Teaching against Abortion in the Earliest Church [Ancient Jews/Christians Opposed Infanticide]

Hi Mrs. Don-o,

Sorry for the delay in responding:

Well, I haven’t enough knowledge to attempt an intelligent opinion on the Mahabharata, the Kurukshetra war, and any related matters. This is a possible avenue for my own further reading and learning.

I do have the impression --- and you must correct me if I'm wrong --- that the entire Mahabharata (inc. the Gita) is an allegory for the ethical and moral struggles of human life. Its intention is to be exalted moral teaching in an ideal, literary construction.

The words of Krishna, in particular, are presented as divine sayings in finished form, a theophany tout court.

This makes it quite different from the conquest of Canaan in the OT, which is not lofty epic poetry, and does not contain systematic moral law per se.

Notice the contrasting levels of development. Apparently the overlords, warriors and sages in the Mahabharata are the heirs of a millenia-long civilization. The people on both sides of this war share the same cultural attainments--- necessarily, since the kingdoms at war are all kin, with the same ancestors and the same teachers.

The Hebrews entering Canaan are at a much more primitive stage: one generation away from abject slavery in which they were deprived of all culture (cleaning the outhouses of Egypt, so to speak, or turning its windlasses like beasts), and thence to wander 40 years in the desert, where the original slave generation dies off altogether and the fugitive descendants are as good as feral, with only Moses to teach them the rudiments. They are not Vedic princes. They are at Square One of development as a society, one foot in dung, the other on the bottom rung.

It's hard to imagine a large population moving together turning feral without a sudden phenomenon killing off all of the parent generation, especially considering the fact that the inter-generational spectrum (the variety in the ages of the population) could not have been sharp enough to cause all of the parent generation to die out nearly simultaneously to cause a generation without guidance to arise. Given that, what evidence exists in the form of verses or arguments to lead to the conclusion that they were utterly lawless? And if they were so, how could the "prophets" command obedience from those who carried out the "prophetic commands" (eg. 1 Saimuel 15:3, again.) A lot hangs on the assumption, and therefore naturally demands greater scrutiny.

If this is so, then the two texts must be evaluated differently. The Indic text is an exalted allegory and the fruit of a long civilization; the Hebrew one is the brute history of the most debased people on earth: a Sand Rat nation of fugitive slaves: slaves chosen (why?), chosen and saved by the One whose name they were forbidden to say. One foot in the dung, one in the Divine; rescued without necessarily wanting to be rescued: "Out of Egypt I called my Son."

Slaves yes, but does their history begin mention in these scriptures as slaves, per-se? A debased people from scratch, or captured and forced into slavery, with a recollection of a free past, thus not necessarily causing them to forget who they were? Then, there is the problem of how the "prophets" managed to garner the obedience of those who carried out the commandments if they were so lawless and depraved as you claim.

I again emphasize that the words --- purportedly God's words --- commanding genocide have no context to establish this as systematic moral theology. The Bible itself doesn’t suggest that 's what it is. It contradicts the warning reiterated throughout the OT, that God abhors the shedding of innocent blood; it finds paradoxical re-evaluation in that the men who shed blood in this way are found unworthy in the end (Moses unworthy to cross the Jordan, David unworthy to build the Temple). Joshua is contrasted with someone immesurably better than Joshua, namely Jesus (their names are the same in Hebrew) in an extensive critique of the Old Testament in the NT Book of Hebews.

It’s a bigger message than you think.

It's either a god's words, or not. What does the Bible force the reader to consider the source of the commandments as being? Any contradiction in this would cause the Bible to be in error, by definition. So, if one can choose what is a contradiction (and by implication, not a commandment / verse sourced from true divinity), what prevents the choice from being the mere whim of the reader?

Read discerningly. Is Mahabharata to be read as history? --- come on: 2 vast armies, 4 million in all, fighting to annihilation, without passion, and with impeccable sportsmanship? --- it’s not history, it's a spiritual allegory. And don’t read the Conquest of Canaan as if it were a graduate seminar on Ethics.

Mrs. Don-o, the Bible begins with a narrative about a man created from mud, a woman created from the rib of a man, and a talking serpant. Is this to be regarded as history? Against such a standard, how less implausible is the Mahabharata reference? The Bible forces the reader to accept that the means of the conquest of Canaan was architected by a supposedly divine entity. The signature of that divine entity must therefore lay in what followed. If this were not the case, who initiated the conquest? Related question: Why the conquest? What was the sins of the conquered that they deserved annihilation, down to every infant of theirs?

There is no question that the killing of the innocent is against moral law. What does that mean in terms of the Conquest of Canaan books? Did God command what He himself abjured as abominable?

My Catholic Study Bible says "The slaughter of the innocent has never been in conformity with God's will." The footnote goes on to suggest that Samuel misrepresents God (Footnote on 1 Sam 15:3, CSB).

This is interesting because if Samuel indeed misrepresents the divinity he claimed to be the source of prophecy, does it not imply that he was a prophet in error? I am under the assumption that this is a serious no-no when it comes to prophecy. To me, the real key here is that even the one who wrote the footnote found morality problems with the OT and had to account for it somehow, which lead to the contradiction (that a claimed prophecy is no more one due to the misrepresentation).

One has to sort this carefully, because we are not Marcionites: the whole OT is not set aside by the New. Much, like the Decalogue, is plainly carried forward and affirmed by later texts. Some OT moral requirements are explicitly abrogated (such as when Jesus rendered all foods clean). Others are recast by Jesus Christ (e.g. Six Antitheses in the Gospel of Matthew.) Others simply disappear from sight and are never reaffirmed by later texts or the New Testament.

That last is the case with the Wars of the Ban: they are "boxed into" the Conquest of Canaan: they have no precedents and are not carried forward as legislation. It's just a brute fact: this is what they thought, and this is what they did.

Its role in the development of Doctrine? Affirmed on the level of allegory (deal thus with your own sins and vices: annihilate them) and repudiated at the level of moral doctrine. They are not models for us on the just use of force.

Keep in mind that the Development of Doctrine is something which God himself directs in the pages of the same Scripture. And in His Church. So for systematic moral theology, I direct you, as I direct my RCIA students, to the Catechism.

The key being who the 'they' are being guided by. Being careful in dealing with these verses must not imply ignoring the full implications of the verses. The conquest of Canaan cannot be disregarded as unimportant because everything else that follows rests on that foundation, hinges on that pivotal event. If the violence and shedding of innocent blood was not mandated by the divine, then how else could the conquest have occurred? If the conquest was necessary for the divine entity to carry forward its plans, how can the conquest and the way it was carried out not be considered to have divine authorship?

Thanks for the link, and I was randomly perusing it when I came across this:

II. THE FALL OF THE ANGELS

391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.²⁶⁶ Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil".²⁶⁷ The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing."²⁶⁸

392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.²⁶⁹ This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God."²⁷⁰ The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies".²⁷¹

393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."²⁷²

So... in "heaven" how are the "redeemed" prevented from following the same storyline? Does free choice cease to exist to prevent this? Or is some mechanism added to prevent free choice from choosing as the good Satan did to make it bad? If so, why was this mechanism absent in Adam and Eve? Wouldn't the absence implicate the divine entity's imperfection? If the absence was delibrate, would that not then mean that the divine entity desired for Adam and Eve to "fall"?

Hi James,

(1) I wouldn't say the Israelite slaves were totally feral. They were men, not beasts; they had language; perhaps they'd heard the name of Abraham. But they were a debased and deracinated people. They knew little or nothing of their past: Moses had to give them their past as well as their future (i.e.,the Books of Moses.) Lawless and depraved, almost from Day One they grumbled against Moses, threatening to return to Egypt, and barely managed to survive hunger, thirst, sickness, and their own anarchic tendencies. Much of the community did die; the nucleus of the new nation was kept intact by a certain awe produced by miracles of providence on one hand, and fear of plagues on the other.

(2) What does the Bible force the reader to consider the source of the commandments as being?

One command for indiscriminate slaughter plainly contradicts the many commands which forbid such bloodshed as "abominable." One can't interpret both as being divine commands in the same sense.

Thus the Bible "forces" us to see genocidal commands in a non-literal sense, either as paradox, like the Binding of Isaac, which was countermanded as God shows His real intent (and intervenes to save Isaac's life); or as a counter-type (like Jephthah's Oath: he thought he was under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but he evidently was not.)

"Any contradiction in this would cause the Bible to be in error, by definition." By what definition? Only by a definition derived from literal fundamentalism. This has to be excluded.

"What prevents the [interpretive] choice from being the mere whim of the reader?"

Three words: Scripture. Tradition. Magisterium.

The Hermeneutic of Scriptural Continuity. You have to look at this incident in the wider context of the whole Torah; in the still wider context of the Prophets and the Wisdom literature; in the absolutely determinative context of the practice and precepts of Jesus Christ.
Second, Sacred Tradition. Even the revered Jewish writers Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus who are not, per se, part of Christian tradition, see the annihilation of the Seven Nations of Canaan in an analogical manner. Their approach is like that of the Christian Alexandrians (Origen, Clement of Alexandria), who saw these events as allegorical, and never as establishing divine moral law. I'm unaware of any of the Fathers --- Apostolic, Ante-Nicene, Nicene --- adopting a simplistic literal interpretation. And the literal way was not the ancient way: the imposition of literalism is a modern error. I caution you to avoid this approach.
Magisterium. The Catholic Church excludes genocide as morally forbidden. Therefore it can't be a divine command. Most Protestants would "protest" that this puts Church first, as privileged interpreter of Scriptures. I say "Yes, and a good idea, too."

"Mrs. Don-o, the Bible begins with a narrative about a man created from mud, a woman created from the rib of a man, and a talking serpent. Is this to be regarded as history?"

No. Not as literal history. Augustine of Hippo (4th century) said it would be childish to think that God, with His hands, took mud and made a dirtman, etc. God does not, after all, have hands. But we (Catholics) do not believe in the ipsissimi verbi verbal inerrancy of Scripture. We believe Scripture is true in what it intends to assert. What is intended here is not that one can make humans out of humus (though evolution suggests that this is so), but that God formed us and bestowed upon us His image and likeness. This is not to be read as a biochemical treatise, but as a love letter.

"If Samuel indeed misrepresents the divinity he claimed to be the source of prophecy, does it not imply that he was a prophet in error? I am under the assumption that this is a serious no-no when it comes to prophecy."

That would be so if the purpose of this passage were to teach genocide. But that's not what God intends, because it's conrary to His Law.

We're talking about Miracle Wars. They were without precedent and were not carried forward as legislation.

There's been a lot of discussion about this --- on and on in fact --- because there's three sticking points.

This happened or it didn't. (I think it did.)
This happened via indiscriminate slaughter commanded by God or it didn't. (Let's call this "unresolved" for now.)
And: This happened as a moral teaching from God justifying genocide. (Definitely not.)

I'm perfectly willing to go with the Alexandrian school and call it an allegory for the inner moral struggle, like the Bhagavad Gita. It does show that the Israelite national story is deficient as expressing God's Law, because God's intentions don't become clear until the coming of the Messiah as perfect fulfillment of the Law.

In a sense, Jesus comes not just embodying Israel, but embodying Amalek, embodying the 7 Canaanite nations, even embodying Cain, the first murderer. Why? Because, although innocent, He "becomes sin" --- scapegoat-like --- in order to be physically destroyed and take sin along with Him.

So you could say I put 1 Samuel, the Canaanite Campaign, Midian and the rest in the "Resolve This" box, and put the box in the hands of Jesus Christ. I have to leave it at that for now.

Now, all those questions about angels? I don't know.

:o)

My guess is that when you're "in time" you can change and choose, because time is exactly that: the interval between one event and another. But when you are "in eternity," you can't chose, because there's no time: nothing changes. So it must be that the angels existed in time, made a choice, and then their choice became irrevocable. Just like ours become irrevocable when we leave time and embark on eternity.

Don't ask me to explain that. I don't even get the stuff about a photon being a particle and a wave.

Wow! Well said - hope you are saving stuff like this - may be an article there.

Hello Mrs. Don-o,

I am sorry about the delay in responding. Your previous reply was too long and forced me to first avail myself of an HTML editor to respond effectively.

Here goes:

(1) I wouldn't say the Israelite slaves were totally feral. They were men, not beasts; they had language; perhaps they'd heard the name of Abraham. But they were a debased and deracinated people. They knew little or nothing of their past: Moses had to give them their past as well as their future (i.e.,the Books of Moses.) Lawless and depraved, almost from Day One they grumbled against Moses, threatening to return to Egypt, and barely managed to survive hunger, thirst, sickness, and their own anarchic tendencies. Much of the community did die; the nucleus of the new nation was kept intact by a certain awe produced by miracles of providence on one hand, and fear of plagues on the other.

Okay, let me temporarily buy your reasoning on this. So these people are excused for slaughtering babies and infants because they were feral and their god told them to slaughter them as a way of civilising them, one cruelty subtracted at a time. Now how do you accommodate this reasoning when it comes to Ezekiel 9:6?

"Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house." - Ezekiel 9:6

What was the slaughter of these children for? What was their crime, and what is the lesson?

(2) What does the Bible force the reader to consider the source of the commandments as being?

One command for indiscriminate slaughter plainly contradicts the many commands which forbid such bloodshed as "abominable." One can't interpret both as being divine commands in the same sense.

Thus the Bible "forces" us to see genocidal commands in a non-literal sense, either as paradox, like the Binding of Isaac, which was countermanded as God shows His real intent (and intervenes to save Isaac's life); or as a counter-type (like Jephthah's Oath: he thought he was under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but he evidently was not.)

This is getting confusing now. Did the slaughters in 1 Samuel 15:3 and Ezekiel 9:6, among others, happen or not? Was Ezekiel lying or not?You really can't have it both ways now, Mrs. Don-o. I am sorry for seeming somewhat cold here, but your reasoning simply makes no sense whatsoever. Your god shows "the real intent" with Isaac by intervening before the slaughter happened, but there is no such stopping of the slaughter in either of the two referred genocides above. In fact, Ezekiel goes on to confirm that it did happen. Is there any suggestion that Ezekiel was later found to be misled? If not, why not, and how do you square this particular incident?

"Any contradiction in this would cause the Bible to be in error, by definition."

By what definition? Only by a definition derived from literal fundamentalism. This has to be excluded.

Regarding the commandments by your god to slaughter the innocent children, as recorded in your adopted scriptures, I had mentioned:

It's either a god's words, or not. What does the Bible force the reader to consider the source of the commandments as being? Any contradiction in this would cause the Bible to be in error, by definition. So, if one can choose what is a contradiction (and by implication, not a commandment / verse sourced from true divinity), what prevents the choice from being the mere whim of the reader?

The verses are rather plain, detailed and unambiguous. By their implied and stated meaning, they do not convey any confusion regarding the target of the commandments and the action that had to be performed (slaughtering the children). Neither is there any proof or statement that the slaughters did not happen. If such verses cannot be taken in the literal sense, in spite of the lack of any deeper spiritual / figurative meaning (if there are, list them all please, with supporting arguments), then what does one do with such verses other than take them literally? It seems to me that it is a method of convenience to choose which verses to take literally and which verses to take figuratively, leading the entire interpretation of the Bible at the mercy of arbitrary human whim. I cannot buy such arguments, Mrs. Don-o.

"What prevents the [interpretive] choice from being the mere whim of the reader?"

Three words: Scripture. Tradition. Magisterium.

The Hermeneutic of Scriptural Continuity. You have to look at this incident in the wider context of the whole Torah; in the still wider context of the Prophets and the Wisdom literature; in the absolutely determinative context of the practice and precepts of Jesus Christ.
Second, Sacred Tradition. Even the revered Jewish writers Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus who are not, per se, part of Christian tradition, see the annihilation of the Seven Nations of Canaan in an analogical manner. Their approach is like that of the Christian Alexandrians (Origen, Clement of Alexandria), who saw these events as allegorical, and never as establishing divine moral law. I'm unaware of any of the Fathers --- Apostolic, Ante-Nicene, Nicene --- adopting a simplistic literal interpretation. And the literal way was not the ancient way: the imposition of literalism is a modern error. I caution you to avoid this approach.
Magisterium. The Catholic Church excludes genocide as morally forbidden. Therefore it can't be a divine command. Most Protestants would "protest" that this puts Church first, as privileged interpreter of Scriptures. I say "Yes, and a good idea, too."

Say, Mrs. Don-o, you travelled back in time to the period described by Ezekiel 9:6. You are an invisible bystander at the Temple. Would you have witnessed the slaughtering of children (at the command of a Jewish Biblical prophet, who claims the source of prophecy to be your adopted god) or not? Likewise, with 1 Samuel 15:3. Do you believe you would have witnessed the slaughtering of infants, as recorded in the Bible, were you to go back in time? If not, what do you reason as you come across both these verses (and others like them)? Ignore them?

The Catholic Church is an organisation run by humans, so if humans are the ultimate arbitrator when it comes to deciding what is literal and what is not, then it merely puts interpretation at the whim of Man. If wildly contradictory interpretations can be derived from the same verse by two different sets of people, each claiming moral authority to do so as opposed to the other (none of whose claims have any substantial validity over the other), then what is the point of the scriptures or the prophets? It would be the work of an ineffective and rather impotent and foolish god to place such ambiguity in interpretation and expect humans to follow them. Or, more logically, it would all be the work of men, as reason forces me to conclude.

Your church retroactively concludes that the slaughters were not performed at the behest of divine commands from your adopted god to do so. However, were you to have travelled back in time to the moments when the slaughters did happen, and were to view them as an invisible, objective witness, what would you have recorded?

"Mrs. Don-o, the Bible begins with a narrative about a man created from mud, a woman created from the rib of a man, and a talking serpent. Is this to be regarded as history?"

No. Not as literal history. Augustine of Hippo (4th century) said it would be childish to think that God, with His hands, took mud and made a dirtman, etc. God does not, after all, have hands. But we (Catholics) do not believe in the ipsissimi verbi verbal inerrancy of Scripture. We believe Scripture is true in what it intends to assert. What is intended here is not that one can make humans out of humus (though evolution suggests that this is so), but that God formed us and bestowed upon us His image and likeness. This is not to be read as a biochemical treatise, but as a love letter.

The mechanisms of evolution, buttressed by the weight of fossil and genetic evidence, forces science to accept the view that humans and the great apes shared a common biological ancestor. Which, through generations before, evolved from other ancestors whose divergences from other species retract to reveal even more common ancestors, until they coalesce to show their derivation from far simpler life forms - which in turn evolved from border-life entities like viruses and prions (literally, protein molecules which can replicate) whose definition as "living entities" is questionable. Add to these truths the fact that amino acids have been found in space, and all the basic "alphabet" elements of DNA are continually formed all over the Universe, yes, it would not be a far stretch to conclude that evolution lends support to abiogenesis. But, for our discussion, we needn't go this far. Just the fact that humans and apes share a common ancestor would be enough to wreck the Biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, and the need for Jesus as a result of their transgression.

"If Samuel indeed misrepresents the divinity he claimed to be the source of prophecy, does it not imply that he was a prophet in error? I am under the assumption that this is a serious no-no when it comes to prophecy."

That would be so if the purpose of this passage were to teach genocide. But that's not what God intends, because it's conrary to His Law.

We're talking about Miracle Wars. They were without precedent and were not carried forward as legislation.

There's been a lot of discussion about this --- on and on in fact --- because there's three sticking points.

This happened or it didn't. (I think it did.)
This happened via indiscriminate slaughter commanded by God or it didn't. (Let's call this "unresolved" for now.)
And: This happened as a moral teaching from God justifying genocide. (Definitely not.)

I'm perfectly willing to go with the Alexandrian school and call it an allegory for the inner moral struggle, like the Bhagavad Gita. It does show that the Israelite national story is deficient as expressing God's Law, because God's intentions don't become clear until the coming of the Messiah as perfect fulfillment of the Law.

In a sense, Jesus comes not just embodying Israel, but embodying Amalek, embodying the 7 Canaanite nations, even embodying Cain, the first murderer. Why? Because, although innocent, He "becomes sin" --- scapegoat-like --- in order to be physically destroyed and take sin along with Him.

So you could say I put 1 Samuel, the Canaanite Campaign, Midian and the rest in the "Resolve This" box, and put the box in the hands of Jesus Christ. I have to leave it at that for now.

If you were a human witness to the Biblical genocides as they were happening, and if you were the one ordered to carry them out (you are now Saul), it would be impossible for you to say that your adopted god was not justifying genocide. Put yourself in Saul's shoes, and you simply have no option BUT to accept the commandments to carry out the infant slaughter as a divine order, thus logically implying that the genocide was justified by your chosen god. 'Definitely not' in such a circumstance would not be a luxury you could afford, in order to convince yourself of the moral validity of the OT.

The link below is a blog entry by a Catholic priest / member of the clergy regarding 1 Samuel 15:3. The author believes that his chosen god did in fact order the slaughter.

http://blog.adw.org/2010/01/did-god-command-genocide/

An interesting comment below it:

The Bible says God commanded the Hebrews to kill all their enemies, including infants. But killing infants, who are innocent, cannot be right. So how do we explain God’s commanding something immoral?

Here are some possible answers to this conundrum:
(1) What God commanded them to do was not immoral once he had commanded it
(2) What God commanded them to do was not immoral because killing innocents is not wrong
(3) What God commanded them to do was not immoral because we know that God is just, even though we can’t explain how God was right to do this.
(4) God did not command them to kill the innocent, even though the Bible says he did.

Answer 1 comes from the Protestant tradition that emphasizes God’s sovereignty: Anything God commands is ipso facto right. It clashes with the Catholic tradition (usually called natural law) that insists that right and wrong are based on the nature of things. Killing innocents is wrong by the very nature of things, and God’s command is unable to make it not be wrong. But that implies that God commanded something immoral. And that can’t be correct.

Is it possible to save the natural law answer in this case? The other answers attempt to do so.

Answer 2 argues that killing the innocent children of the Amalekites was not wrong. One version says that because of original sin, we all deserve to die, and so God is entitled to kill us whenever he wants (newborns included). Another version says that killing the innocent children of the Amalekites was doing them a favour because they could have grown up to be idolators and gone to hell. Neither of these arguments should be dignified with a response. Unfortunately, they tend to confirm what some peope believe, namely that religion makes some people nuts.

Answer 3 just gives up any attempt to explain things. Saying it’s a mystery is an easy way out, but our faith is a faith that seeks understanding. And saying “It’s a mystery” whenever we can’t figure things out disgraces our faith. Non-believers are shocked when they read these passages in the Bible, and people like Dawkins quote them to discredit our faith. Saying “Uh, it’s a mystery” is not a suitable reply.

I argue for answer 4: God did not command the Hebrews to slaughter all their enemies, even though the Bible says he did. The historical books of the Old Testament are a compilation of (part of ) the history of the Jewish people. It was recounted from generation to generation before it was written down. In the course of this recounting, events were given a theological explanation: whenever the Jews won a battle, it was because God was on their side, and whenever they massacred people, it was because God had commanded them to do so. But we are not required to accept every one of these theological explanations just as we are not required to believe — as people did for centuries — that every word in the Bible was dictated by God. These books are in the Bible because through them God reveals something to us, but we do not have to accept there is a revelation in every event recounted. The fullness of Revelation is found in Jesus, and if any passages in the Old Testament conflict with what Jesus reveals to us about God, then these passages have to be understood in a way that is consonant with the full revelation in Jesus. And the way to do that is to reject, when necessary, the theological explanation the authors of these passages gave them.

The commenter's conclusion is basically the same excuse Muslims use to justify / reason the genocide recorded in the Quran.

The problem with the "incremental civilising" argument is that the slaughters in Ezekiel occurred at a time when the addressed audience is no longer a bunch of Bronze Age savages. The slaughter happened at the Temple, and beyond, at the command of their god.

Now, all those questions about angels? I don't know.

Well, if free will is the reason why evil is allowed to exist, then evil cannot be absent without free will being absent. Which would mean that the Biblical heaven would have to be bereft of free will, in order to prevent human souls who inherit it from choosing evil again. If an additional mechanism is placed by the god of this kingdom to prevent such a choice whilst preserving free will, then the absence of this mechanism at the time of Adam and Eve brings to question the "perfection" of such a god. And we know that this god's angels can "fall", so even greater complications ensue regarding free will in such a heaven. If time is absent, then every aspect of activity here will be in stasis, for change is impossible without time.

These are my thoughts.

Hello James, We're both getting pretty (hmm, check Thesaurus) prolix, here, but this "genocide" question is of intense interest to me. I've done a little reading and I want to share the results with you.

There seem to be viewpoints all over the place. The Catholics (like Msgr Charles Pope, whom you mentioned) all agree that the killing of innocents is prohibited, but aren’t in agreement about what Samuel actually said or meant. Was Samuel misrepresenting the Lord? Or not? Because what he proposed was, one the face of it, grossly immoral.

At the other end of the spectrum, it seems that some subset of Jewish settlers in present-day ‘Samaria and Galilee’ (a.k.a. ‘occupied Palestinian territory’) claim that the Amalekites represent all who hate the Jewish nation, and that if they present an existential threat it would be right to kill them all. Yes, they defend genocide. (I was not aware of this perspective until literally yesterday.)

Then I came across a long article called Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites, by Paul Copan, a member of the Philosophy and Ethics faculty at Palm Beach Atlantic University. This suggests yet another interpretation, apparently backed up by some other scholars of Ancient Middle Eastern literature: that Samuel did issue the “kill them all” edict, but did not expect literal compliance.

"He said it but he didn’t mean it??" I’d never heard this before. It initially seems questionable, unsupportable. But --- we’ll come back to that --- if it were true, it would allow me to take you up on your very reasonable challenge.

“Say, Mrs. Don-o, you traveled back in time to 1 Samuel 15:3. Do you believe you would have witnessed the slaughtering of infants, as recorded in the Bible, were you to go back in time? If not, what do you reason as you come across both these verses (and others like them)?”

Assuming I was one of Saul’s warriors, I would reason thus:

“There’s that #@!(*& Amalek. G_ddamned bastard spawn of Esau. Those #@!(*&;s ambushed us at Rephidim and picked off the stragglers, the children, the old, when we’d done them no harm. They tried to kill us again at Hormah without provocation, when we were starving and exhausted. I’d like to drive their bullocks and fatlings to the altar of YHWH at Gilgal for a big offering, flay the men alive and roast them on a spit, stuff my bags with their silver and gold, and rape all the females and then sell them into slavery.”

Then Samuel’s edict excludes all of that (using their animals for holy offerings; torture, plunder, and rape) and when the battle is over and there are survivors, Samuel strikes down only the king, Agag, and considers justice satisfied tout court.

Justice served against the evildoers. But doesn’t this contradict the plain words of Samuel to kill all, specifying women , children and infants, and spare no one?

The author Paul Copan says 'no'. Now let’s see how supports his case. (Let me note that Copan is not a Catholic, but neither does anything he’s saying conflict with Catholic doctrine. The Catholic church does not have an “official interpretation” for these “under the ban” passages, although it does have an “official teaching” that intentional killing of an innocent human , even in war, is murder, and thus always gravely morally wrong.)

Source: Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites, by Paul Copan. You can click the link and read it all, but here’s a fast fly-over of relevant points:

(1) Moral limits are already set in place: God commands Israel to abstain from shedding innocent blood, forbids child sacrifice as morally abhorrent (Lev. 18:21; 20:2 -5; Deut. 12:31; 18:10), and requires Israelites to show concern for strangers and aliens in their midst (e.g. Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:18 -19).

(2) Ultimate reconciliation is in view: The prophets later view the nations once singled out for judgment as the ultimate objects of Yahweh's salvation. In Zechariah 9:7, the Philistines and the Jebusites are both to become part of God's redeemed "remnant." This theme is reinforced in Psalm 87, where the Philistines and other enemies are incorporated into the people of God.

(3) “Herem”, a sign which is contradicted: Copan claims that the language of “herem” ("ban," "dedication to destruction,”) ("kill all that breathes") is an ANE (Ancient Near East) rhetorical device, a boilerplate expression of military bravado in ANE warfare, found in the Hittites, the Assyrians, etc. but in Israel’s case not to be taken literally.

Here’s what’s unique to the Hebrews: the moral limit being set into place beforehand, AND the simultaneous evidence that the “ban” isn’t carried out. In Deut. 7:2- 5, alongside Yahweh's command to "destroy" the Canaanites is the assumption they would not in fact be obliterated --- hence the warnings not to make political alliances or intermarry with them. (As if to say, “Wipe the evildoers out. And after that, avoid making deals with them anymore.”)

These stock phrases (says Copan) are to be evaluated as "monumental hyperbole." The books of Joshua and Judges themselves make clear that many inhabitants remained in the land. "While Joshua does speak of Israel's utterly destroying the Canaanites... peoples that have supposedly been ‘annihilated’ have no trouble reappearing later in the story. Similarly, after Judah puts ‘all Jerusalem’ to the sword, its occupants are still living there' (Judg. 1:8, 21)."

(4) The Canaanites targeted for destruction were understood to be political leaders and their armies rather than noncombatants. OT scholar Richard Hess argues that the “ban” language describes attacks on forts or garrisons --- not a general population that includes women and children. Jericho and Ai were armed, fortified strongholds: hence Israel's wars here are directed toward government and military installments.

So the mention "women" and "young and old" turns out to be stock ANE language that could be used even if "women" and "young and old" were not in fact living there. The typical phrases --- "every living thing in it" --- "men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys" -- appear to be ANE boilerplate, not requiring the reader “to assume anything further about their actual ages or even their genders."

Hess writes: “Archaeological evidence points to the lack of civilian populations at Jericho, Ai, and other cities mentioned in Joshua.” Hess adduces inscriptional, archaeological, and other such evidences that Jericho was a small settlement of probably 100 or fewer soldiers. This is why all of Israel could circle it seven times in one day and then do battle against it. So if Jericho was a fort, then "all" those killed therein were warriors.

(5) Saul made sure the innocent were spared. When Saul let the Kenites --- who had been kind to the Hebrews --- flee from the city of Amalek (1 Samuel 15:6), anyone aligned with the Kenites would have made their escape.

This theme of a division being made between the innocent and the guilty goes back to Abraham in Genesis. God has singled out Abraham to carry on “Yahweh’s way of just and upright living.”(Genesis 18:19) Almost, it seems, as a test, God reveals to Abraham that Sodom, the city of evildoers, will be destroyed. Abraham immediately intercedes with God that it would be unjust to kill the innocent together with the guilty (Genesis 18:22-33). (This is an outstanding example of God and a man of faith, reasoning together about justice.) God approves of Abraham’s intercession: he agrees that it is unjust to treat the innocent like the guilty.

The purpose of the fore-warning of the Kenites in (1 Samuel 15:6) is to show that people must be given a choice: to save themselves by escaping with the Kenites (the innocent, who were kind to the exhausted Hebrew nomads), or remain among the warriors of Amalek (the guilty, who attacked them)--- and face utter destruction.

(6) Israel’s chroniclers don’t glory in atrocity This makes their post-victory descriptions featherweight in comparison to those found in the annals of the major empires of the ANE --- Hittite, Egyptian, Aramaean, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, or Greek. Unlike Joshua's brief, four-verse description of the treatment of the five kings (Joshua 10:24 -27), or Samuel’s even briefer report of the execution of the Amalekite King Agag (1 Samuel 15:33), the Neo-Assyrian annals of Asshurnasirpal (tenth century BC) take pleasure in describing gruesome atrocities: the flaying of live victims; the impaling of others on poles; prolonged, ingenious maiming, mangling, and roasting; and the heaping up of bodies for festive or fear-inspiring display.

(7) Women and children fled from sieges. "When a city is in danger of falling," observes Goldingay, "people do not simply wait there to be killed; they get out. . . . Only people who do not get out, such as the city's defenders, get killed." Jeremiah 4:29 suggests this:

At the sound of the horseman and bowman
every city flees;
They go into the thickets
and climb among the rocks;
Every city is forsaken,
and no one dwells in them.

We read in Joshua and Judges that, despite the "obliteration" rhetoric, there are plenty of Canaanites living in the areas where Israel has settled. Joshua himself refers to "these [nations] which remain among you" (Josh. 23:12 -13; Josh. 15:63; 16:10; 17:13; Judg. 2:10 -13)

In short, you typically have the hyperbolic rhetoric of (i) obliteration as well as (ii) the realistic acknowledgment of these same nations as future neighbors. Goldingay comments that Israel knew how to read Torah: "It knew it was not to assume a literalistic understanding" of destroying the Canaanites.”

(8)The Amalekite ban is considered enforced when the prophet Samuel strikes down their king. Copan says that these hyperbolic references to "totally destroy[ing]" run on parallel tracks with regular mention of many remaining Canaanite inhabitants after the "total destruction" (for example, Judg. 1). According to Copan, this specific combatant scenario could well apply in the Amalekite case. The execution of the aggressor, the Amalekite king Agag (1 Sam. 15:33), is seen as the required accomplishment of the ban; no further slaying is afterward demanded or described.

(9) This fits the metanarrative of God's goodness, enemy love, and overarching purposes. God's reiterated goal is to bring blessing and salvation to all the nations, including the Canaanites through Abraham (Gen. 12:3; 22:17- 18; 28:13- 14). This sweeping, outsider-oriented, universally-directed covenant is utterly unique among ancient religious and national movements.

(10) Compare “the Binding of Isaac” --- a slaying commanded, and yet countermanded. God's difficult command regarding the Canaanites as a limited, unique salvation-historical situation is comparable to God's difficult command to Abraham in Genesis 22. Behind both of these harsh commands, however, are the clear context of Yahweh's loving intentions and faithful promises.

In the first, God has given Abraham the miracle child Isaac, through whom God has promised to make Abraham the father of many. Then he asks him to be sacrificed. Abraham was troubled but knew that God would somehow fulfill his covenant promises through Isaac --- even if it meant that God would raise him from the dead. Thus Abraham informed his servants, "we [he and Isaac] will worship, and then we will come back and return to you " (Gen. 22:5; seer also Heb. 11:19). God does not permit the killing to occur; He provides a substitute victim.

With the harsh command regarding the Canaanites, Yahweh has already promised to bring blessing to all the families of the earth without exclusion (Gen. 12:1- 3; 22:17- 18). As previously observed, God is in the business of eventually turning Israel's enemies into his friends and incorporating them into his family. As with Abraham and Isaac, it is as though ancient Israel could confidently say of its enemies like the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Canaanites (Isa. 19:25; Matt. 15:22): "we will worship together" (Isa. 2:3).

So while we have contrary and disturbing exceptions in each of these scenarios, these should be set against the background of Yahweh's worldwide salvific purposes.

(11) Compare Jonah: Israel was gradually learning--- by preaching, by parable, and by painful history--- that their God has an enemy-loving character. In Jonah's day, God did not punish the Ninevites --- to the great disappointment of Jonah, who knew that forgiving enemies is the sort of thing Yahweh does. To the reluctant prophet’s exasperation, God loves His (and Israel's) enemies: "I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity" (Jon. 4:2; cf. Exod. 34:6).

(12) Jesus, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17), affirms that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob is one who loves His enemies ...and calls on us to imitate this complete love (Matt. 5:43 -48). Jesus himself does not view the killing of the Canaanites to be an intrinsic tenet or permanent norm for the People of God.

Compare Luke 9:54-56, where Jesus is rejected by some Smaritan towns, and his disciples James and John say, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them."

This specific rebuke, condemning "the kind of spirit" which is influencing them, may relate to the mission the disciples had been given, earlier in this same chapter 9, of rebuking and expelling unclean (demonic) spirits. Jesus implies that a demon spirit would incite in the destruction of an unbelieving town.

Also in that same Chapter 9 of Luke's Gospel, Jesus is transfigured on Mt. Tabor. Peter, James and John see him conversing with Moses and Elijah of old, explaining what He is about to accomplish in Jerusalem (ie. be betrayed into the hands of those who will crucify Him.) Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets, and Jesus tells them that He is going to lay down His life: He goes to willingly die for the sake of sinners. This is the definitive interpretation of the Law and Prophets: not that their enemies must die, but that He will die in their stead.

If this is the ultimate truth, it is a divine Person --- Jesus Christ --- who is put under the ban.

Thanks, Mrs. don-o! Reply coming up over the weekend. I read only the first few lines on my phone, but I meant to ask you to imagine you were explicitly ordered to slaughter infants, not just a general enemy population as a whole. In those shoes, what would your conscience tell you as you imagine performing the divinely-ordered command?

No need to reply in a hurry because my reply will take a while until I get home and use the HTML editor.

"...imagine you were explicitly ordered to slaughter infants, not just a general enemy population as a whole. In those shoes, what would your conscience tell you as you imagine performing the divinely-ordered command? "

Me? I don't kill babies. With grace, I would rely on the Word of God: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

But you are Saul, and that was the instruction you received which you have to follow.

Hello, James---

We seem to have dropped the thread of this discussion somehow: possibly because I didn't see your Nov 15 comment until today.

Have you any other comments on my Nov 14 essay at
#45? I think I learned a thing or two in the writing f it, and I'd be interested in y our feedback.

Ears perked,

Mrs. Don-o

Oh, and to answer your question:

If I were Saul, I might have said,

Now look here, Samuel, You may be a prophet, but we already have it from the Lord that we are not to kill the innocent together with the guilty. That's been clear ever since Abraham, or so I heard it from the Books of Moses. And I'm a warrior of the Lord, not a goddamned Canaanite. I'll bring King Agag here and you can execute just judgment on him. With God as my witness, that's enough."

So.

Hi Mrs. Don-o,

I’m still on the tour, and stops here with Internet access are few and far between. I’ll reply later when I’m next to a laptop with a connection, but for now, a prophet that lies would be a false prophet, so what would you make of Samuel after he told you that Go told him to tell you to crush the infants?

And what would god reply, and what did God do about Saul killing the infants, thereby, implicitly violating Mosaic “law”?

Hi Mrs. Don-o, I’m back for good.

Firstly, do you know of anyone with prior experience in dealing with anti-depressants, specifically, Lexapro? Nothing concerning me or my family, but I’m trying to help an American friend who is caught in a whirlwind of SSRI medication.

As for #45, it’s too many words by the author to basically try and escape being honest enough to admit that prophets cannot be trusted. Which then puts your entire adopted scripture’s trustworthiness to serious question.

Tell me where I have this conclusion wrong.

Hi, James, I don't know anything about Lexapro, sorry.

As for the prophets and their reliability: You think I have muliplied words to evade an obvious conclusion. I, on the other hand, suspect you reached your verdict before seriously considering all of the evidence.

You did not consider worthy of comment my argument ---to summarize very compactly--- that

separating the innocent from the guilty was culturally/morally understood by the prophets, inasmuch as it was a big point of agreement between Abraham and God as far back as Genesis;
this point of not shedding innocent blood was not an isolated precept, but is emphasized repeatedly in Scripture;
in the matter of the Amalekites, the innocent were separated from the guilty (the Kenites were separated from the Amalekites; anyone who wasn’t a combatant, or who didn't want to identify with the Amalekites, had the opportunity to flee); and
Samuel himself said the matter was finished when the Amalekite king, Agag, was slain.

I’m just listing the high points here, from the top of my head.

I don’t want to do you any injustice, but I have the sense that my arguments have been brushed away because you had adopted your conclusion in advance, in a way that was impervious to a careful evaluation of contrary evidence.

I may be wrong about this; you may have a better explanation for why my argument was basically passed over without comment. In any case, I am disappointed, because I had looked forward to a better discussion.

All I did was read through #45 and juxtapose it against your reply prior to this one where you said in effect that you would question your prophet when he hands you the divine command to slaughter the babies. This would logically imply that your trust in your prophet would not be intact because you have the need to question the very commandments he delivers to you (which are technically the words of your adopted god).

Now, I did see the part in #45 where the author of that verbose piece claims that the Biblical prophets “knew” how to separate the innocent from the guilty and provides the escape of the Kennites as some sort of “proof” of the same. Now, now, what about the Amalekite infants who are the ones specifically marked by your god for slaughter? You found this commandment to be morally reprehensible by your own admission, which is the basis for you to simulate questioning the prophet who delivered this to you, as in your prior reply to me. Yet, Saul had no problem with it, and neither does the Bible indicate any moral problem with it, to be used, for example, as a teaching moment like what is claimed about Abraham and the circumcision substitution.

In conclusion, no, I don’t see the “prophets” having any ability to recognise the moral responsibility to separate the guilty (Amalekites adults) from the innocent (Amalekite infants) and the author’s claim has been rendered asunder.

Sorry that my urge to cut to the chase kept me from fully explaining the problem, but this is the kernel you are left to deal with: that you can’t trust your prophets. And by logical deduction, your entire adopted scriptures.

Distracting from the core issue of the innocence of the Amalekite infants who were slaughtered by an agent of your adopted god and trying to (what seems to me like an attempt to) obfuscate this with the introduction of the escape of the Kennites (adults) is what I found disgusting in that author’s piece.

Again, show me where and why I am wrong to conclude this. Please forgive me for the tone of my reply if it comes to you as overly harsh. It’s a habit that is hard to give up, so I can only ask for forgiveness in advance.

Thanks!

The short answer is that if I believed any prophet --- Samuel or any other --- intended to be understood as commanding the slaying of infants, it would be evidence that he was the prophet of a false god, and not the God of Abraham and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, the fact that Samuel's apparent command contradicts God's multiple commands --- plus the other countervailing evidence I mentioned --- establishes a basis for investigating whether this was Samuel's intent.

I won't go through all the lines of evidence again, but the contrast between the command "kill the innocent" and the multiple commands "never shed innocent blood," is absolute.

The conclusion you draw from this --- that the prophet Samuel is false, thus his god is false, thus all of Scripture is unreliable --- is not justified because its hermeneutic approach (which seems to be some kind of textual fundamentalism) is false.

Basic principles of Scripture interpretation teach that no verse, incident, or chapter of Scripture is to be interpreted in isolation; that repeated principles are not to be set aside for one-off counter-examples; and that the Old Testament is to be interpreted in the light of the New.

That last item is of great importance, because the NT itself cautions against thinking that the OT and its precepts represents a perfect law. Here is a link to a key point (I've included parallel readings by 4 translations --- three Catholic and one KJV --- so you can see how strong this is) Hebrews 7:18-19 (Link).

I give you here also parallel passages for Hebrews 8:6-7 (Link) --- making the same point: the OT is not faultless; if it were, there would be no need for a New Covenant in Christ.

The books of Romans and Hebrews are basic for explainng the nature of the New Law.

This will not satisfy any who are wrongly stuck on texual fundamentalism; but such an approach misunderstands, I think, the whole manner of Divine revelation in Scripture. I would call it, almost, literalist idolatry.

This, however, is not the Catholic view, and is not reflected in either Catholic Scripture study or Catholic moral law.

Fair enough.

In my eyes, it reduces scriptural interpretation to highly subjective human (individual / committee) opinion, and this by itself would be a signature of the impotence of a supposed god due to its failure to accurately convey information, even scripturally, but I can see how this would be offensive to Catholics. You end up in the self-contradictory situation where your faith in the committee forming that subjective opinion for you takes precedence over your faith in the very god they are describing. Like you said, scriptural idolatry.

I guess we can only agree to disagree.

Ah! You’ve made a very important point here --- high fives to you. Go a bit further with this, and we can correctly draw out its implications.

As you have noted, if Scripture had no authorized, competent interpreter, it would indeed be subject to diverse and even contradictory viewpoints, which would frustrate the Deity’s intention to communicate, showing the impotence of the supposed god. This is the situation of the various non-Magisterial faith groups which teach that Scriptural is both verbally inerrant and perspicuous: reliable in its every assertion, and clear to every sincere reader.

This position can’t be sustained. In fact, these faith groups all diverge from one another about even their most basic “Biblically-based” doctrines, and cannot offer a coherent account of how the canon of Scripture exists at all. They have no overriding principle for the inclusion or exclusion of any particular text from the canon.

These faith groups’ mistake is at the very foundation. They assume that Scripture predates the Church (Scripture comes first), and that the Church derives its knowledge of God and its legitimacy from Scripture alone: "Scriptura sola," as they say.

This is both temporally and logically false. There was no canon of scripture in the early Church; there was no Bible as we know it. The Bible is the book of the Church; she is not the Church of the Bible.

It was the Church which, first in practice and later by prescription, discerned which books were inspired by God via their human authors. The Church authoritatively discerned the canon.

The determination of the canon was largely “in practice” by a consensus of what the churches used liturgically from the days of the Apostles, but which was formalized by Church papal doctrine and councils:

the Council of Rome (382) requested a ruling on the canon from the pope;
Pope Damasus' Decree. (384) listed the books of today’s canon;
The Council of Hippo, (393) confirmed the same
Two Councils of Carthage (397 and 419) confirmed the same,
Since the Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors and controversies demand it, we look to the Council of Florence, an ecumenical council (1441) for the first definitive list of canonical books.
The final infallible definition of canonical books came from the Council of Trent in (1556) in the face of the crisis brought on by Protestant defection.

If we knew about God, first, by the Bible, and then, derivatively, by the Church, this process of canonization and interpretation would amount to --- as you say --- “human committees” taking precedence over God. However, this is the Protestant error.

In fact, Christ established the Church before what we now know as “the Bible” ever existed as such, and authorized the Church to be the guardian of both the canon and its interpretation.

This is the only logically non-contradictory way to understand that God has provided for both the writing, the collecting, and the correct understanding of Scripture . Many may not accept this, but you must admit, I think, that this avoids the internal incoherence of Protestant Scripture interpretation. We would argue that Bible itself originated from, is defined by, and is to be interpreted by, the Church; the Bible is rightly understood only as part of the Church’s Tradition.

If we knew about God, first, by the Bible, and then, derivatively, by the Church, this process of canonization and interpretation would amount to --- as you say --- “human committees” taking precedence over God. However, this is the Protestant error.

I agree you have valid arguments against the basis of Protestantism vis-a-vis "sola scriptura" but this would still not work against the argument that is more universal in scope, atheistic, if you will, regarding the whole arrangement, where you are supposed to somehow have a "personal" relationship with your god, but the same god is only knowable to you through means dependent on interpretation by other humans. In effect, your very idea of your god is shaped by human sources about it, to you. Thus, your faith in your god is ultimately dependent on your faith in those same human committees who communicated those ideas of your god to you. It implies that the faith in the latter would supersede in importance to your faith in the former.

"I agree you have valid arguments against the basis of Protestantism vis-a-vis "sola scriptura" but this would still not work against the argument that is more universal in scope, atheistic, if you will, regarding the whole arrangement...

You have a point there, IF one believes that atheism is the universal, natural, unbiased, default position. However this is not self-evident.

"...where you are supposed to somehow have a "personal" relationship with your god, but the same god is only knowable to you through means dependent on interpretation by other humans..."

Once again, I suspect you are relying on a (perhaps unacknowledge or unanalyzed) Protestant assumption here: that one is "supposed" to have an individual, isolated experience of God, which can only be rendered less certain and less reliable if mediated by other human beings.

as Catholics would argue that the truth is quite oherwise. God has chosen to make Himself known by human beings, virtual each and every one of whom was a fallible, imperfect person, and knew himself to be so. That's why Scripture is a "Salvation History" and not a "Systematic Moral Theology," for instance.

(Suprisingly little of Scripture --- the OTin particular --- is Moral Theology, and what there is, is anything but systematic.)

"... In effect, your very idea of your god is shaped by human sources about it, to you. Thus, your faith in your god is ultimately dependent on your faith in those same human committees who communicated those ideas of your god to you.

Better and better! But for the words "human committees," put "human inspired or apostolically authoritative sources." OK, now you have it.

I would evaluate the Bible the way I would evaluate any other history, using the accepted techniques of manuscript-dating, paleobibliography, textual criticism and the rest. I see whether its tendencies mirror tendencies I see in life, actually; I decide whether its witnesses are, over 40 centuries and 3 continents, credible; I see it as The Big Picture or I don't.

Fact is, I do.

This little article will give you a bit of my take on Scripture as a human product and a Divine project. It was kind of fun to write. I hope you enjoy it. (Read it! Read it!)

Jesus' Genealogy: The Woman Problem
http://www.wf-f.org/12-1-Wiley.html

Ping-a-ling