OT ethics in OT times

Among the many objections to the Christian faith raised by unbelievers, one of the favorite lines of attack so to cite one or more examples of OT morality which they find offensive.

Of course, to merely contrast their morality, or lack thereof, with OT morality, does nothing to demonstrate the superiority of their own morality.

Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, all they ever do is to cite something from the OT, and leave it at that, as if quotation were a substitute for argumentation.

Their procedure is: quote>roll your eyes>case closed.

Their inability to mount an actual argument against OT morality only proves the rational vacuity of their own position.

That said, what about OT ethics? It’s true that there’s a brutal streak to some OT injunctions.

And unbelievers appeal to the element of brutality to disprove the OT, and thereby disprove the Bible as a whole.

But this is quite ironic and self-defeating.

The reason for the occasional brutality of OT morality is due to the brutality of ANE culture.

OT law and practice were adapted to the real world situation of Jews living within a predominately pagan culture.

The ancient world was brutal because the ancient world was heathen.

Because Jewish culture was a subculture of ANE culture, there was only so much it could do to refine and humanize the barbarity of the surrounding culture.

To take a contemporary comparison, our military culture is subculture of the general culture. And the culture of the military is harsh compared with the general culture.

That’s because our soldiers are trained to fight our enemies. Our soldiers are trained to kill.

That’s not very nice. But it’s a necessary evil in a fallen world.

It would be nice if we could be nicer, but social relations are a two-way street.

To take a modern illustration, in WWII we used flame-throwers against the Japanese. That’s a very nasty tactic. But their soldiers left our soldiers no choie.

The Japanese war machine was fanatical and ruthless to the nth degree.

That doesn’t mean we should be quite as ruthless in return. But it does mean that, up-to-a-point, it’s necessary to adjust our tactics to the threat level if we hope to survive.

The irony of the unbeliever is that, left to his own devices, he would return us to the brutality of a pre-Christian culture, which is what necessitated the severity of OT injunctions in the first place.

Inspiration and providence operate in tandem. The inspired law code of Moses didn’t function in a vacuum. Ancient Israel was surrounded by enemies and infiltrated by idolaters.

Her law code was suited to the challenges she was facing at that time and place. And to the extent that contemporary conditions revert to pre-Christian conditions, thanks to the Far Left, it will be necessary to take more sterner measures to deal with the unremitting brutality of the threat to civilized behavior.