There is a fourteenth-century poem by Guillaume de Machaut that tells about how the Black Death ravaged a northern French city (I could not find an English translation of this poem online, but I read about the poem in an excellent book I’m reading, Saved from Sacrifice by Mark Heim.)
Curiously, the poem seems to blame the Jews in the city for the Black Death. It condemns Jews in the city for killing large numbers of its citizens by poisoning the rivers, and it also enumerates various grotesque practices by the Jews.
But then the poem goes on to state about how the citizens of the city rose up and carried out a massacre of the Jews, and how this massacre was clearly God’s will because it was accompanied by heavenly signs. Furthermore, after the massacre concluded, the plague left the city, which was seen as proof to the citizens that the Jews were the ones guilty for bringing the plague upon them in the first place.
It’s a tragic poem, but I hope you can read between the lines and see that the events it describes are not historically accurate.
We all understand what really happened.
Reading Between the Lines
Most likely, the Black Plague really did ravage the town, much as it ravaged many towns at that time. But as usually happens in such situations, people started looking for someone to blame, and in this town, because the Jewish people were seen as “outsiders under the curse of God,” they became the scapegoats.
But they could not just be killed. They first had to be demonized.
So the villagers came up with stories about how the Jews poisoned the river and engaged in various grotesque and illicit practices.
Once the Jews were properly demonized, they could be “righteously” killed.
After the Jews were killed, any sort of natural occurrence was viewed as a sign from heaven that God approved of the massacre. Maybe the day of the massacre began with dark clouds and fog, but as the massacre commenced, the sun shone through the clouds. Maybe that night a star fell from the sky. Maybe an eagle landed on the house of the town mayor. But whatever the events were, they were interpreted as heavenly signs.
Later, of course, the plague went away, and this also was interpreted as a sign that the Jews were to blame. We, of course, look back and recognize that the Black Plague had simply ran its course, as it did everywhere else.
I am not sure of the exact historical events, but it doesn’t really matter. We are able to read the poem by Guillaume de Machaut and see through the events to what actually occurred: “Frightened citizens persecuted a religious minority, projecting blame for the plague on them and seeking by violence to stop the dissolution of their community” (Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, 55).
You do not need to have been there to have this historical insight into the true story behind this tragic poem.
Stereotypes of Scapegoating
In his book, Saved from Sacrifice, Heim explains our “insight” into what “really happened” this way:
We don’t take this story at face value. We see through it precisely when it takes up certain anti-Semitic themes. The moment the Jews are mentioned in connection with the plague, the moment they are accused of poisoning the water supply, of bearing physical deformities, of practicing sexual perversions, bells go off.
These are stereotypes, trotted out again and again as preludes to pogroms.
They are characteristic “marks of the victim” brought forward as justification for the violence. We do not credit them as reports of fact. We have learned to read such a text quite against the grain of the writer who composed it, for whom these matters were as real as the death of the neighbors on the one hand and celestial omens on the other. We practice a hermeneutic of suspicion against persecution (Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, 55).
Yes, that is true. We do. When it comes to these sorts of texts in history and literature, we are fairly adept at “seeing through” the account to what fears and scapegoating mechanisms lie behind the text.
And it is right that we should do so, because this is what Jesus revealed through His death on the cross. The death of Jesus on the cross “rescues us from sin” in that it reveals to us the scapegoating, blame-game mechanism behind most of our sin and violence. We saw it happen to Jesus, and so we are able to see it happen to other people.
We recognize this scapegoating mechanism at work when we read about a town in the middle ages killing Jews because they are accused of causing the black plague. We recognize this scapegoat mechanism when we read about the Nazis in Germany blaming the Jews for the financial problems and cultural upheaval in that country. We recognize the scapegoating mechanism when people burn women for being “witches.” We recognize the scapegoat mechanism when we read about governments justifying genocide against the native people living in the land.
In all these cases, we practice this “hermeneutic of suspicion against persecution” that Heim talks about in his book. And because of the revelation of Jesus Christ on the cross, we have become quite good at recognizing this scapegoat mechanism when we read about it in historical documents.
… Except in one place.
Reading the Bible with Scapegoating in Mind
Have you ever noticed that ALL of the characteristic “marks of the victim” are brought forward over and over again in the Old Testament as justification for the violence carried out against the enemies of Israel?
The stereotypes are trotted out as preludes to pogroms, but rather than “see through the text” at what is really going on, we nod our head in astonishing agreement with the text.
Like a pre-programmed robot, we say, “Yes … the Canaanites were very evil. Yes, they practiced horrible things. Grotesque things. They worshipped demons and were demonic themselves. Yes, they needed to die to cleanse the land and protect the people of Israel. Yes, God wanted them all to die. Yes, God even sent signs and miracles to Israel when they slaughtered the Canaanites showing that such actions were righteous and divinely ordained.”
Why can we see “through” the blatant lies and false accusations and scapegoating violence when we read such historical accounts, but not when we read the Bible?
Has it ever occurred to you that we read the Bible with blinders on?
It has recently occurred to me, and now, when I read the Bible, especially the violent portions in the Old Testament, my eyes tear up. It’s like reading an account of Nazi Germany … from the viewpoint of the Nazis.
Yet we Christians whitewash the entire thing and say that all the killing, and genocide, and slaughter was “justified.” That it was righteous. That God wanted it. Commanded it. Demanded it.
“And look!” we say. “There’s proof! The waters parted! The walls fell down! The sun stood still! There was peace in the land afterward!”
Yes, which is exactly what every group always says whenever they carry out scapegoating genocide. Those who carry out genocidal violence “believe they are (a) revenging an appalling offense against their entire community [and God as well], (b) expelling the contaminating evil from their midst, and (c) obeying a divine mandate” (Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, 51-52).
Note that this is also what happened when Jesus was killed. His accusers raised a large number of baseless and patently false accusations against Him, then felt that it was necessary to expel His evil from their midst, and they did all this in obedience to the command of God (so they claimed).
Jesus was the ultimate scapegoat … to reveal that we all scapegoat!
When we read the account of the crucifixion of Jesus, we see right through the murderous, scapegoating violence. We see that Jesus was not guilty for that which He was condemned and killed.
I See Dead People
And now we are back to my question: Why can we see “through” the blatant lies and false accusations and scapegoating violence when we read the account of the crucifixion, but not when we read the rest of the Bible?
Again, I think we are reading the Bible with blinders on.
We read and preach and teach these horrible texts without a bat of an eye or a sign of a tear. We talk about what these texts “mean” and “how to apply them to our lives” and what they “reveal about God.”
But we don’t think about what they are really, truly saying.
We don’t see what they really, truly reveal. The victims disappear, and we become guilty of the same crime as those who crucified Jesus. We say they had it coming. We say it was necessary to cleanse the land. We say that God decreed it. We say that God blessed it.
And we ignore the piles of bloody bodies rotting in the hot desert sun.
I am convinced that we will never, ever see the Bible for what it really is until we are able to read it and say, “I see dead people.”
The Bible was not written primarily to reveal God to us, but was written to reveal the same thing that Jesus revealed on the cross, which is that we scapegoat people in the name of God. And until we see this, we will never read the Old Testament correctly, nor will we ever understand God properly.
You will never understand the Old Testament until you see the victims.
The piles of bloody victims.
The masses of people unjustly murdered.
You will never understand the Old Testament until you see the genocide.
And don’t try to sidetrack this with discussions about inerrancy or inspiration or any of the other fancy theological words we use to divert our attention away from the bodies of bloody men, women, and children strewn all over the pages of our Holy Bible.
This is not about the sanctity of God’s Word, but about the sanctity of God’s people … namely, ALL people.
Once you are able to see this about the Bible, there will be no going back. Not just with how you read the Bible, but also with how you view life.
Once you begin to see dead people in the Bible, your eyes are opened and you begin to see dead people today. You will begin to see that the people we blame for the ills of society and the problems of culture and the war “over there” and the problems in our town, might not be the ones at fault after all…
Maybe, just maybe, those people over there are not to blame. Replace “those people over there” with whatever group you want … the communists, the Muslims, the liberals, the Tea partiers, the gays, the illegal immigrants.
Maybe the fault is not with them … but with us.
This is the perspective that comes from holding the mirror of Scripture before our face and taking a good, long look at how the Israelites scapegoated the Canaanites and how both the Jews and the Romans scapegoated Jesus, and how we ourselves scapegoat other people today.
Thankfully, there are countless Christians around the world who are starting to take the blinders off. They are reading the Bible with renewed eyes and are seeing that the violence of the Old Testament text is actually this genocidal, murderous, scapegoating violence.
And look … I firmly believe in inspiration and inerrancy. I truly do. I just think that the divinely inspired text inerrantly reveals something that few Christians want to see. The Bible reveals the dead people. It is a revelation of death and violence, and where death and violence come from.
The answer? They come from us. Not from God. From us.
But we don’t want to see this. We don’t want to admit it. So we put our blinders on and go back to nodding our heads along with texts that talk about the divinely-sanctioned slaughter of thousands of victims. We participate in the scapegoating, and we put to death the Son of Man all over again.
Until you see dead people, you are no better than those who cried out at the trial of Jesus, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
Until you see dead people, you will be the one who puts people to death.
Jeremy, you wrote, “Why can we see “through” the blatant lies and false accusations and scapegoating violence when we read the account of the crucifixion, but not when we read the rest of the Bible?”
The answer is simple: Because Jesus taught from the Tanakh and his high regard for Scripture is obvious throughout the Gospels. He said “Scripture cannot be broken.” Jesus never accused the OT writers of scapegoating. Furthermore, Paul, viewed by most Christians as a great role model, said, “I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets…” It seems Paul couldn’t see the scapegoating either.
It depends on what we consider scripture is.
Man is interposed between God and the words of the Bible.
The contradictions within scripture are voluminous. This doesn’t mean that we can’t use it, but God doesn’t want us to use it as many do.
God is love not rules.
Blessings.
Lewis, I agree, but I think if you want to say the OT accounts of a violent God are inaccurate, you have to be willing to say Jesus and Paul were wrong. And very few Christians are willing to go that far.
But Jesus and Paul never embraced the violence of god in the OT either. In fact, Jesus was verry selective when it came to quote the OT. He never quoted the Book of Joshua for example. And his teaching about judging in the sermon of the mount is spelling out, what Jeremy explains here in an existential form (and so does his words about giving the other cheek, walking the second mile and so on – he explains here what should mean to hold high the law of god, and what is this other, then do the opposite what the Israelite did, when they conquered Canaan? So he spells out, how to read the OT! But it’s different from “god said it that’s settles it”.). And if you read the story of the good samaritan with this in mind, you’ll see, that when the Levite and the Priest don’t help the poor guy, it could have to do a lot with scapegoating, because, ya know, he is a samaritan, he had it comming…
You are absolutely right Jay.
So why are these passages recorded in the bible?
My take is that it is EXACTLY the process of questioningthat they cause.
Let’s face it a lot of misunderstanding could have been stopped by a clear statement at the begining of the bible which said exactly what is most important to know & do, but it is not there.
The PROCESS of discovery that can only be accomplished in FAITHFUL QUESTIONING is what God is bearing with us in.
Blessings.
Jeremy, your post is spot on! But you will make a lot of people very angry with it too. thank you for pointing out, what reading the scriptures from the viewpoint of the cross could look like.
Sorry, my posts where mashed up. This one should have go under Jeremys original and my answer to Peter didn’t show up. Hum.
So here is the answer to Peter again.
But Jesus and Paul didn’t embrace the violence of god in the OT either. In fact Jesus was very selective when he quoted the scriptures (he never quotes the book of Joshua for example). And if you take his teaching about not judging others (“make them not your scapegoat” you could put it into words) there he shows what Jeremy said in an existential way. And if you take Jesus words in the sermon of the mount about giving the other cheek and going the extra mile, loving your enemies and so on, he is defining what upholding the words of the law meant for him. So in his way he said “read between the lines, dude!” He has a complete different take on the scriptures than the people in his time (and also us, I would say). And if you read the story of the good Samaritan with this in mind, you can easy see, that is not only a story about how to act but also a critique on the scapegoating what the Levit and the Priest was probably doing, when they let the poor guy rot to death (“ya know, it would make me unclean to help, the guy probably had it coming, I better serve the Lord”). Maybe that stretches it, but underlying I cane see that theme to…
Jay – you wrote:
But Jesus and Paul didn’t embrace the violence of god in the OT either. In fact Jesus was very selective when he quoted the scriptures
unquote
Jesus said: Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
GOD & Heaven are not of this realm.
Great discussion here. I read it all.
To sort of summarize my own views…. I do not believe that Scripture is wrong anywhere. I just believe that is rightly reveals something that many people miss, which is the original sin, the founding sin, the basic sin of all human society and culture. What is that? The sin of scapegoating.
It begins immediately in Genesis 3 (as I will point out in my Podcast), heats up in Genesis 4, and then carries on all the way through the Bible. The ultimate crime of scapegoating, of course, is the crucifixion of Jesus, who, on the cross, gives the clearest revelation of scapegoating in history.
Jeremy, I’ve always believed that God is love and light. There can be no hatred or darkness in Him. Yet I also believed in the angry God of the Old Testament who told His people to kill them all, even their babies. When I read this article about seeing dead people, I could finally see truth about God. God is not the murderer, we are. Sin does not come from God but from us. Scape-goating allows us to justify our sins and prejudices and to truly hate people. Then murder becomes easy. My prayer is that we may all become more like God and less like ourselves.
Yeah
Jeremy.
I think the original sin is that of misinterpreting and therefore suspicion of God’s intentions towards us.
We therefore try to secure ourselves in selfish ways. This always leads to violence which can only be quelled by us (with our mixed up thinking) by the sacrifice of a scapegoat.
We then believe this is how God behaves.
Blessings.
“There is a fourteenth-century poem by Guillaume de Machaut that tells about how the Black Death ravaged a northern French city…. Curiously, the poem seems to blame the Jews in the city for the Black Death.”
Are you referring to the Jugement du roy de Navarre?
I am going to have to work on this concept; my brain is swamped with the new images.
I have always been uncomfortable with God ordering mass murder, but I accepted the “need” for Israel to develop a sense of purity and trust in God. Now, I’m not so sure.
If a man charges me with a large knife, do I need to try to see him as a human in need of understanding, or do I need to run like hell?
Yes, struggle away! I am struggling as well.
Understand that there is a vast difference between murderous violence and self-defense violence, and another huge chasm between both of those forms of violence and scapegoating violence.
If you are getting charged by a man with a knife, I would say run like hell. Or, if possible, take the knife away from him to keep from getting stabbed.
I like your blog post, but I disagree somewhat with your intro paragraph above. The Bible does reveal scapegoating – and it also reveals Jesus.
Heather, I argue the same thing in the longer post.
Looks kind of like more picking and choosing of what we want to see as from God. How about you offer some exegesis on the texts where God commands Israelites to kill?
Picking & choosing is exactly right.
That is what Jesus did and intends us to do.
If the bible seems to tell us to do something that feels unloving and wrong then we need to think hard.
God has given us a conscience for a reason.
Blessings.
Totally disagree. To think that I should put my speculations and ‘wisdom’ above God’s wisdom? The Lord have mercy on me if I ever do that.
Luke 24:25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Hi Dave,
If you or your country’s leader heard from God that He wanted you to erradicate all the people of a neighbouring country would you obey?
If not why not?
Blessings.
Hi Lewis,
I live in the United States. I don’t consider the United States to be a theocracy uniquely instituted by God to dispense special revelation, nor mete out His justice, nor is she raising up prophets that consistently and repeatedly give overt, compelling signs that a supernatural power is behind their decrees.
However, if I was an ancient Israelite, and I saw things like the Red Sea parting, staff turned into snakes, and the Shekinah glory, and prophets predicting specific future events with 100% accuracy, and other nations setting their face against Israel to destroy her and/or engaged in human sacrifice, and they weren’t typical humans but were actually a group of hybrids like the Nephalim or the Rephaim that were polluting the gene pool to try to foil God’s plan of ultimately bringing a Messiah to save all mankind one day, and God wanted them to repent and sent them warning after warning, and they refused, and God commanded me thus….yes, then under those circumstances I pray that I would be obedient to whatever YHWH commanded me to do.
Hello again Dave,
Yes Jesus came to correct misconceptions we have about God.
While I don’t definitively know which scriptures He opened I am pretty sure they were not the genocidal ones.
We will have to disagree about this for the moment – time will tell what God would want us to believe of Him.
Joy & peace, brother.
Great discussion here, as well. Thanks for the input.
Dave,
Just to riff on the United States example a bit more …
When we went to war with Iraq, many of our nation’s religious leaders said that this was God’s will, and that we needed to bomb Iraq back into the dark ages. Were they speaking for God or were they not? Many people believed so.
By the way, I was a pastor at the time, and I was one of those pastors who said that it was God’s will to bomb Iraq…
How is this different than what we read about in the Old Testament genocidal texts?
Blessing to you to Lewis. I pray that if you are misguided in your understanding, He would reveal that to you. I also pray the same for myself that if I am misguided, He would reveal that to me.
This is so true! The scriptures clearly teach that God is love and He is light with no darkness in Him. For this to be true, He could never command His children to do murder!
Ecclesiastes 3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
It’s Solomon’s words not God’s. Beware misquotes!
Cristian
For me His words are authoritative. It is not ‘merely’ King’s Solomon’s Word. If it were merely that, why include it in the canon? Why even study it at all? It’s from a document that is considered part of the protestant canon, and thus commonly referred to as ‘God’s Word.’
Luke 24:25 ‘And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!’
Also the apostle Paul : All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
Wow Jeremy I like your post and I have listened to every podcast.
Picking and choosing can be good! Excellent Jesus did quote from the Old Testement with a picking and choosing manner. Excellent I now have a better informed way to view the writings before Jesus. Jesus said the writings all decsribe me yet it seems God did show us evil scapegoating from Adam onward.
I have done this very thing in various posts on my blog.
Spot on, Jeremy. I hope a lot of people will read this. But you will make a lot of them pretty angry, I guess.
Amen.
Look into Rene’ Girard’s Mimetic Theory. Jesus came to show us it’s possible to break the violence cycle, we’ve still got a long way to go.
Yes! I have been reading and studying on Mimetic theory for about two years or so. This post came out of some of my thinking on that subject. It has been the most theologically eye-opening experience I have had in 20 years or more.
I appreciate you more than I can say Jeremy. It’s wonderful having you along in this pursuit.
Jay, you wrote, “But Jesus and Paul never embraced the violence of god in the OT either. In fact, Jesus was verry selective when it came to quote the OT. He never quoted the Book of Joshua for example. And his teaching about judging in the sermon of the mount is spelling out, what Jeremy explains here in an existential form (and so does his words about giving the other cheek, walking the second mile and so on – he explains here what should mean to hold high the law of god, and what is this other, then do the opposite what the Israelite did, when they conquered Canaan? So he spells out, how to read the OT!”
This is an argument from silence and inference. You could be right, but you could also be wrong. The fact that Jesus never denounced OT violence or implied that it was not commanded by his Father means the best we can do is argue from silence and inference.
You may be comfortable doing this and at times I may be comfortable doing this, but I’m sure you realize it won’t be easy to get millions of Christians to the point where they are comfortable doing this.
I appreciate Jeremy’s blog but I think he needs to recognize in his writing the very real dilemma Christians face when moving in the direction he is moving in. The record of what Jesus said (and what Jesus didn’t say) has created a long-standing tension that cannot be easily dismissed.
Peter,
I actually think that there are clear statements by Jesus in numerous places where He denounces the violence of the Old Testament texts. Maybe He does quote the texts and then say, “This is wrong,” but He pretty clearly says that instead of hating our hurting our enemies, we should love them and pray for them and bless them.
Also, when his disciples want to call down fire from heaven to incinerate the city that did not accept Jesus (this fit perfectly with God’s behavior in the OT, does it not?), Jesus rebukes them for this.
And so on…
Jeremy – scripture also states:
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
God wanted the nations surrounding Israel to repent, and He gave them an incredibly long time to do so, but ultimately, there is a window of opportunity that eventually shuts. Then God pronounced His judgement and called the Israelites to carry out that judgement. That in no way would contradict the general principle for an individual to love their personal enemies that they encounter. Love is the fulfillment of the Law. Deuteronomy is an expression of that Love.
Jesus might have denounced SOME instances of violence because not all violence in the OT was ordained, but other instances were decreed by God, so Jesus wouldn’t have refuted that, otherwise He would be refuting Himself:
Jesus said: Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
A lengthy response from me:
Your blog is interesting, but I think it is off base. In some situations, what you allege may be the case. However, several passages (two included below as examples) says that the LORD commands the people be destroyed. Deuteronomy includes the people in the land Israel occupies. So, that leaves one of a few conclusions: (1) The writer of the words is incorrect in ascribing these words to the LORD, which becomes problematic with the issue of inerrancy (you affirm inerrancy in your blog). He believed it was from the LORD, but it was not. (2) A variation, the writer did NOT believe it was from the LORD, but the writers says so to justify the actions of the people. That creates the problem of knowing when the LORD really spoke vs. when it is the writer’s (incorrect) allegation that the LORD spoke when nothing in the text indicates it is NOT the LORD. The only indication that this is “scapegoating” is reading it into the text (it seems to me, anyway). If God says “destroy these people” then it is HIS command, not something done arbitrarily by the people. In fact, Saul is disciplined BY God for FAILING to take out the people.
Some of the historical examples you give do, in fact, fit the premise of “scapegoating.” But the key issue is “thus saith the Scriptures.” It is one thing for me to claim – or even believe – that “God told me to do this.” It something else when the Scriptures initiate the action with God, “Thus says the LORD.” If the Scriptures are to be believed, then the actions that follow do come as a result of God’s command, not people “scapegoating.”
I do not minimize the deaths of these people, and I do struggle with “defending” God (realizing, of course, that he does not need my defense). I am not here going to “defend” the actions. But to ascribe them to “scapegoating” sure seems to ignore the plain words of the text!
On another note, yet related. Your comments at the end seem to be a type of scapegoating themselves, although much different in extent. To say “Until you see dead people, you are no better than those who cried out at the trial of Jesus, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ Until you see dead people, you will be the one who puts people to death.” sure feels like scapegoating – if you disagree with my premise, you are “one of those.” Perhaps I disagree because I think your premise doesn’t line up with the text. I do see “dead people,” but I do not rejoice in their destruction, and I clearly do not see them (all) as the result of human scapegoating.
“Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. 3 ‘Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” (1 Sam. 15:2-3)
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. (Deut. 7:1-2)
A 3rd option, which I adopt, is to read these texts in light of Jesus crucified on the cross. To the outside observer, he looked guilty. To those who crucified Him, He was guilty, and they were doing God’s will in crucifying Him.
This is also how to read the OT texts. They are inspired and inerrant because they reveal scapegoating for the sin that it is. And not just how we scapegoat others, but also (and primarily) how we scapegoat God.
The text doesn’t have to mention scapegoating for it to be about scapegoating. In fact, for true scapegoating to occur, those doing it should not be aware that they are doing it.
That’s reading into to the text your own feelings. If the scripture says, ‘And God said go do this and that.’ And we just say, oh, they were deluded, God didn’t command that at all, he actually was against that…..how is that not completely abandoning grammatical-historical exegesis, and inherency along with it? Sounds like starting off with your own theology and supporting it with those passages you like, then effectively whiting out the other passages by saying they were deluded there and were making false statements. Might makes right. God is omnipotent. He doesn’t need our permission to anything. To eliminate God’s justice is to eliminate God’s love. His justice is part of His loving nature. If the scripture isn’t reliable when it claims that God pronounced judgement on certain people groups, why on earth would we think it’s reliable when it speaks about heaven, hell, the resurrection, the trinity. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is noone righteous. We are all worthy of death, to look at God and say ‘how could you do this’ indicates not having grasped how desperately wicked all humans are(including myself). We have no choice but to rely on his mercy. Not sure how one can simultaneously say, ‘yeah, it makes numerous false claims, but it’s innerant.’
Might makes right?
Is that a biblical idea or an idea you are reading into the text to match your own theology?
you wrote:
The text doesn’t have to mention scapegoating for it to be about scapegoating.
Isn’t that eisegesis?
Furthermore by this standard set forth, couldn’t just about anything pass for being ‘inerrant’? One could even say such detestable works as Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ was inspired, unbeknownst to himself, Hitler was illustrating the concept of scapegoating. Yes, he was delusional and had no idea he was scapegoating, but it was still ‘inerrant’. Hitler was totally oblivious, yet in actuality, he showed us what NOT to do.
Dave,
Maybe you don’t understand how I am using scapegoating. My fault. I probably need to write a post explaining what scapegoating is and is not, and how to recognize it in Scripture, and (more importantly) how we scapegoat others.
If/when I write that post, one of the defining characteristics of scapegoating violence is that those who engage in it are fully convinced that they are doing God’s will. They do not see it as scapegoating at all, but as carrying out God’s commands.
Jeremy, I think what you are teaching is dangerous. Since in your opinion the prophets THOUGHT they were speaking for God, but in reality were not(they were deluded), shouldn’t have they been put to death:
Deuteronomy 18, starting in verse 9:
When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
Jeremy – you seem to miss my point. How is it scapegoating if it is commanded by God?
We disagree here. I’ll leave it at that.
Great response Roger!
Right on, Bro. Roger.
Interesting reading. I’m conflicted. Moses is the person who actually penned the list of sinful behaviors of the Canaanites. And said God said, “Do not be like them”. I can agree that God did say “Don’t be like them.” … But man, in my experience of hearing from God, also interprets what the Spirit is saying through their own experiences. Hearing what the Spirit says, is incredibly tricky business. What DID Moses think about those Canaanites?
Yes, very difficult questions with no clear answers. This is part of what makes Scripture so fun to study.
In this light I still wonder about those plagues the people of Egypt suffered.
Would these be just natural things to happen and blamed on God for executing those natural events? I could understand this with the first nine plagues but the 10th would need the hand of a higher power, because it was only the first born, or did they make this up? I mean Jesus did celebrate Passover and even set it as an celebration for us, only with a whole new image to it.
So was God the killer of Egyptian children and if he was, then what does it say about Him?
Yes, the plagues are some of the most difficult texts for me to understand in the OT.
I don’t see how God could have carried them out, but at the same time, I don’t see how to understand the text if He didn’t.
How were the firstborns to die—tangible murder, or a disease brought about by poor birthing conditions engineered by the medical community of the time, or by a pulse from the Anananunki planet that could be attributed to a weak, ineffectual god assigned to this sector of the universe and passed off as omnipotent because He thought he was, or knew he had to pretend to be,to give humans Any Hope AT ALL?
My opinion: Applying the terms “infallible” and “inerrant” to Scripture as some define those terms often forces a construct upon those writings that was never intended by those who wrote them. It’s not a matter of “picking and choosing”, but a matter of trying to figure out what the original writers in their context were trying to say.
Jesus said that He and the Father are one. If that is true, why then do many people think that the God of some parts of the “Old Testament” does not look much, if anything, like the Jesus we encounter in the New Testament? Are we dealing with two different Gods?
Could it be that the writers of those troublesome stories in the “Old Testament” wrote down what they and the people of their day understood? Israel prevailed in battle with the Philistines or whomever. That “proved” God was on their side. It “proved” God had told them to slaughter the enemy. That was how they understood God.
We understand God differently, especially in light of the One who came, took on flesh and walked among us. Well, some of us understand God differently. Some claim that every storm, every problem we experience, either as individuals or as a nation is punishment for some supposed “sin”. If God uses hurricanes, tsunamis, bridge collapses and other such events to destroy the guilty and innocent alike, then it’s no reach to conclude that he also ordered ancient Israel to slaughter their enemies, that he caused the earth to open and swallow people who disobeyed and so on.
That is not the God I know. I know a God of love. He came, knowing full well that he would be murdered by his creation. We are the violent ones. Humanity killed Jesus. We kill each other. Jesus, however, told us to love each other. He did not tell us to kill each other. Jesus modeled love. Many of us seem to forget that.
We think that we should kill those we think are our enemies, real or imagined. It’s o.k. That’s what God does. He kills his enemies and tells his people to kill their enemies. Now all that remains is to decide who our enemies might be. Who is on your list? Well that differs somewhat from my list, so how about we kill them all – in the name of God of course? Surely God tells us to do that. It sounds very Biblical. That love others and love enemies stuff Jesus talks about certainly must refer to other Christians, at least the ones we know are real Christians, the ones that think and believe just like we do about all things.
You’re mixing up different contexts into one. In the Old Testament, Israel was a theocracy with the authority to say, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ For whatever reason, God chose to speak to the Israelites, and thru them mete out justice. God declared judgement and need not apologize for it. If you can accept the concept of a just war, then most of the ‘problems’ with the OT go away. If you have a problem with a just war, then you are likely going to have a problem with the God revealed by Israel’s prophets. There is A LOT more too it, and if you study it for a few weeks/months, it makes a lot more sense. Jesus ushered in a new spiritual economy. Christians aren’t called to set up a theocracy, they are called to change the world by spreading His message of forgiveness, the message that we can avoid judgement if we accept His free gift, that He received the judgement that we deserved.
I’ve studied these issues for far more than a few weeks or months and understand them differently.
Sam,
As you know, I am pretty much in agreement with you! I still like the terms inspired and inerrant, even though, as you say, these might be causing people to misunderstand what I am saying and might be forcing an alien construct upon the text that it cannot bear.
Anyway, regarding the violence, I fully agree that whatever we understand the OT to be saying, it must be understood and interpreted through the lens of Jesus Christ.
I usually avoid the term inspired, infallible and inerrant because it seems that almost everyone has their own definition for the terms. Saying that one believes the Bible is each of those things has become a touchstone for many. However, hidden behind the “believing” is what one really means by that. I envision someone standing with their hands held behind their back, their fingers crossed, saying those magic words, hoping that will put them in good stead with whoever hears.
Some of us, however, rally to another touchstone. That would be Jesus. We may indeed claim to be convinced of those words, yet do we really believe what Jesus said? Do we believe it enough that we live it? Or do we live by our own words in our real and secret lives?
Whether or not God ordered ancient Israel to slaughter X does affect the faith (or lack of faith ) of some. But do I believe Jesus is who he said he is? Does he indeed have power over death? If the answer to those questions is “NO!”, then we are indeed without hope. If the answer is yes, if we really do believe, then ought we not hear his words and live by them? Love God, love ourselves and love others? Then all else follows, including discussions on topics such as this in places such as this.
Jeremy – earlier, you wrote –
Dave,
Just to riff on the United States example a bit more …
When we went to war with Iraq, many of our nation’s religious leaders said that this was God’s will, and that we needed to bomb Iraq back into the dark ages. Were they speaking for God or were they not? Many people believed so.
By the way, I was a pastor at the time, and I was one of those pastors who said that it was God’s will to bomb Iraq…
How is this different than what we read about in the Old Testament genocidal texts?
Well, I had covered this in a previous post, but perhaps you didn’t see it. So I’ll repost some of them:
a) Israel was a theocracy, the United States is not. Furthermore, Israel was a REAL theocracy set up by YHWH. I’m almost sensing from some that they think God has no right to set up a theocracy, and no right to pronounce his judgment on people. God also raised up REAL prophets. NOT people who were deluded, believed in Unicorns and tooth fairies. I’m sensing that people think that God is not allowed to raise up prophets to be his spokesperson/representative.
b) Israel raised up prophets that undeniably demonstrated the power of God: they saw the Red Sea(or sea of reeds) part, they saw staffs turn into snakes, they say prophets predicting specific future events, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over…. With 100% accuracy. Do we see that today? If not, then they don’t deserve the same authority They saw the Shekinah glory. Have we seen anything remotely like any of these things from the any of the offices of the United States government?
c) In the time of ancient Israel, the Nephilim, Rephaim, and other hybrids had polluted the gene pool. Something had to be done, or God’s plan to redeem all mankind would be thwarted. That was a HUGE problem, one that warrants a book devoted to that topic alone.
Why is it that just because God set up a REAL theocracy with REAL prophets, thru whom God declared REAL judgements. Why is it that if one accepts that, one counter-argument seems to be that any schmuck/country can come along and say God spoke to them, and somehow that’s presented as a ‘moral equivalence’? When those countries demonstrate many of these authenticating signs, THEN you have an argument. Until then, there’s no comparison.
So when you were a pastor arguing for a just war in Iraq, I think a valid argument can be made for that. You could very well claim that ‘in your opinion’ God wants the US to go to war. However, unless you pronounced ‘Thus saith the Lord’ and declared that you were a prophet and etc. etc.(demonstrated some of the signs in a and b) then I think comparing Israel and the modern day US is like comparing the East and the West as the same thing. There’s often a lot of guesswork for us in trying to discern God’s will in many situations. When a prophet of Israel said ‘Thus saith the Lord’ in the Tanach, there was no mystery, and 100% compliance was expected, and to reject the prophet’s message was equivalent to rejecting YHWH’s message.
Sam how do you see the account of the plagues in Egypt?
Taco, I always love your comments. At this time, I have no information on the plagues. However, I have a friend who sometimes has access to information that I do not. I will see if she can find out anything and will let you know if I hear from her.
That would really be great Sam, thanks.
Sam,
It just would have been nice if Jesus had set the record straight. Something as simple as “That stuff Moses said about my Father being angry, violent, and bloodthirsty…it isn’t true.”
You’re right, Peter. It would be really nice if Jesus had set the record straight on lots of things. Personally these things are not the basis of my following Jesus, but I know they appear to be barriers for many. In my experience, I’ve never encountered an angry, violent God. I’ve seen such things only in science fiction movies. That would be frightening indeed. We’d want to hide from a god like that. How would it be possible to love such a god or to think he loved us? Horror of horrors – Even if we killed ourselves he would probably be chasing us around in the afterlife like those characters in the former television show “Sleepy Hollow”.
I want to weep when there’s a disaster and people are hurt or die and some self-described Christian personality claims that God made it happen to punish X because of Y. Unfortunately there are people who are gullible enough to believe such drivel to the point of sending the drivel masters money so they can continue to spout their nonsense. What an odd way to make a living, capitalizing off the pain and sorrow of others.
Always remember “Criticism is the cost of influence” for good or bad. I am grateful for your influence on us for the glory of Jesus alone buddy. Thanks for the sober reminder. Appreciate the word brother! Peace!
I can’t accept your interpretation that the cannaanites were demonized to make way for war. Scripture teaches that instructions were given by God as to how to attack Jericho. Creating doubt here is creating doubt in biblical truth and authenticity. You are opening the door to doubting all of scripture. Many things done in the old testament are not clearly stated as God’s will and I am willing to entertain doubts in those cases, but those things that are clearly stated as His will have to be accepted or the scripture loses all meaning.
Right on Matthew. 100% nailed it. It’s a recipe for throwing out anything we find objectionable. At that point, I’m not sure what differentiates it from any other book of man. Just think how different history would be if Abraham said, ‘Woa wha? sacrifice my son? no way!’ That wouldn’t have been a faith in God response, it would have been a faith in self response.
Proverbs 3 – 5Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
But I don’t see that here, rather, it looks like leaning on man’s understanding and what doesn’t line up in scripture, just say they got it wrong.
Matthew and Dave,
I think you are both misunderstanding the entire point of the post. I am nowhere advocating throwing out anything, or denying the truth of any text.
To the contrary, I am raising up these difficult texts to point out a true revelation from God that most traditional readings of Scripture have completely missed or ignored! Best of all, this revelation from God that is in these texts matches up perfectly with the ultimate revelation from God (and of God) that we have in Jesus Christ.
Bottom line: I think all these texts (which you claim I am discarding) are more true than the church has ever realized! I am not introducing doubt into them at all, but am instead introducing truth and trust into how they can be read in light of Jesus Christ.
Jeremy –
1) Do you believe hell exists? And does God send people to hell? Why or why not?
2) Is God allowed to discipline or judge anyone? Why or why not?
3) How do you tell when a prophet was deluded and when he was speaking a true message from God?
Another illustration of inerrancy and scapegoating in tension can be found in the NT story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). Luke introduces these characters and their “crime” right after telling of the Jerusalem Church Leadership’s decision to live communally (Acts 4:32). Luke’s account doesn’t say that A&S were the only ones who were guilty (out of thousands of new converts) of “lying to the Holy Spirit”, but verse 11 implies it because of the “great fear” that resulted from the severe judgment. Luke quotes Peter in 5:3 “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?”. Does this sound like scapegoating on Peter’s part? In this scripture, inerrancy can be attributed to Luke the historian (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) in that he quotes Peter correctly and gives an account of real people. The error belongs to Peter who decides to take bold action using the spiritual power he received (Mat 16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”) to avenge God, forgetting that Jesus just died for A&S so that they might not be condemned. The NIV bible even cross-references Psm 6:5 “you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, Lord, detest.” In times of transition (early nation of Israel, early church) and times of great stress, the “OT and NT heroes of the faith” can be expected to make deadly mistakes and even lie about them. We, the readers (Christian and non-Christian) error also in that we insist on drawing simple “moral truths” from difficult bible stories that clearly contradict God’s character.
Disagree with the hermeneutics involved here. In my opinion this doesn’t even slightly contradict God’s character. God could immediately smite every single person and still be 100% loving God. People just don’t understand how wicked all of us are. Furthermore, Paul talks about the ‘sin unto death’ and that is what A & S committed here. It doesn’t say they went to hell, just that they died. When the apostles performed miracles, they did so in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can’t be forced to do things against His will. I agree that this is a difficult passage, but I divide this text differently than you. Each person must make up their own mind.
Dave – I think I’m as uncomfortable with the hermeneutics as you are but the fact is Moses through the Holy Spirit hit the rock a second time and water came forth which angered God greatly (Num 20:11-12). Moses demanded meat or death in Numbers 11:15 and the spirit of God provided. Israel demanded a king like all the other nations (etc.)
Since this thread is about “reading between the lines” I suggested the story of A&S because I read Peter’s will at work in this instance, not the Holy Spirit. There is another account in Acts 8:20 where Peter condemns Simon the Sorcerer and stops just short of delivering him to the same fate as A&S. Simon’s response; “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.” Isn’t this response more true to Jesus’ teaching because Simon understood grace and Peter seems to still be trapped by his Jewish upbringing? My discomfort with reading between the lines is that I see no checks and balances once you start. I read Peter Enn’s book “The Bible tells me so” which helped me sort out some OT issues but his NT examples seemed more “spin” than un-biased reading.
Al B, you make some interesting points. I appreciate that since you are at least acknowledging the accuracy of the author(Luke) that you are preserving inerrancy(unlike some others that have the authors being incorrect and delusional). You put forth some plausible positions (though I may disagree with them). Where to begin….first off, I don’t agree with some of your assumptions. God is allowed to judge without violating his loving character/nature. In my opinion people are seeing contradictions that aren’t there. Jesus talked about Hell quite a bit, and eternal damnation is infinitely worse than a mere death sentence of a mortal that had a 100% chance of dying at some point anyway. But back to some of the specific things you mentioned. I think each of these incidents need to be taken on a case by case basis. The fact that Jesus hadn’t died for our sins yet and that the Holy Spirit didn’t permanently indwell people in the OT can’t be forgotten. So the ‘economy’ of the ‘miracles’ or supernatural acts of power is different. Without having studied the Moses hitting the rock recently…. First off, in Peter’s incident, somebody died, with the rock, nothing like that happened. I know the ‘degree/severity’ of what happened probably wasn’t your point, but it’s worth noting. Second. I’m not sure I fully grasp the mechanics of some of the miracles in the OT, and without going into details (worthy of MANY books actually) there is reason to believe that Moses’ learning of the Egyptians, call it ‘Kabbalah’ if you like, or call it something else, but sometimes what is presented has the faint aura of, for lack of a better term – magic…though I don’t want to call it that, as I don’t want to misrepresent it, and yet it might be best suited to describe some of the mystery…remember the staff-serpent trick? The Egyptians did that too. How? What was the mechanism that Moses used? Was it similar since he was trained in the same schools? It seemed that the person performing the feats…at times had more…..control over what was happening than what we see in the NT. But wasn’t it the MANNER Moses presented the water to the people that ticked God off? After all, the people got the water either way. The H20 provision was made, but God didn’t like the WAY Moses presented it. As far as Israel wanting Kings….I don’t see that as a parallel here. God often sets multiple options in front of us. Sometimes he says…I have set before you life and death, choose life that you may live. Yet, if we want to make the bad choice, he will let us. Other times it’s a choice between his perfect will and his permissive will. So I just see God allowing free will here rather than any conflict with His character. As far as the meat issue, isn’t this just a personal God interacting with his personal creation and showing them undeserved grace because that’s just part of His nature?
So, at this point, none of this compels me to accept that Peter was ‘off the reservation’ in his judgment of A&S….And yet, I don’t want to argue against your theory too strongly because you did give it a plausible context. It’s something worth investigating further. Frankly, the whole ‘keys of the kingdom’ bit…very little seems to be clear about that passage. I know that Catholics love it for obvious reasons, and I know Protestants have a good ‘rebuttal.’ What on earth does it mean? At this point I haven’t heard enough on this topic for it to be settled in my mind. I need to investigate it further….that is, if there’s any decent material on the subject to be found.
Look at the ESV: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
And now the NASB: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
Protestants love the NASB take on this, as the way it’s worded in the latter translation reflects that perhaps, Peter is merely declaring what has already been determined ‘in heaven.’ He’s not giving orders to, molding, or controlling the heavenly realm. In other words he didn’t have the inflated authority some Catholics perceived him to have.
Worth further investigation.
Dave,
We’ve certainly gone beyond what I’m equipped to interpret. I would just point out that if Peter is doing any “binding” and “loosing” it’s got to mean more than declaring what heaven has pre-ordained. NASB could just be saying that God knows ahead of time when we will fail horribly. Yet, He allows it, and by his wisdom – accomplishes his purposes in spite of us?
Doesn’t “reading between the lines” demonstrate the adage that apologetics doesn’t need to settle every issue – it is often sufficient to just agree to take it off the table? Thanks for sticking with me on this one.
Al B , I have an additional suggestion. Part of the key to understanding what Jesus was talking about here is WHERE it took place: Caesarea Philipi, a town north of Galilee at the base of Mount Hermon. What took place at Mount Hermon? According to Enoch 1 chapter 6, this is where 200 Watchers descended and eventually committed the acts described in Genesis 6, Jude, Enoch, and other places. Jesus was declaring War, once again against the gates of Hades, which was located at Mount Hermon. This is a spiritual battle. Jesus was saying ‘Game On.’ I think the binding and loosing may have had more to do with THIS. Michael Heiser has taught on this and I recommend him highly. Also a google search on Mount Hermon/Enoch/Nephilim/sons of god/etc. will provide some interesting reading….in my humble opinion most of the ‘problems’ with the OT, many of the solutions are illuminated only with this context.
We Christians could be the next group that is scapegoated.
I have always believed that we, religious folks, have a habit of hiding behind God to justify our actions.
I also believe, if God wants a civilization destroyed, he does not need me to do it for him. God is capable of doing it himself. Or more then likely, leaving us to our own consequences and we destroy ourselves.
I absolutely agree. I have always believed the Bible is a book about “what not to do.”
If God decides to bring judgment on a civilization, what ever it maybe; he does not need me to do it for him. God can take care of it himself.
I think many people hid behind God to justify terrible things.
Hitler thought he was doing God’s will.
I can see dead people! And I think we all can to be honest. Dead in grief. Dead in addiction. Dead in many, many thanks. With no one to save them in their deadness. But as we know. There is a saviour. Who can raise us from the dead. And immediately and not at the end of our years. Yes. I see dead people daily. And rotting in the mid day sun or in the chills of winter. Desease and sin are a leveler.