I was asked about how I feel about the commandments of genocide that the Hebrews were given in the Old Testament.
So, what follows is my perspective on the issue. Remember sports fans that I am a Christian.
Let me start with the basics.
Genocide is wrong.
Slavery is wrong.
Beating up someone because they are homosexual is wrong.
Sacrificing your son on an alter is wrong.
Now all of these things were condoned in the Old Testament. Does that mean that God was wrong? Or does that mean that God has changed? Or was God misquoted, or perhaps mistranslated? Or does it mean that we humans, as we become more civilized, can start treating each other better, and we humans can define new sins?
God was wrong? Well, as Christians we believe that God is infallible.
God has changed? Maybe. As Christians we don’t believe that we need to follow all of the commandments that were given to Moses. We can eat rabbit (Deut 14:7), we don’t cancel debts every seven years (Deut 15:1), we let women wear pants (Deut 22:5), we don’t require rapist to pay a fine to the father of the girl and marry her (Deut 22:28-29). The Israelites lived in a different time; perhaps that is why the rules were different for them.
Maybe God learned that a promised land to a promised people just doesn’t work out quite as well as He planned. Maybe God was surprised at how foolish His creation could be, and with the New Testament tried a new approach of dealing with humans.
Mistranslation: some commentators believe that when commanded to “not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them” (Deut 20:16-17) that it was understood to be a political destruction of the people. Not genocide.
We can define new sins? We can make new laws, and breaking the law is a sin, so sure. There are things now, such as Crystal Meth, which the apostles didn’t know of, and giving it to children is a sin. (Though a “thou shalt not give someone a poison” type of commandment might cover that.) Breaking the tax code might be covered by “don’t steal.”
Can we expand on the teaching of our Lord?
“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.” Deut 4:2
But Jesus, told St. Peter, “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.” (Matt 16:19) And later Jesus, regarding a brother sinning against you says, “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” (Matt 18:18-20).
And later Jesus gives the apostles the Holy Spirit, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:23).
So maybe, Jesus gave the apostles permission to add & subtract. For He would be with them when they gathered together. And had the permission to add, they could give the permission to others. I think that is the Catholic belief that the Pope is infallible because the title has been handed down, from Saint Peter, until the current Pope. Sorta like St. Peter handed down the gift of the Holy spirit to the next in line, until today.
I wonder how current Jews interpet the commands for genocide?
My vote, for what it's worth,...I'm gonna say we humans in the 21st century can redefine some previous accepted things as sin.
I'm a simple man, I'm not too smart, I like to keep things simple. Let me finish with my Christianity summed up in a sound bite:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31)
can't seem to be get to sleep...
...Fortunately I have Oliver kitty, watching my back. He's fearless. He'll jump on a spider that is bigger than his paws.
Thanks Oliver for protecting me from the evil spider that was sneaking up to the loft to kill me.
Hospital bed make people look small. I remember that when I visited my sister a few years ago. I saw that again tonight with my mom. It was kinda surreal, in my mind my mom is the adult, and I'm the kid, and thus, she's bigger than me. It ain't true. But it still kinda weirds me out a bit, even though I've been taller than my mom for most of my life.
We at GBatT would like to thank the tireless professionals that work in hospitals. It seems to me a sad place to work. The staff we talked to tonight was very nice and calm, even though they have to deal with life/death customers all shift.
The feeling of helplessness while a loved one is in intensive care is bad. But also, is the feeling of not knowing what to do. And it’s so easy to get lost, it’s kinda like first day at new school. Don’t know where anything is. A few official people are ultra-polite, other people stare at you. Helpless & knowledgeless.
Today, my mom was feeling ill. Around 5pm she had a bad seizure, and my Dad & little sister called 911. They took her to hospital, but had to restrain her because she was fighting them. My dad did not like to see that.
Little Sister called us, my sister & her husband, and we all converged on the hospital.
So we sat around for a few hours in a small family waiting room, catching up, talking, telling funny stories. Around midnight we had run out of small talk, and we were sleepy. Then the awkward silence, punctuated by the buzz of the fluorescent light.
Around 1am Little Sister informed us that they were moving Mom up to the ICU. And we followed her. Funny, the seventeen year old spoke with authority, and we sheeped right along.
At the new waiting area there was more room to stretch out and most people tried to get some sleep. After about an hour a nurse came to get the immediate family.
We were briefed (please forgive if I got any of this wrong):
Mom has a breathing tube, they will try to extract in the morning.
From lumbar test…negative menigitus, negative influenza.
No results yet from CT and other tests.
From blood enzymes they believe she had a heart attack, not sure when. Will investigate.
Currently her heart rhythm and blood pressure are good.
The nurse told us “not much you can do here. We will know more in the morning.” And that allowed permission to go back home and get some sleep in a bed.
On way out the nurse asked, “do you know how to get out.” Little Sister said yes. But she took a wrong turn and we sheeped into the wrong waiting area. Well, she had been right before.
one can only hope
Hats off to Mr. Buffett, for hiring Mr. Gates, to give away Buffet's money.
In the words of Steven Colbert, "a fine day for capitalism."
