The lex talionis doesn't really play a role here. This isn't about retribution.
At this point you’re not understanding the argument. So I’m going to share the point once again and hope you take in what’s being said, rather than dismissing the point out of hand.
“When archeologists fail to find loads of Jewish men with one hand, one foot, I can only come to the conclusion that “eye for an eye, hand for a hand” wasn’t meant to be taken literally. In the same way, Jews aren’t known for their infanticide like the surrounding nations.”
Meaning anyone who believes that
“eye for an eye, hand for a hand” was meant to be understood
literally is mistaken. There are no graves with the one handed, one footed Jew. They don’t exist because that verse wasn’t understood in the literalistic way, if it were understood in the literalistic way we could find the remains of the practise.
If an atheist wanted to argue that hand for hand is barbaric, and Christians move to counter that point by explaining the history of the Jewish people or by using Jesus’ words
(where he ties the “hand for hand” saying to proper reparations) to help explain the old texts, that’s not appeasing man.
It’s not
“appeasing man” to explain the proper historical, archeological and textual context so that the ugly false charge of literalistic hand chopping is removed in favour of the actual history. A history that just so happens to show a more humane portrait of God, that’s glorifying.
Wanting to be a special counter culture boy and then believing in ugly false things about Gods laws isn’t glorifying God, it’s gassing your own ego.
In the same way (here comes the argument now,) cultures that practised infanticide leave traces of their infanticide. Often massive traces. There are no mass graves or enemy texts that highlight the Jewish people stoning their little children for being naughty.
Writing about how this or that isn’t
“retributive,” therefore it’s not relevant, that shows me you have missed the boat entirely.
Many Christians reading will know about the great archeological discoveries people have been making that help verify the Exodus account, that’s the kind of confirmation you don’t have around Jewish infanticide.
I'd say it's pretty open and shut when the material says the child who curses his parents must be put to death, it means the child who curses his parents must be put to death.
That's a different law, though similar circumstance.
Leviticus 20 has no indication of drunkenness, and conflating the two as if they are a single law isn't warranted.
Neither you or I specified chapter and verse which portion of the Bible we had in mind. Though the obvious take home to anyone interested in understanding the biblical material is that the Bible sometimes uses
“children” when it’s not actually in reference to children.
So even without you reading through my reference or me reading through yours, it’s not so cut and dry as to say something like
“children means children, end of discussion.” That’s not true.
In the same way, when an author of the Bible wrote about two she bears coming from out of nowhere to rip apart thirty or forty something
“children,” they weren’t children and an investigation into the material helps show that to the reader.
I’m not a father and it’s not that I have some above average dislike for these supposed child abuse or child murder passages, rather it’s simply a long history of people approaching me with biblical issues and heartbreaks that need answering, for better or worse.
That’s not appeasement but rather love of others and the biblical material. That drives a lot of scholarship that isn’t necessarily landing on your side of the fence.
Whose morality? The same people who think it's a-ok to slaughter babies in the womb because they are inconvenient?
O sweet irony, thy name is Fervent.
Perhaps if unbelievers stoned their babies in the womb you would treat them with more charity.
Human morality is depraved, and if there is a conflict between what humans believe is right and what God says is right it is not God who is mistaken.
Notice how first you point out
“. . .if there is a conflict between what humans believe is right and what God says is right. . .”
On this flavour of thought I’ve responded. . .
“God has endowed everyone (even atheists) with good sense and moral values. Every culture discovers and forms these rules as a matter of habit, a hint to our shared origins in God the Father. So atheists aren’t wrong for believing that Gods ways aren’t so unlike our own as to be unrecognisable.
Sane people find the notion of launching a stone into a child’s face as disgusting.”
So everyone has a God given sense of moral things, on account of that not only do we have firm evidence for things like objective moral values and duties, but we also have insight into our shared origins.
We have grounds for being held accountable to our own voice of conscience, even if having never heard of the God of Israel or Jesus Christ.
My point is that human morality makes an excellent detective when it comes to the chore of weeding out radically foolish ideologies or viewpoints that people like to hold up as though their own views are Gods views.
I’ve pointed out human moralities isn’t all that different across the board, which shouldn’t surprise people, every nation is the product of one Creator. To all these points however you replied. . .
minimized by the atheists and those who do not see the need for stoning the child.
There is a false implication that the child is somehow innocent and undeserving of their fate by virtue of being children.
Most Christians on the board would argue that children are morally blameless and have no thorough grasp of their crimes
“by virtue of being children.” As the Bible also teaches, think about where God says about child sacrifice
“you have shed the blood of the innocent,” or where prophetically God inspires the words
“For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest. . .”
So although you might find handicapped
(or indoctrinated people) who believe in or act out absurd ideas like to stone children is good and that Jesus approves, most of the
Christian world would disagree.
Infanticide even in the old cultures wasn’t a product of desire or
“justice,” but rather necessity masked in religion and the like. These people lacked food, water and resources, choosing to killed their children was often sad, unwelcome behaviours.
This is an absolute strawman and nothing more.
No where did I say God's ways are unrecognisable,
I think those two earlier quotes about children not being innocent or that they need to be stoned speaks more volumes and does more damage to your cause then my
“strawmen” could ever hope to achieve.
The woman is more of an object than central to the narrative because the focus of the narrative is on the opposition of the religious community to Jesus and their brazen attempt to entrap him.
It’s more apt to write the women is an object to
your narrative, rather than being the meat or rice of the biblical narrative. I’ve explained to you already that there were clearly sincere people in the crowd wanting to carry out the law as any good Jew would, there were even men during Christ’s own ministry who claim to have kept the whole of the law.
You are at liberty to ignore that context and insist upon your own narrow focal point to the text, but from my point of view that’s robbing the story of its lifeblood. It’s no longer a real time and place filled with so many disparate viewpoints as we have now, instead it’s just a tool,
“an object.”
The woman is an object, the Pharisees are objects, and sadly even Jesus is an object. They’re props to help make some Christians feel special and counter cultural over against
“modern sensibilities,” sensibility that you are cautious of
“appeasing.”