"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.
Matthew 5:16-18
Matthew 5:18
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Just because YOU don't understand a portion of the Bible, doesn't mean that it doesn't have a lesson to teach Christians.
Politicalmom: There are many things about the bible many do not understand. But what I do understand is that there was a great deal of "editing" of God's word. We do not have the original OT. We ASSUME that the bible was not tinkered with, but in FACT, the Epistle of Barnabus was included in the first known bible, in a museum in England.
Also, we don't even know who the authors are, and there are many written documents not in the bible which witness the words and deeds of Christ. "Religion" is man made, and
in my opinion, a means to control people. Spirituality is a relationship with God.
You are right, I do not "understand" rape, pillage, selling daughters, screwing daughters, killing women who were raped, genocide, sacrifices, slavery, slaughtering babies and pregnant women, or murdering all males in a village and taking the females as "booty." I do not believe many parts of the Old testament are God's word.
My God is kind and loving. All I know is that Jesus answered me when I called out to Him, in a very specific way. That does not mean that my questioning of horrible OT passages make me a non-Christian. The bible lays out what is required. I cannot go back now to unbeleif and atheism, so I am caught between a rock and a hard place. I detest the Old Testament and find it quite unChristian. That doesn't mean my heart is not with Christ.
Since man put the bible together, and altered it over the years, am I to believe that everything in the OT now was in there when Jesus said what He did? Jesus' words and deeds totally contradict these *evil* passages I quoted. I believe Jesus over the OT "prophets". My heroes are His disciples, not people like Lot who offered his virgin daughters to a rape mob, and who, after his wife was killed, slept with his own daughters. SICK!! I do not believe that is rightous, and if my God thinks it is, then He is not my God after all. But He wriote the truth on my heart, and my heart and instincts say the evil in the OT was not inspired by my Lord.
"Just because YOU don't understand a portion of the Bible, doesn't mean that it doesn't have a lesson to teach Christians."
So why don't you enlighten us. Explain what the lesson is in that OT edict that a woman who's being raped but is too frightened to cry out or can't bcse there's a hand over her mouth should be stoned to death. Exactly what am I supposed to learn there that'll make me a better Christian?