Deuteronomy 19:2 says, "Thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it. 19:3 Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither. 19:4 And this is the case of the slayer, which shall flee thither, that he may live: Whoso killeth his neighbour ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past; 19:5 As when a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth from the helve, and lighteth upon his neighbour, that he die; he shall flee unto one of those cities, and live: 19:6 Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay him; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past." So, if you kill someone accidentally you are sentenced to live in one of three cities because these bloodthirsty early Christians couldn't control themselves. Instead of teaching them compassion, which must be hard to do given god has taught the Hebrews violence solves problems, god sticks these clumsy killers all together in three separate places. Where is the wisdom?
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God's compassionate, but he's not horribly consistant. The Old Testament God is quite unforgiving and violent, whereas the New Testament God (Jesus) shows quite a bit more compassion although he does have his violent moments (check out what he foes when the money changers come to the temple).
ReplyDeleteBut I guess my ultimate question would be; why would a god who knows all, past and present, change his ways? Jesus seems to different from the god of the old testament. That should not be possible. Why would an omniscient being have to send himself down here to figure us out? Shouldn't healready know. Why would he change his laws? Didn't he know ahead of time that they weren't going to work?
ReplyDeleteThe short answer? Because the bible's been written by different people, living in different circumstances over thousands of years. People changed, therefore so did their god. The "same god" changed again when the Koran was divinely revealed to Mohammed. Perhaps the shorter answer would be because it's made up. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe shorter answer was the one I was looking for.
ReplyDelete