Certain Bible verses I can't get past

[spartanII]

Lately I've been questioning God and his character. In fact, I registered here just for that. This site seems pretty awesome and I have a few questions. First, let me state that I am a Christian and have been for the past 7 years or so. I go through my ups and downs, mainly with lust (towards women), but still keep trying to live the life that Christ spoke about and am happy and joyous to spread the Gospel to other people. Lately I've been questioning my own sense of morality and how it lines up with the Bible. With the Quran, I see violent verses and am like "how can anybody support this," yet I look at the Bible (Majority OT, a little bit NT) and think the same thing.

I know people will give the cliche answer "well we can't put God on trial," but how can we justify certain verses that turn a blind eye to certain verses like taking young girls for yourself? (Numbers 31 7-18) Make a rape victim marry the rapist himself? (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) or ripping apart pregnant women (Hosea 13:16)?

I used to feel like once i read the Bible I would just be like "well He is God, He can do whatever He wants," but I think I would have thought differently if I saw something like "Surra 3:172" behind it. I would think "man, the Islamic God is sickening!"

It's verses like those that make it hard to think God is "all loving." He even describes love in His own terms and it doesn't seem like it's that (the above mentioned verses).

Atheists claim we all have an underlying goodness in us and even Christians pick and choose morality in the Bible once we see Bible verses like those and it's hard to argue that. Even though there is objective morality (The Bible) once we see certain verses we don't like (violent verses), do we pick and choose whether or not we want to follow them?

[PaulSacramento]

There is a book called " Is God a moral monster" , by Paul Copland and it may help you with SOME issues.
That said there are a few things we need to understand about what is written in the bible about God.
The bible is a progressive revelation of God, God is unchanging but OUR perception and understanding of God is not.
God is revealed completely and correctly in his SON, Jesus Christ.
You must also understand the GENRE of writing you are reading and that just because something is worded a certain way, one isn't supposed to take it literally.
Even today when we say that "everyone was wiped out" we don't mean EVERYONE and when we say "they should all be killed for what they did", we don't mean ALL.
Ancient writers loved to write in BIG and MASSIVE ways, hence Roman ruled THE WORLD and Alexander conquered the WORLD and so forth.
There are over 600 laws in the OT and many of them are causal ( IF a man does this...) and many of them make no sense to US in the 21st century, but they were NOT written for US but for a nomadic desert people 4000 years ago, we must accept that there was a degree of "accomodation" from God in dealing with a "siff neck people".

[Murray]

Here is the responce from my pastor , mark miller, on the exact same question. Really clairifys' it.

1. It is important to try and discern when a particular Bible passage is simply describing the way things were “back in the day” and when a Bible passage is offering an eternal truth that is to be followed for all times. Many of the Old Testament laws related to property, dietary restrictions, clean and unclean articles, and how to sacrifice an animal… these are descriptive of how ancient people sought to live out their faith and honor God. Not all of these laws and practices apply today. We do not live in the same culture, so some of these laws are obsolete. For example, we don’t have to worry about boiling a baby goat in its mother’s milk (Exodus 3:19).



2. Remember that we read the Bible with 21st century minds and see it through 21st Century eyes. There are things that seem absurd to us today, but were perfectly acceptable and normal in the days of the Old Testament. In the same way, if our world is still around in another 3,000 years, there will be people living 3,000 years from now who will look back on our current culture and shake their heads in disgust or disbelief at things we currently think are perfectly acceptable and normal. You should be disgusted or shocked with some of what you read in the Old Testament, because we have come a long way since then.



3. Remember, that while we value some of the history and some of the principles we find in the Old Testament, we are primarily people of the New Testament. Jesus established a new covenant with us, so many of these archaic laws and regulations do not apply, or at least not in the same way. It’s not that we don’t have laws to obey and commands to follow, but the commands and laws are in many ways different from what we read in the Old Testament.



With that in mind, let me comment on Numbers 31:7-18. It was common to totally kill off your enemy in those days, including women and children. It was believed that marrying the women of foreign tribes would cause a person to adopt the false religious beliefs and practices of those tribes. If you are going to be in Church this Sunday, you will hear more about this because I am preaching on the story of Joshua and the destruction of Jericho (Joshua chapter 6). I will be talking about why God commanded Joshua to destroy every living thing in the town of Jericho, including women and children.

Regarding Deuteronomy 22:28-29, you need to understand that women were considered property, and were considered inferior to men. This does not minimize rape, but only explains that rape was not viewed the same way as we view it today. Women were not permitted to marry whoever they wanted, a woman was given away to a man by her father. An unmarried woman who has lost her virginity (either through consensual sex or rape) had no hope of getting married, because only virgins and widows could be given in marriage. This law is actually meant to help protect unmarried women from being abandoned after being sexually used by a man. Sounds really awful to us today, because our view of marriage, sex, and women are much different than this ancient culture. But in that day, at that time, this was actually an expression of compassion and fairness toward a woman.



The Hosea passage is brutal, and it is not meant to be taken literally. Samarians would suffer judgment for their rebellion, but that doesn’t mean that pregnant women were literally cut open by sword. This is the kind of violent poetic imagery that was a common literary device in that day. That is not to say that women may not have been killed in war, or that some pregnant women may not have died violent deaths in wartime, but this is a poetic description of the Samaritans facing military defeat, which often leads to the suffering and death of women and children.
.

[Telstra Robs]

Lately I've been questioning God and his character. In fact, I registered here just for that. This site seems pretty awesome and I have a few questions. First, let me state that I am a Christian and have been for the past 7 years or so. I go through my ups and downs, mainly with lust (towards women), but still keep trying to live the life that Christ spoke about and am happy and joyous to spread the Gospel to other people. Lately I've been questioning my own sense of morality and how it lines up with the Bible. With the Quran, I see violent verses and am like "how can anybody support this," yet I look at the Bible (Majority OT, a little bit NT) and think the same thing.

I know people will give the cliche answer "well we can't put God on trial," but how can we justify certain verses that turn a blind eye to certain verses like taking young girls for yourself? (Numbers 31 7-18) Make a rape victim marry the rapist himself? (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) or ripping apart pregnant women (Hosea 13:16)?

I used to feel like once i read the Bible I would just be like "well He is God, He can do whatever He wants," but I think I would have thought differently if I saw something like "Surra 3:172" behind it. I would think "man, the Islamic God is sickening!"

It's verses like those that make it hard to think God is "all loving." He even describes love in His own terms and it doesn't seem like it's that (the above mentioned verses).

Atheists claim we all have an underlying goodness in us and even Christians pick and choose morality in the Bible once we see Bible verses like those and it's hard to argue that. Even though there is objective morality (The Bible) once we see certain verses we don't like (violent verses), do we pick and choose whether or not we want to follow them?

Here is some useful information regarding Deut 22:28-29

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ot_and_rape.htm

In terms of Hosea 13:16, God isn't saying "I will rip apart the pregnant women personally", nor is he saying "I will send soldiers and force them to rip apart your pregnant women". Throughout the history of the Israelites, when the Israelites were pious, God would go with the army, and they would be able to successfully defend the nation (or subdue it, depending on the time). But when the Israelites were not pious, God would not help defend the nation. They would be on their own. Now, look at an ancient map of the area at the time, you'll see Israel is quite small compared to some of the "superpowers", like the Babylonians, or the Assyrians, or even the Egyptians. The Israelites aren't going to be able to pull together the same manpower or resources as these giants. Without God, winning against them would be difficult: they even found the Philistines problematic at some stages, even though Philistia (roughly the modern day Gaza Strip, plus Ashdod) was rather small. They need God to help them. Perhaps that is why God made them a small nation compared to their neighbours: to remind them that they need God? Who knows.

Now, such practices during warfare were common, especially if an enemy wanted to make a particular psychological impact. What Hosea is saying is not "God will force the invading army to rip apart the pregnant women", rather "God will not aid the army of Samaria (Kingdom of Israel after the separation) against the invading army. The invading army will conquer Samaria, and they will (in accordance with contemporary norms) rip apart the pregnant women among other things, not because God is commanding them to do it, but because they will invade, God will not protect you.

[spartanII]

Lately I've been questioning God and his character. In fact, I registered here just for that. This site seems pretty awesome and I have a few questions. First, let me state that I am a Christian and have been for the past 7 years or so. I go through my ups and downs, mainly with lust (towards women), but still keep trying to live the life that Christ spoke about and am happy and joyous to spread the Gospel to other people. Lately I've been questioning my own sense of morality and how it lines up with the Bible. With the Quran, I see violent verses and am like "how can anybody support this," yet I look at the Bible (Majority OT, a little bit NT) and think the same thing.

I know people will give the cliche answer "well we can't put God on trial," but how can we justify certain verses that turn a blind eye to certain verses like taking young girls for yourself? (Numbers 31 7-18) Make a rape victim marry the rapist himself? (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) or ripping apart pregnant women (Hosea 13:16)?

I used to feel like once i read the Bible I would just be like "well He is God, He can do whatever He wants," but I think I would have thought differently if I saw something like "Surra 3:172" behind it. I would think "man, the Islamic God is sickening!"

It's verses like those that make it hard to think God is "all loving." He even describes love in His own terms and it doesn't seem like it's that (the above mentioned verses).

Atheists claim we all have an underlying goodness in us and even Christians pick and choose morality in the Bible once we see Bible verses like those and it's hard to argue that. Even though there is objective morality (The Bible) once we see certain verses we don't like (violent verses), do we pick and choose whether or not we want to follow them?

Here is some useful information regarding Deut 22:28-29

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ot_and_rape.htm

In terms of Hosea 13:16, God isn't saying "I will rip apart the pregnant women personally", nor is he saying "I will send soldiers and force them to rip apart your pregnant women". Throughout the history of the Israelites, when the Israelites were pious, God would go with the army, and they would be able to successfully defend the nation (or subdue it, depending on the time). But when the Israelites were not pious, God would not help defend the nation. They would be on their own. Now, look at an ancient map of the area at the time, you'll see Israel is quite small compared to some of the "superpowers", like the Babylonians, or the Assyrians, or even the Egyptians. The Israelites aren't going to be able to pull together the same manpower or resources as these giants. Without God, winning against them would be difficult: they even found the Philistines problematic at some stages, even though Philistia (roughly the modern day Gaza Strip, plus Ashdod) was rather small. They need God to help them. Perhaps that is why God made them a small nation compared to their neighbours: to remind them that they need God? Who knows.

Now, such practices during warfare were common, especially if an enemy wanted to make a particular psychological impact. What Hosea is saying is not "God will force the invading army to rip apart the pregnant women", rather "God will not aid the army of Samaria (Kingdom of Israel after the separation) against the invading army. The invading army will conquer Samaria, and they will (in accordance with contemporary norms) rip apart the pregnant women among other things, not because God is commanding them to do it, but because they will invade, God will not protect you.

Thanks, this helped out a lot. I thought about it all day. It makes so much sense. Any books you recommend?