Here.
But I wish he had dealt with the rest of this passage:
Exodus 21:20
And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.
because it goes on to say
21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
If you compare the Old Testament with the practices of the pagan world, it's plainly a quantum leap forward. But there are still problems. The moral learning curve for the Hebrew people is agonizingly slow, and that is why we get things like this and the Amalekite ban. And I think skeptics are right to wonder if God couldn't have sped up the learning curve by providing a more dramatic and forceful presence.
But Jesus' ethics is still another quantum leap, but nothing comes from Jesus that isn't pulled from the Old Testament.
You can call Yahweh a moral monster, but somehow, he managed a quantum leap forward in the moral consciousness of the Western world. Quite an accomplishment for the most unpleasant character in all fiction.
I think these leaps are hard to explain naturalistically.
2 comments:
God has revealed portions of His ways and His very being to mankind via revelations recorded in His holy scriptures. As we read these scriptures He teaches us by His Holy Spirit, as we come to Him humbly. We are both dumb and impatient, and mostly resistant, especially if the answers we seek are slow in coming. However God is good and merciful and never changes. He says, SEEK ME.He seeks for us to walk with Him. This is the only way to gain understanding about HIM and His ways. It is by His grace that we wake up and seek Him. This is eternal life: To know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You sent.
Amen.
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