Subject: Re: Can we affirm the OT?
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 07:21:14 GMT
From:  
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

In article <  >,
  Daniel McLean <> wrote:
> I continue to be surprised that Christians in the late 20th century
> affirm the Old Testament in its entirety as completely true and
> inspired, some in a thoroughgoing literalist fashion.  Don't get me
> wrong, it's not that I don't value the Bible for my own faith or
> consider it greatly important in the life of the church, of which I
am a
> part.  Therefore, I don't wish to criticise and denounce the Bible
from
> a position external to the church, Christian faith or appreciation of
> the Bible.
>
> However I am concerned at the common affirmation of the Bible as
> entirely true by churchgoers in Australia.  IMO this is problematic,
as
> the Bible contains material which conflicts with itself internally,
with
> the common faith of modern Australians and with what I consider to be
> modern common sense held by most.
>
> The OT is the easiest starting place for this matter, due to it's
> greater cultural distance from our own situation.  Let us consider the
> case of two stonings in the Pentateuch:
>
> Numbers 15:32-36 While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was
> found gathering wook brought him to Moses ... The the Lord said to
> Moses, "The man must die.  The whole assembly must stone him outside
the
> camp."  So the assemply took him outside the camp and stoned him to
> death, as the Lord commanded Moses.
>
> Leviticus 24:10-23 Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian
> father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the
camp
> between him and an Israelite.  The son of the Israelite woman
blasphemed
> the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses ...
> Then the Lord said to Moses: "Take the blasphemer outside the camp.
All
> those who heard him are to lay their hands on hims head, and the
entire
> assembly is to stone him." ...
> Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer
outside
> the camp and stoned him.
>
> I consider these two accounts, in particular the first account, to be
> horrific, repulsive and clearly unacceptable.

[snip the rest]

G'day Daniel,

May I offer another view from a slightly more liberal
perspective than Robert Wild has.

My position (which I have discussed previously on this
ng, and is defined and defended on my home page)
is that the Bible is inspired, authoritative,
but not inerrant. Just as God has preserved the text
of the Bible very well but not perfectly; so the
original authors also discerned God's mind very well
but not perfectly.

When I come to a difficult Old Testament passage like
the ones you describe (Numbers 15:32-26,
Leviticus 24:10-23), I will not rule out that there
is an error in the passage (whether it be in Moses'
perception of God's directions, or the narrator's
recounting of events).

Nevertheless this is a step I will take extremely
reluctantly, because I am convinced of the Bible's
overall reliability, and God's excellent preservation
of it. (Not perfect preservation, but good enough
to achieve His purposes).

Whatever I decide on particular incidents, what I
would not advocate is a wholesale dismissal of
large slabs of Bible teaching. For instance,
whatever I decide on Numbers 15:32-36, I would want
to still affirm that the Old Testament (in general)
teaches that God is not to be trifled with and it
is a terrible thing to fall under his judgement.
This judgement is affirmed in the New Testament
also. An error Nigel Mitchell makes (if I understand
him correctly) is that he pushes the doctrine of
God's love so strongly that he writes off
many, many Bible passages on God's judgement.

Also, if I am to write off a particular passage,
I would like to have a good reason for doing so.
So I deal with them on a passage by passage basis.
One passage I am convinced does not contain God's
will is Psalm 137:7-9. I do this partly on the
basis that the passage is a Psalm, and was probably
only ever written to express the hatred of the
psalmist, not of God. The Psalm gives us a window
into the feelings of 6th century Israelites,
and that is why those verses are preserved.

As for the Numbers passage you cite: I would
tentatively affirm it as genuine. The rule was
clear and well known and the violation was
apparently flagrant. On second thoughts, I note
that it is an incident which drops into Numbers
15 out of the blue, perhaps suggesting it is from
an independent (and legendary?) source compared to
the law code in the rest of Numbers 15. Hmm.

Even if I decide it is exaggerated or legendary:
I would say, given the huge amount of Biblical
material on God's judgement, that the Israelites
correctly perceived that disobedience to God was
an extremely grave sin, but that someone
over-zealously distorted the story in this
particular instance.

Regards,

Peter Ballard