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Friday, October 03, 2014

Are Biblical commands right and good?


And does scripture always command what is “right” and provide us with what is “good?” What exactly does that even mean? Especially in light of well known commands in the Bible that neither Jews nor Christians would normally consider right and good, such as stoning rebellious sons or adulteresses, beating slaves to death, and treating virgin women as property? - See more at: http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2014/09/29/christians-stop-defending-bible-scholar-thinks/#sthash.Sz8k7w52.dpuf

Here's a dandy illustration of how demagogical Peter Enns has become:

i) Since all his examples come from the OT, it's self-refuting for him to deny that Jews would normally consider these "commands" to be right and good. These "commands" hail from the paradigmatic book of Judaism. 

ii) The punishment for adultery was egalitarian. It didn't single out the woman. A man was subject to the very same penalty. So why does he say "adulteresses," but omit to mention adulterers? He knows that's deceptive. But he does that to foster the misimpression that the OT command was sexist or misogynistic.

iii) There's no command to beat slaves to death. There's no command to beat slaves, much less beat them to death. To the contrary, there's a penalty (quite possibly capital punishment) if a master beats his slave to death. So the passage is actually the polar opposite of Enn's insinuation.

You'd think from his statement that the passages authorizes masters to beat their slaves to death, when–in fact–it warns them of the legal repercussions (quite possibly the death penalty) if they kill their slaves. 

iv) He doesn't even bother to say what verse or verses he's alluding to when he alleges that the Bible "commands" ancient Israelites to treat "virgin women as property." 

This isn't about accuracy or exegesis. This is about planting a prejudicial view of the Bible in the minds of Biblically-illiterate readers of the interview. 

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