the archaeological record.

craigernaught said:

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I'm not sure how giving up inerrancy is even close to being as problematic as accepting a God who commands genocide.

There are a thousand reasons to not believe in an inerrant scripture, but even if you leave out that historical claims are often counter to the available evidence, divine commanded genocide should be enough.

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So how do you determine was is in error and what is not? What stops you from creating your own version of God?

I agree the genocides are difficult to grasp but if I just write those off as fables then how can I believe the parts where God commands love?

In regards to the OP that's all speculation but makes for a fun fascinating theory. But likely hogwash.

I used to be a non-literalist, secular person. Then God happened. And that is probably the best way for me to explain it.

Just musing here.

One thing, a bit of a metaphysical point. In formal Christian cosmology there is no such thing as evil, because evil would be an antipole to God, which sort of destroys the whole concept of monotheism. Further, if we acknowledge evil as an actual reality, it really makes good vs evil an arbitrary choice. You serve one or the other, but both are equally valid as equivalent and opposite.*

The only reason I bring it up is to raise St Maximos' cosmology in that we are either proceeding toward achieving or realizing our true being, as we were meant to be by our designer (he calls us pieces of God, the logoi of the Logos) or proceeding toward nonbeing. If God is self existent / preexistent and is the only such being, things only truly exist insofar as they participate in Him.

This is sort of analogous to how we view heat vs cold. There's no such thing as cold, scientifically...just the absence of heat (less energy) - an "cold" is an arbitrary spectrum imposed on a zero to infinity energy scale.

So... out of curiosity... if God as Creator sees beings that He Loves proceeding toward nonbeing, does this change how we view the situation? Especially in light of the fact that there is a foreknown sudden, eternal, and infinitely significant change of cosmic milieu coming in the person of Christ?

What I mean to say is, if He has perfect knowledge, can't He say it's better to stop the senseless fleeing from being to nonbeing at any point, knowing the situation will be rectified (by Him no less) in the event of the Resurrection? This would apply to both the flood and genocide events.

*This is one of my major gripes with Star Wars as I've gotten older. Jedi or Sith are really just accidents of fate, there's no real reason one or the other is better. In a true "balanced" force metaphysic the "best" force user would reject both Jedi and Sith extremes as ridiculous restrictions to valid choices, and be a "gray" force user who pulls from both spectrums without arbitrarily imposed limitations.

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What I mean to say is, if He has perfect knowledge, can't He say it's better to stop the senseless fleeing from being to nonbeing at any point, knowing the situation will be rectified (by Him no less) in the event of the Resurrection? This would apply to both the flood and genocide events.

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I think you can only say this if there is a chance of redemption beyond the grave. Otherwise it doesn't make sense for God to hasten their "flight to nonbeing" if there is only a chance of redemption during life and not once death occurs. The idea of redemption after death also comes with some tricky consequences. After all, you could just "kill them all and let God sort it out".

*And the Jedi/Sith duality doesn't make sense anyway. The Sith are clearly selfish, power-hungry and evil. The Jedi aren't good though. They are dedicated to balance, no beneficence, mercy, love or compassion. The are neutral. The Jedi only look good when they are trying to balance out the Sith. Makes me wonder, if another Order rose to use the Force only for good would the Jedi oppose them to maintaine balance?

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And the Jedi/Sith duality doesn't make sense anyway. The Sith are clearly selfish, power-hungry and evil. The Jedi aren't good though. They are dedicated to balance, no beneficence, mercy, love or compassion. The are neutral. The Jedi only look good when they are trying to balance out the Sith. Makes me wonder, if another Order rose to use the Force only for good would the Jedi oppose them to maintaine balance?

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Ooooh, this would be interesting.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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What I mean to say is, if He has perfect knowledge, can't He say it's better to stop the senseless fleeing from being to nonbeing at any point, knowing the situation will be rectified (by Him no less) in the event of the Resurrection? This would apply to both the flood and genocide events.

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I think you can only say this if there is a chance of redemption beyond the grave. Otherwise it doesn't make sense for God to hasten their "flight to nonbeing" if there is only a chance of redemption during life and not once death occurs. The idea of redemption after death also comes with some tricky consequences. After all, you could just "kill them all and let God sort it out".

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There *was* redemption beyond the grave. That is the whole point of the Resurrection. The Cross pushed the grace in the form of the defeat of death forward and backwards in time. Otherwise we have to condemn all those who died before Christ as lost, destroyed, vanished (Hebrews tells us even the patriarchs didn't receive the promises).

St John Chrysostom's Paschal Homily ends with: O Death, where is your sting? O hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep."

This talk by Fr Thomas Hopko is a good review on the Orthodox belief. It's good to not confuse hell, sheol, death, etc... they're not all the same thing...

Rocag said:

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I think the interesting thing is that talk of God commanding genocide in the Old Testament isn't treated as odd or at all out of character. Remember who we're dealing with here, not just some nebulous divine being. We're talking about Yahweh Sabaoth, as the Canaanite polytheists called him "Yahweh, god of the armies". Personally speaking, learning about the background of Canaanite polytheism from which Judaism emerged made so many things in the Bible I didn't understand make perfect sense.

Consider the Book of Judges which presents a bunch of stories which follow a similar pattern. When times are good the Israelites worship gods like Baal or Asherah who were considered to have dominion over things like fertility and the harvest. Then things go bad and the Israelites need help fighting foreign invaders. Do they pray to Baal for this? Of course not, that's not his specialty. They pray to Yahweh.

Interesting stuff. Of course typically ignored or dismissed by most Christians but that's no surprise.

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I think that the evidence that the Israelites sanctioned henotheism or polytheism is exaggerated.

Even the Song of Moses states that there is only one God. Eveyone likes to point to the fun little sons of El passage, but they don't read down to this line:

"Don't they know that I alone am He. There is no other God besides me!"

We are still finding interesting artifacts related to this, and our understanding of ancient Israel is continuing to improve.

To imply that most Christians typically ignore or dismiss this topic is incorrect. Many serious students of the Bible address this subject head on.

I see what you mean. I was speaking more of the idea that people get a second chance for repentence and salvation after death.

RetiredAg said:

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And the Jedi/Sith duality doesn't make sense anyway. The Sith are clearly selfish, power-hungry and evil. The Jedi aren't good though. They are dedicated to balance, no beneficence, mercy, love or compassion. The are neutral. The Jedi only look good when they are trying to balance out the Sith. Makes me wonder, if another Order rose to use the Force only for good would the Jedi oppose them to maintaine balance?

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Ooooh, this would be interesting.

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And this thread just became interesting to me. New thread?

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So how do you determine was is in error and what is not? What stops you from creating your own version of God?

I agree the genocides are difficult to grasp but if I just write those off as fables then how can I believe the parts where God commands love?

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These are good questions and are difficult to answer, particularly in a forum like this. As I alluded to previously, our conception of God will always be, in part, a manifestation of ourselves. I think this is true for the modern reader, just as I think it was true for the writers of Scripture who describe God commanding or justifying genocide.

When you read Scripture, or reason, or receive revelation, you are always going to hear it, think about it, and tell it through your own experience and through your own understanding of what is right and true. Creating an idol out of ourselves in the practice of theology is, in my opinion, inescapable. Viewing Scripture as inerrant does not prevent you reading it through your own eyes.

Casting out one part as wrong, like divine ordained genocide, doesn't mean that you have to cast out other things like God's love. The NT was written, edited, and canonized as a response to God's revelation in Jesus Christ and as a response to the work of the church - both good work and bad. We believe in God's commands for love, not because it simply says so in the Bible, but because God continues to reveal it to us, because we see it confirmed in the work of the church, because our fathers in faith have repeatedly attested it to us in Scripture and otherwise, and because we see its fruits as its lived out. God's commands to love are essential throughout church history. Commands for genocide are not. God's command to love is seen perfectly in Jesus Christ. Genocide is not.

We also have to read it in light of what we know and what we can confirm about history. The conquest of Canaan absolutely did not happen as presented in the OT. Neither did the Exodus, or the flood, or the creation. We know this. It's not faithful or pious to pretend otherwise. We're not bound to the theologized myth of ancient writers as if its history. If you do so, you are certainly reading yourself into the texts whether your like or not. Your idol becomes your need for certainty in Scripture.

I don't think I can come up with the right answers, but I do have faith that the church as called by God can. In the meantime, I'll do my part by trying to be faithful.

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*This is one of my major gripes with Star Wars as I've gotten older. Jedi or Sith are really just accidents of fate, there's no real reason one or the other is better. In a true "balanced" force metaphysic the "best" force user would reject both Jedi and Sith extremes as ridiculous restrictions to valid choices, and be a "gray" force user who pulls from both spectrums without arbitrarily imposed limitations.

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I've become more of a Trek than a Wars person..and lately I'm feeling a little drained of the Star Wars hype, but... Jedi aren't "good" they only try to be good. Their whole existence is battling the temptation of going to the dark side..so they overcompensate the utterly corrupt. There are plenty of people in the Star Wars universe who are fairly ambivalent. I think Maz Kanata would be a pretty decent example although I'm not sure she used the force. A little bit of research shows legends of "grey jedi" referenced in the video games.

Aliasman02 would be the resident expert on such a question.

May the 4th be with this thread.

Rocag said:

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The Bible is littered with terms, phrases, and references to polytheism in general and Canaanite polytheism specifically beyond just the sons of El passage. "Sanctioning" isn't the term I would use as I'm not referring to any official action. It's more that the Hebrew people and their beliefs began as polytheistic as far back as we can tell and remained largely so far later than most Christians realize. There was no sudden change to monotheism. The Old Testament can only be understood within the context of the region at that point in history and there is quite a bit that gets lost in the translation.

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https://texags.com/forums/15/topics/2646952

It is strange how much polytheism we see in the Bible, isn't it?

So basically I know nothing and my opinion is totally void.

Good to know!

UTExan said:

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I used to be a non-literalist, secular person. Then God happened. And that is probably the best way for me to explain it.

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This is going to sound snarky, but what 'happened' that you now think genocide is okay in certain circumstances?

AstroAg17 said:

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You:star wars::k2:christianity

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I don't know what that means.

AstroAg17 said:

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You:star wars::k2:christianity

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Really think that should do it. EOT

AstroAg17 said:

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You are to Star Wars as K2 is to Christianity

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I got that. I just have no idea how to take it because I don't know who that is or what he represents of Christianity. Encyclopaedic knowledge? Weird devotion?

I never considered the evil as a privation of good to be a good explanation for what we see. It seems much more like good and evil are like electrical charges, with a positive negative and neutral. So toward your analogy much more like star wars. Good things happen, bad things happen, and many things happen that don't fit well in either category.

The scriptures don't seem to support this notion:

Isa 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

"Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?" (Lam. 3:38).

And from a simple experiential point of view this theory lacks explanatory power for suffering. Suffering is an active evil. It's not the absence of "good" things happening. If you look at it as a privation a rapist is doing quite a lot of good, but apparently not enough, since he could be brutally torturing you for days on end, so he's doing good but so little that you still suffer? It seems pretty weak.

This also doesn't seem to do anything for the problem of evil. It simply becomes the "problem of lack of good". It's a name change but has no substantive power.