Reply to The Bible is an immoral book

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]First, thank you for at least making a sincere attempt to address the issues.  I'll answer a few.

[quote=Anonymous]I'll feed the troll!

OP's premises are faulty all around.

1. Women not teaching men is in the context of doctrine and leading the church. The justification is given that Eve was deceived and Adam followed along. This is not to be extended to every walk of life. This is not prima facie immoral, just OP wants it different.
[/quote]

Disagree.  This is immoral, whether in the doctrine of the ccurch -- which it does not specify -- or otherwise.

[quote]3. Not allowing a sorceress to live: See above. The Jewish people were the people through whom God was bringing the Messiah. Sorceresses worshipped demons, and they did it knowing the prohibition against it. Not worshipping demons also happens to be in your interest.[/quote]

So they should be killed?

[quote]4. Psalm 137 is a lament of the Jewish people who were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, who murdered many people, probably even children. It reflected their mindset of persecution and a longing for deliverance. This is not a command to throw children against rocks.[/quote]

But it says "Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us – he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks"?

[quote]6. Slavery passages are way misunderstood and used by non-believers to beat believers over the head. One, slavery here shouldn't be likened to the African slave trade. Two, another overarching narrative of the Bible is that God is anti-slavery. God brought the Jewish people OUT of slavery, and the consequences for the enslaving Egyptians were severe. Also, notice the provisions for freeing slaves in the seventh year. Also, sin, which God is decidedly against, is likened repeatedly to slavery of the soul. And the Book of Philemon lays out that Christ commands us not to hold slaves. The passages about slaves submitting to masters is as a testimony of witness to slaveholders so that they might be ASHAMED of being slaveholders and turn from holding slaves. The "pro"-slavery passages in the Bible stem partly from indentured servitude and partly from the tribal makeup of the Middle East during these ages, when the Jewish people were beset on all sides from people groups trying to kill them to extinction. [/quote]

The "Slavery passages are misunderstood" canard has been tried time and time again.  There is no context in which slavery is not immoral, and the instructions on beating your slave and the punishment you don't get as long as he doesn't die is explicit.  You 100% fail. here, sorry.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Bible

Again, I respect your sincere attempt.
[/quote]
Have you conceded the other points, then?

Regarding women teaching men, yes, context matters. That's why it's important not to take verses out of the context of the books they were written. This is from 1 Timothy, which is an exposition to Timothy as pastor of a church on how to run the church. I did mention that you probably disagreed with this, but it is not prima facie immoral for God to have rules how he wants His church to be run. This would be a weak argument to hang the Bible being immoral on.

Kill sorceresses? Not anymore. What you and many critics of the Bible seem to miss is that the laws in the Pentateuch were a system of government. Practicing sorcery was a capital crime, and it was to be carried out in the context of government. We have capital punishment in this country, as well. Capital punishment is not prima facie immoral, as its intent is to punish heinous crimes. You might disagree with it, but that doesn't mean it's immortal in itself. The reason sorcery was a capital crime is that it is the worshipping of demons. The Israelites also had a more direct experience with God than we do. They knew who He was empirically, and to be a sorceress was to reject God, but also to try to lead others into worshipping demons, too. This is spiritually deadly. God's intent was to keep His people pure from idolatry and demon worship. And it was also, again, to keep the Jewish people pure because this was through whom God would bring the Messiah. But Christ has been born, died and resurrected. He fulfilled all that the Old Testament prophesied about Him. No one is commanded anymore to kill sorceresses, even though sorcery is still the worship of demons. In effect, it's no longer a capital crime to be administered by human government.

Yes, the Psalm says that. Yes, most believers I know have trouble with that verse, too. But again, nowhere is anyone commanded to smash babies against rocks. Again, it should be read as a very intense lament at the state of the Jewish people at the time of the Babylonian exile, nothing more. And I believe it IS meant to shock us, which speaks to the Bible seeing it as wrong, not to praise it.

Regarding slavery, the canard is that the Bible condones it. God does not say that slavery is good, even though He allows it. And again, you are reading an administration of government about this issue. The thing that would be good to keep in mind is that there are actually RULES how to treat slaves, which would have been a huge departure from the Middle East of Biblical times, and also from the African slave trade. People could not just do anything they wanted, and there were provisions for releasing slaves at set intervals. But God does not say slavery is a good thing. And when it is allowed other than as indentured servitude, it is again as a retributive justice against nations that were set in enmity against the nation of Israel. Again, read in Philemon where Christ, who was the fulfillment of all that came before Him, commands us not to own slaves.

Yes, the verses you mention are harsh, and every Christian I know wrestles with them. But we do not discount the LORD because of them. I believe the harshness of the verses you mention actually shows the evil of slavery, not it's commendation. And it's all a direct result of sin, the same as all the other things you mentioned. God did not create any of these things; mankind did. It is mankind who is cruel to itself, and it is the LORD that rebukes, judges and exhorts us to love our neighbor and forgiveness through Christ.

The Old Testament is not the complete Bible. Much of it is reportage and history. It all points toward Christ, who was God come to earth as man to save mankind from its sins, and Christ ushered in the age of grace. Try reading Hebrews in the New Testament to see this. Christ commands us to love others more than ourselves and to esteem others highly than ourselves. This is what the Bible teaches. The carnage you see is part of the story getting to that point, but it is by no means how God commands us to live.[/quote]

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