Of course, the same evidence that indicate that several of the OT patriarchs
were immoral so-and-so's also supports the contention that the scriptures
are not the imaginative writings of mere mortals. Who would write a
secular, let alone religious, history of a people it supposed to affirm by
describing its heroes thusly, warts and all?
The fact that these situations are in the OT does not negate the fact that
the NT states that they are to be our examples (Rom 15:4). God punished
those who sinned unrepentantly, and rewarded those who did good.
BTW, offering tribute to defer the wrath of God seems a time-honored
tradition. E.g., Former Catholic policy of marketing indulgences; Current
US Tax code. The only problem arises when God is REALLY ticked off at you.
(I Sam 35:28)
Of course, some of these things changed under the new covenant...John
admonished soldiers not to strong arm the citizens (Luke 3:4), polygamists
were told that they could not be leaders in the church(1 Tim 3:2 & 12), and
those with marital problems needed to change their hearts, not their mates
(Matt 19:8-9).
What all this has to do with cosmology, I have no idea...
Norm
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 8:03 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: cosmology & polygamy
There is often resistance to the idea that the Holy Spirit & the
biblical writers accomodated themselves to scientific understandings of
the world of their times & cultures, views which we now know to be very
limited or wrong. The same people seem to have no problem accepting
this with some of the morality accepted in scripture.
Polygamy is perhaps the most obvious example. Many of the
heroes of the OT had lots of wives, concubines &c & nothing at all is
said in condemnation of this. Some of the consequences may be bad, like
Solomon's wives leading him to idolatry, but polygamy itself isn't
condemned. N.B. This isn't simply a matter of reporting historical
facts. Polygamy is not only reported but is accepted.
There are other examples. David is a man after God's own heart,
except for the Bathsheba-Uriah affair. But what about the protection
racket he's running in I Samuel 25, as well as other less than
progressive aspects of his tactics & policies?
& of course there's the whole holy war business with
extermination of populations &c, and slavery. Again, these are not
simply reported but approved & even commanded.
This kind of argument has often been used in village-atheist
type Bible debunking & I do NOT want to use it in that way. But such
examples do make it very clear that the biblical writers, and ultimately
the Holy Spirit, accomodated themselves to moral behaviors which the
Jewish and Christian communities would eventually find unacceptable.
So why is it so hard to believe that the biblical writers and
the Holy Spirit could have accomodated themselves to a now-outdated
cosmology?
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 08 2002 - 13:19:06 EDT