Why did God condone such things?

[Eishiba]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

 

[Johnnz]

God comes to people where they are, including their times and cultures. Jesus became His most complete statement and that began to change the world.

John
NZ

 

[Calminian]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

Why stop there? God killed perhaps a billion babies and unborn babies in the Flood. Prior to that God allowed wickedness to prevail on the earth for more than 1000 years. The wickedness of Noah's time is said to be the most violent and wicked era of earth's history.

But we can go back even further than this. God actually cursed the world in the beginning ensuring the death and suffering of countless humans and animals.

And yes, God did approve of a form of slavery, though He regulated it quite a bit. The slavery issue is a little different in that slavery was actually a means to survival in the early postdiluvian world. In other words it was most often initiated by the slaves rather than the master.

But again, why would God allow such suffering to exist? Why not just cause everyone to behave and only exist in a world of no death and suffering?

The answer is, God is wiser than we are. He sees the beginning in light of the end. He has discerned that temporal suffering is better than the absence of human volition.

He also knows how to minimize suffering. As an omniscient being, He sees the outcome of every decision He makes prior to making it. In the case of the Flood, for instance, he knew the amount of suffering that would have taken place if He didn't bring a flood, and what it would be if He did. As terrible as it was, I would surmise the Flood was the more compassionate choice.

There's no way we're going to be able to understand every decision God makes, but that should be expected of beings infinitely more foolish than Him. Ultimately, we are going to be tempted to judge God, and think to ourselves, "If I were God, I wouldn't have done that. Therefore, He must not exist." But that's a very illogical approach to reality.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[SkyWriting]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

Such things happen today and you allow it.
Earth is not Heaven and it all rests on you to change.

 

[Eishiba]

Such things happen today and you allow it.
Earth is not Heaven and it all rests on you to change.

If I had the power to not allow such things, I wouldn't. I only allow it to happen because I cannot change it. If I saw a person raping a child and did nothing about it, I'd be looked down on, but God can sit there and say, "When your done, I'm going to punish you." We are more moral than our own God. What kind of a loving God allows the death of babies? I am not for abortion, I 100% disagree with any killing of babies. Yet God allowed this in the old testament. God does not follow the 10 commandments.

 

[InSpiritInTruth]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

The Lord first shows things in a natural way, to be a reflection of the true spiritual things.

The Word of God is spiritual, but the mind of man is carnal (natural.)

 

[ChetSinger]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

Hello! Not everything in the law of Moses was God's first choice. Get a load of this conversation between Jesus and some of his critics in Matthew 19, more than a thousand years later:

Then some Pharisees came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?”

He answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female,

and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?”

Jesus said to them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hard hearts, but from the beginning it was not this way.

Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”

Catch that? Regarding divorce, God's law for us is that a husband's only valid reason for divorce is if his wife has been unfaithful. And that's how it was in the very beginning, too. But when giving laws to the Israelites he relaxed his standard because in their "hard hearts" they wouldn't have followed it anyway.

I'm not saying that's the explanation for all of your objections. But that's one of the explanations, straight from the mouth of Jesus.

 

[mandelduke]

If I had the power to not allow such things, I wouldn't. I only allow it to happen because I cannot change it. If I saw a person raping a child and did nothing about it, I'd be looked down on, but God can sit there and say, "When your done, I'm going to punish you." We are more moral than our own God. What kind of a loving God allows the death of babies? I am not for abortion, I 100% disagree with any killing of babies. Yet God allowed this in the old testament. God does not follow the 10 commandments.

You do not know anything about nothing, but you think you know how to run the universe better than the living God does. Give us a break!

 

[super animator]

This isn't the type of section that address your concerns.

You do not know anything about nothing, but you think you know how to run the universe better than the living God does. Give us a break!

Rather than being rude to him, why not address his valid concerns?

 

[Maximillia]

It's very simple.
Suppose you have a daughter and you love her with all your heart, one day she walks in the door and tells you that she had an abortion, what would you do?
If your son committed murder what would you do?

Think of The Lord as a being of a trillion pages, you and I represent only one page.
You're trying to understand a whole book when all you have is just one page. You need God's knowledge to fully understand God, that's why we are sheep not the Shepard.
Can you explain to your dog why you have to go to work to pay for the mortgage so that he can stay in the house that belongs to the bank and pay for the food on the table that you bought in a furniture store which got it from the lumber yard from the forest where you walk and the tree that your dog relieved himself blah blah blah.
Trying to understand God with your intellect is like your dog learning algebra.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

He didn't. Might sound like a cop out answer but I don't hold everything found in the Torah to be the inereant word of (or teaching about) God. It includes many informative and inspiring teaching stories , myths, parables, and allegories but it also includes some unfortunate examples of bad behavior being justified as God ordained. This isn't a particularly "orthodox" way to look at things in the minds of many but it's my understanding none the less. I judge all things found in the Old Testament according to Christ so as to hopefully discern the wheat from the chaff. To be more accurate and humble I should probably add the word "try to" in front of judge though. I know my God is a god of love and forgiveness without end.

 

[SkyWriting]

If I had the power to not allow such things, I wouldn't. I only allow it to happen because I cannot change it. If I saw a person raping a child and did nothing about it, I'd be looked down on, but God can sit there and say, "When your done, I'm going to punish you." We are more moral than our own God. What kind of a loving God allows the death of babies? I am not for abortion, I 100% disagree with any killing of babies. Yet God allowed this in the old testament. God does not follow the 10 commandments.

Earth does not follow the 10 commandments. As I said, this is not Heaven. The god of this world is Satan. Perhaps God does not let babies die. Perhaps He takes them RIGHT up to His arms and hold them there and gives them eternal life. Now, I don't know that for sure. I'm not sure how He deals with babies after death.

But I do know that if He wanted us all to live forever, He could have done that right from the start and no one would ever die.
He didn't.
And I have to trust there's some reason why we're not all immortal. I guess that's why we have Faith.

 

[hiscosmicgoldfish]

Why did the God of the old testament condone things like slavery? killing of babies? Allowing women to be given to opposing clans as sex slaves?

God didn't. God didn't write the bible. God didn't even send any angels to write bits of the bible, that's why we have such rubbish, as supposedly being the word of God. If an angel was sent to write something truthful, then it probably wouldn't have survived, not on parchment, and not on tablets of stone. The only bit of the bible written by God was the ten commandments.

 

[Eishiba]

Hello! Not everything in the law of Moses was God's first choice. Get a load of this conversation between Jesus and some of his critics in Matthew 19, more than a thousand years later:


Catch that? Regarding divorce, God's law for us is that a husband's only valid reason for divorce is if his wife has been unfaithful. And that's how it was in the very beginning, too. But when giving laws to the Israelites he relaxed his standard because in their "hard hearts" they wouldn't have followed it anyway.

I'm not saying that's the explanation for all of your objections. But that's one of the explanations, straight from the mouth of Jesus.

I can see where you are coming from. God said not to divorce but yet says you can divorce in the event your wife is unfaithful. But God gave this reason as to why you can break one of his laws. I didn't list this among my questions because I was aware of this.

It's very simple.
Suppose you have a daughter and you love her with all your heart, one day she walks in the door and tells you that she had an abortion, what would you do?
If your son committed murder what would you do?

Think of The Lord as a being of a trillion pages, you and I represent only one page.
You're trying to understand a whole book when all you have is just one page. You need God's knowledge to fully understand God, that's why we are sheep not the Shepard.
Can you explain to your dog why you have to go to work to pay for the mortgage so that he can stay in the house that belongs to the bank and pay for the food on the table that you bought in a furniture store which got it from the lumber yard from the forest where you walk and the tree that your dog relieved himself blah blah blah.
Trying to understand God with your intellect is like your dog learning algebra.

If my son or daughter did those things I'd be like, wait what? Why? If God did those things in the Bible I'd be like, wait what? Why? Sons and daughters will make mistakes. Are we saying God will make mistakes?

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

I suppose you could argue that morality changes with the times.

Let's ignore the issue of God and the Bible for a moment and use a more secualr example instead: imagine you're some kind of relief worker, and you come across a primitive tribe living in the jungle. You find out this tribe has the rather gruesome habit of sacrificing and eating people they have captured from other tribes. What do you do about it?

Some people might say we should try to educate them to that they stop practicing this and learn to live peacefully. Others might say we shouldn't do anything at all - who are we to judge them? Personally I disagree with that second option. What you would not do (unless perhaps you are some kind of Spanish conquistador) is punish them the same way you would punish a murderous cannibal living in the developed world.

Why not? Well, you could argue that they live in a different, much harsher world than the one we live in, or that they are not as intelligent as educated people in the developed world. The same, at least in theory, goes for the people in the Old Testament: they lived thousands of years ago under different circumstances than we do today.

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

Something else I'd like to add is that many of the atrocities committed in the Old Testament aren't quite as bad when you look at them in context.

The ten plagues of Egypt for example - the Hebrews were the slaves of the Egyptians, who killed their babies to ensure there would not be too many of them. Similarly the Canaanites were massacred because they were living sinfully in the Hebrews promised land.

I've heard people complain that the ten plagues were evil while at the same time complaining that God did nothing to free black slaves from their white masters. Would they have complained if God sent fire from the sky crashing down on cotton plantations? Similarly, I have heard people say the Canaanite murders were wrong while at the same time saying that the oppression of white farmers under Robert Mugabe is justified because white people stole their land.

 

[ChetSinger]

I can see where you are coming from. God said not to divorce but yet says you can divorce in the event your wife is unfaithful. But God gave this reason as to why you can break one of his laws. I didn't list this among my questions because I was aware of this.

I'm not completely sure you followed me. I'm saying that God's ideal law was temporarily relaxed in the OT because of the Israelite's hard hearts, but now tightened up again by Jesus.

The Hillel rabbinic school permitted a man to divorce and send away his wife for almost any reason. They based that on Deut 24:1. That experience could be terribly shameful and unjust for a woman, yet was legal under the law. In Mt 19 Jesus said God permitted that because they wouldn't have followed a just law anyway.

Since Jesus, it's different. Now we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, so we can be expected to follow God's more perfect laws.

I'm saying that God took their sinful nature into account when he gave them that OT law, because they wouldn't have obeyed what God really wished. So perhaps some of the other laws we find objectionable reflect that, too: perhaps they're not what God would've really liked to give them, but he had to meet them where they were due to their stubbornness.

 

[SkyWriting]

I suppose you could argue that morality changes with the times.

Let's ignore the issue of God and the Bible for a moment and use a more secualr example instead: imagine you're some kind of relief worker, and you come across a primitive tribe living in the jungle. You find out this tribe has the rather gruesome habit of sacrificing and eating people they have captured from other tribes. What do you do about it?

Some people might say we should try to educate them to that they stop practicing this and learn to live peacefully. Others might say we shouldn't do anything at all - who are we to judge them? Personally I disagree with that second option. What you would not do (unless perhaps you are some kind of Spanish conquistador) is punish them the same way you would punish a murderous cannibal living in the developed world.

Why not? Well, you could argue that they live in a different, much harsher world than the one we live in, or that they are not as intelligent as educated people in the developed world. The same, at least in theory, goes for the people in the Old Testament: they lived thousands of years ago under different circumstances than we do today.

The time difference has no relevance. Likely they were much more intelligent and their education was much "superior" to today.

 

[SkyWriting]

God didn't. God didn't write the bible. God didn't even send any angels to write bits of the bible, that's why we have such rubbish, as supposedly being the word of God. If an angel was sent to write something truthful, then it probably wouldn't have survived, not on parchment, and not on tablets of stone. The only bit of the bible written by God was the ten commandments.

If you believe that bit, you might as well read the rest of the passages on the topic.

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, (Jesus) explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself

 

[Calminian]

I'm not completely sure you followed me. I'm saying that God's ideal law was temporarily relaxed in the OT because of the Israelite's hard hearts, but now tightened up again by Jesus....

Chet, this is not a hill to die on, but let me offer an alternative way of looking at this. Rather than God relaxing laws and then tightening them up again, let's look the new community God formed in the church, compared to the old community of the nation of Israel. For I would suggest to you that nothing has changed in God's approach to divorce, but rather the community dynamics have changed.

Israel was (and is) a nation, while the church is a community of believers assigned to reside within nations and under their authority. Israel had national governmental responsibilities, while the church relies on the nation of its dwelling to handle legal governmental matters. Thus the church deals with moral issues, while the government deals with legal ones. But Israel had to deal with both, and generally speaking the laws of Israel were government laws as well as moral laws, and therefore had a wider range of issues to address.

Currently in our society in our nation, divorce is legal but considered immoral in many cases by the church. In Israel divorce was also legal, but in many cases immoral in God's eyes. The divorces that God permitted legally, were still immoral in many cases. And I'm not sure that the church today should lobby for the illegality of divorce in our country. But we certainly should continue to speak out on moral matters concerning marriage and divorce. But unlike Israel, we differ to our nation's government to handle the legal side of it. But from God's perspective, I don't see any change.

Just some thoughts.