“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.” Lev 20:13
This is one of a couple of quotes in the Bible that are frequently used to support the view that homosexuality is one of the worst sins imaginable. The problem is that this concept of revulsion and condemnation doesn’t make sense in the larger context of the Bible. Even the sometimes harsh and violent Old Testament, when read from the perspective of the New Testament, is a story of infinite Love overcoming hate. It is the story of eternal Life overcoming death. It is the story of sin forgiven and sickness healed. It is a the story of a promise which the New Testament fulfills.
Homosexuality, however, continues to be a controversial topic in public thought. Ann Coulter used the F word to get back on the front pages. Spring Arbor College just fired a popular professor because he came out as a transvestite. Largo, Florida just fired a successful city manager because he announced his plan to have a sex change operation. In this last incident, Pastor Ron Saunders of Largo’s Lighthouse Baptist Church said, “If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he’d want him terminated. Make no mistake about it.” I thought I would take up Rev. Saunders challenge and actually study the Bible to discover if there was anything there that the good pastor could use to support his claim.
The gospels chronicle Jesus’ mission to give us a better understanding of what the Old Testament really means. His time was not so different from ours. The ruling class of Jesus’ time also used their view of the Bible to exert political control. His ideas of universal goodness, redemption, salvation, healing, and love forever changed the world. But, contrary to Rev. Saunder’s assertion, Jesus appeared to completely ignore homosexuality. I couldn’t find anything in the gospels that even came close. That in itself should be instructive, but I did some more research I thought you would find interesting.
Here’s what I found.
Abomination is a very strong word in our dictionary. It doesn’t appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or any of the amendments. It does appear in the Bible (KJV) 166 times. It appears in Leviticus 19 times. Here are some of the other “abominable” things listed in Leviticus – improperly consuming animal sacrifices, eating carrion, shellfish, birds of prey, scavengers, or snakes; or having intercourse with a woman during her menstrual cycle. Few of these practices reach the standard of “abominable” in our understanding, so perhaps this is a translation problem. In addition, though not specifically “abominable”, here are some other “sinful” activities in Leviticus – harvesting corners of a field, eating fruit from a young tree, cross-breeding livestock, sowing a field with mixed seed, cutting your hair, tattoos, disabled attending church, charging interest on a loan, collecting firewood on Saturday, and wearing clothes made from a blend of textile materials.
Clearly our modern sense of sinful practices has evolved from Old Testament time. In part that’s because our use of words has evolved over time too. For example, a better term for the Old Testatment’s “abomination” in today’s English is “ritually improper”, “inappropriate”, or “distasteful”. What Moses was really prohibiting in Leviticus was Jewish adoption of practices in bordering cultures. Though Moses thought many of these things should be punished by death, he didn’t particularly single out homosexuality as any worse than anything else. What there is primarily condemns the ritualistic pagan temple sex, rape, and prostitution of neighboring cultures. In the larger context of the Bible, prohibited heterosexual practices (like prostitution, rape, slavery, child abuse, and various versions of incest) are the dominant theme.
Though this is progress, it still doesn’t answer the pastor’s question of what Jesus thought. Fortunately, Jesus himself is helpful here. Rather than list what we shouldn’t do (as the Old Testament did), Jesus gave us clear guidance on what we should do, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Matt 6:33). He also had guidance for those who aspire to moral leadership. He said they must do so without the self-righteousness of the Pharisees whom Jesus said were, “blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” (Matt 23:24)
To put this further into the context of the New Testament, the Jewish penalty for another prohibited sexual activity, adultery, was also death. When faced with how that law should be interpreted, Jesus rejected it outright. He refused to even acknowledge those who demanded He respond. Instead He suggested that those that were free of sin were welcome to pass whatever judgment they felt appropriate.
As far as “abominable” practices, Jesus mentioned only one. It was the hypocrisy, pride, and self-righteousness of the politico-religious conservatives of His day. “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” (Luke 16:16)
My reading of the Bible is that it is a book documenting the endless promise of the power of God’s love for all His creation. It seems antithetical to me that this book that is the basis for modern thought about tolerance and mutual respect could also systematically exclude any part of God’s creation. I don’t think that it does any more than it excludes those who have exotic diets, tattoos, cut their hair, wear polyester blends, work in a bank, or follow birth control (natural or chemical).
Is homosexuality between two consenting adults is sinful? God, not Rev. Saunders, is the only real judge. I’ve got much more important things to worry about because I know my sins and weaknesses. In my case, Jesus said do first things first – work on my own salvation before I try to pass judgment on others. That’s good advice any time of year for both liberals and conservatives. We all have a lot of work to do.
Jeff your quote “It was the hypocrisy, pride, and self-righteousness of the politico-religious conservatives of His day. “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” is how I interpret your first quote from the bible anyway. “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.” Lev 20:13
I don’t believe in literal translation of the bible. The Lord told stories back then so that those people would get the essence of what he meant. So your two verses above really go together like this for me. If a man lie with mankind as with a woman means to me “Do not prostitute yourself for worldly things.” Mankind is a universal word to mean man’s stamp on the world. Mankind in Hebrew is from the root word “zakar” which means “to mark” and also that “man” or “male” is the most noteworthy sex. Together it is man’s mark. Man’s mark in this world is mostly in worldly things like greed, sex, addictions, etc. On that order to prostitute oneself for worldly things is to turn away from God and root oneself in things on earth, i.e. money, and God knows what is in your heart.
As far as abomination, it has 5 different meanings depending on what is quoted. I think you have a Concordance. So you know “abomination” in Leviticus comes from the Hebrew words “sheqets” and “toebah.” All Leviticus quotes share their meaning between these two words for abomination as something disgusting with emphasis on idolatry. Now we’re back to idolizing money or worldly things. We prostitute for it. What do you think? That makes your first quote not likely about homosexuality either. What’s more, like you, I don’t find much against it in the bible per se.
Ria,
Nice to hear from you again.
Thanks for the wonderful insights. I couldn’t agree with you more. In fact you went a fair bit deeper into the subject than I had on my original post.
Thanks.
The Bible remains a sufficient guide to life because it largely a collection of metaphors. That’s why it is so curious to see folks get all caught up in trying to contain current reality within the narrow literal descriptions contained in the Bible. The earth clearly isn’t the center of the universe but for a long time it was virtually a capital crime to suggest otherwise. The earth is clearly much older than the Bible describes, but there are those who feel somehow the Bible’s message is diminished by that scientific fact.
Even we today stuggle with the concept of infinity. Something that has no beginning or end just doesn’t fit our understanding of time. Yet those who wrote the Bible still tried to express what they felt about an infinite eternal God within the context of what they knew, so their only choice was to resort to metaphor and analogy. We’re blessed with the result.
The Bible remains an effective document for so many people because it works on a spiritual level to inspire us to seek greater understanding of our Creator within our own experience. It works on a spiritual level because it is the word of God as understood by those led to write it down. That’s why so many seekers for truth find what they are looking for when they read it. If it were anything less, just some stories, or just a compilation of oral history, it likely would have long since faded into obscurity as better more relavant texts took its place.
Jeff
It sounds as if you have not read this book which you hold so high above other works of fiction.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Begin in Genesis with the well-loved story of Noah, derived from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim and known from the older mythologies of several cultures. The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned everyone else including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless animals as well.
Of course, irritated theologian types, like yourself will protest that we don’t take the book of Genesis literally any more. But that is the whole point! We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories.
Pat Robertson would be harmless comedy, were he less typical of those who today hold power and influence in this country. In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, the Noah equivalent, chosen to be spared with his family because he was uniquely righteous, was Abraham’s nephew Lot. Two male angels were sent to Sodom to warn Lot to leave the city before the brimstone arrived. Lot hospitably welcomed the angels into his house, whereupon all the men of Sodom gathered around and demanded that Lot should hand the angels over so that they could (what else?) sodomize them: “Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them” (Genesis 19:5). But Lot’s halo is tarnished by the terms of his refusal: “I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof: (Genesis 19: 7-8). If this dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone.
Such unpleasant episodes in Abraham’s story are mere peccadilloes compared with the infamous tale of the sacrificing of his son Isaac (Muslim scripture tells the same story about Abraham’s other son, Ishmael). God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. As it turns out God was only joking after all, “tempting” Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defense: “I was only following orders.”
Once again, modern theologians will protest that the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac should not be taken as literal fact. And, once again, the appropriate response is twofold. First, many many people, even to this day, do take the whole of their scripture to be literal fact, and they have a great deal of political power over the rest of us, especially in the United States and in the Islamic world. Second, if not as literal fact, how should we take the story: an allegory? Then an allegory for what? Surely nothing praiseworthy.
Those with the power to elect our presidents and congressmen – and many who themselves get elected – believe that dinosaurs lived two by two upon Noah’s ark, that light from distant galaxies was created en route to the earth, and that the first members of our species were fashioned out of dirt and divine breath, in a garden with a talking snake, by the hand of an invisible God. This my friend, should trouble you.
D. Bryant
Thanks for your thoughts. Clearly you have a point of view regarding the Bible. I think, thought, that you may be falling victim to the same “narrow view” temptation that you criticize.
In my view, the Bible is a two act play. The first act is about a promise that God made to the jews. The second act is about fullfilling that promise.
Woven through this promise is the history of a people. Any history covering a similar time span is going to include lots of drama and all of the perversities and weaknesses of mankind. To that end, it is representative of any individual life. We struggle, we fail, we ask for help, we recover, we learn, we grow prideful again, we struggle, we fail, and we repeat the cycle.
The beauty of the old testament is that God remained faithful to these chosen people in spite of their weaknesses. So what comes through to me louder than anything else, is that this is true for me too. God loves me even when I have failed Him and myself.
The old testament also documents the growth in understanding of this people. The world in general and the jews in particular had to be ready to receive the New Testament fullfilment. Their concept of God had to mature and expand from the vengeful capricious God of Genesis, to the God preparing the way for the Christ in Isaiah. The jews had to think and pray and debate these concepts to prepare themselves for a broader understanding of what the Messiah really meant. It took all of the old testament to prepare them, and even then, only a handfull of people out of the whole population of the earth got it. But the earth was ready for the message, and so this handful were successful in spreading the word that the promise of salvation has been kept.
That same message is one that each of us has the opporunity understand and ultimately respond to today. It is also the common ground that all Christians share.
That isn’t to say that all Christians agree on everything else. But that’s the sort of dialog this blog is meant to encourage.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
Jeff
The notion that the bible is a perfect guide to morality is really quite amazing, given the contents of the book. Human sacrifice, genocide, slaveholding, and misogyny are consistently celebrated. Of course, God’s counsel to parents is refreshingly straightforward: whenever children get out of line, we should beat them with a rod (Proverbs 13:24, 20:30, and 23:13-14). If they are shameless enough to talk back to us, we should kill them (Exodus 21:15, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Mark 7:9-13 and Mathew 15:4-7). We must also stone people to death for heresy, adultery, oh and of course homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, worshipping graven images, practicing sorcery, and for a wide variety of other imaginary crimes.
Most Christians, as I’m sure you do, image that Jesus in the New Testament did away with all this barbarism and delivered a doctrine of pure love and toleration. He didn’t (Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 20-21, and John 7:19). Anyone who believes that Jesus only taught the Golden Rule and love of one’s neighbor should go back and read the New Testament. And pay particular attention to the morality that will be on display if he ever returns to Earth trailing clouds of glory (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, 2:8; Hebrews 10:28-29; 2 Peter 3:7; and all of Revelation).
It is not an accident that St. Thomas Aquinas thought heretics should be killed and that St. Augustine thought they should be tortured. (Ask yourself, what are the chances that these good doctors of the Church hadn’t read the New Testament closely enough to discover the error of their ways?)
As a source of objective morality, the bible is one of the worst books we have. It might have been the very worst, in fact, if we didn’t also happen to have the Koran.
D. Bryant,
I’m not sure that it is particulary productive to throw quotes back and forth. Hopefully you’re willing to grant that I can pull out as many quotes supporting my view that the Bible is a book about God’s love for His creation as you can assemble that it is all a terrible hoax on a gulliable public.
I will spend some time with the quotes that you have listed, though, to get a better understanding of their context.
We’ve heard about all of the things that you appear to oppose in the Bible, Christianity, early Catholicism, and by implication Islam.
I’m curious to learn more about what you advocate regarding personal and collective ethics and morality.
Jeff
There are two ways in which scripture might be a source of morals or rules for living. One is by direct instruction, for example through the Te n Commandments, which are the subject of such bitter contention in the culture wars of America’s boondocks. The other is by example: God, or some other biblical character, might serve as –to use the contemporary jargon – a role model. Both scriptural routes, if followed through religiously (the adverb is used in its metaphoric sense but with an eye to its origin), encourage a system of morals which any civilized modern person, whether religious or not, would find obnoxious.
To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and “improved” by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyist, unknown to use and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. This may explain some of the sheer strangeness of the Bible. But unfortunately it is this same weird volume that religious zealots hold up to use as the inerrant source of our morals and rules for living. Those who wish to base their morality literally on the Bible have either not read it or not understood it.
I nor you or even the most religious among us – ground our morality in holy books, no matter what we may fondly imagine. How, then, do we decide what is right and what is wrong? No matter how we answer that question, there is a consensus about what we do as a matter of fact consider right and wrong: a consensus that prevails surprisingly widely. The consensus has no obvious connection with religion.
The point is that we have almost all moved on, and in a big way, since biblical times. Slavery, which was taken for granted in the Bible and throughout most of history, was abolished in civilized countries in the nineteenth century. All civilized nations now accept what was widely denied up to the 1920s, that a woman’s vote, in an election or on a jury, is the equal of a man’s. In today’s enlightened societies (a category that manifestly does not include, for example, Saudi Arabia), women are no longer regarded as property, as they clearly were in biblical times. Any modern legal system would have prosecuted Abraham for child abuse. And if he had actually carried through his plan to sacrifice Isaac, we would have convicted him of first-degree murder. Yet according to the mores of his time, his conduct was entirely admirable, obeying God’s commandment.
Religious or not, we have all changed massively in our attitude to what is right and what is wrong. What is the nature of this change, and what drives it? We do. People and attitudes have continually changed over time, and will continue; whereas the Bible is stuck hopelessly in the first century.
D.,
You are obviously thoughtful and well spoken. You are also clearly concerned that the Bible is either being misread or misused. At the same time you also seem to feel that the Bible gets undeserved credit for whatever moral or ethical progress the world has made.
As far as I can tell, you are a humanist. It’s hard to tell yet whether or not you believe in a supreme spiritual being.
So as a simple start, if you don’t believe in God, the Bible is not going to mean much to you. Many who do believe in God, see the Bible as a chronicle of God’s interaction with and commitment to us, His children. If that concept is a problem for you (as it appears to be), then let’s stop talking about the Bible and start talking about God.
Just so you are clear, I don’t expect you to share my beliefs. I also don’t believe that my belief in God and the Bible somehow magically endows my views with greater value than someone who has a different set of beliefs.
I’m just interested in better understanding your philosophy.
Jeff
Ria,
Your Quote “”"I don’t believe in literal translation of the bible. The Lord told stories back then so that those people would get the essence of what he meant”"
Give me a BREAK!
LOL you are literally putting your own spin on what is written, A whole different meaning to fit your agenda.
It is said that our Theology is shaped by our experiences. Which I find to be mostly true unless you can overcome your experience by keeping an opened mind,
For you it seems it is YOUR VIEW,
How about trying this instead, Read, Pray, Discern,
This is NOT about your view on Homosexuality it is about your twisting the Bible to fit Fuzzy Kitten Theology.
Homosexuality, In my view can be, for the most part passed on through DNA, I feel for gay men, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, It seems happiness mostly eludes gay men,
Who would want to live with the hate if one did not have to.
SO I support Gay civil unions.
Now for men who practice gay sex for the express purpose of the THRILL, Well Sin is Sin is Sin.
Jeff,
I wonder just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to shake the world’s faith. The Holocaust did not do it. Neither did the genocide in Rwanda, even with machete-wielding priests among the perpetrators. Five hundred million people died of smallpox in the twentieth century, many of them infants. God’s way s are, indeed, inscrutable. It seems that any fact, no matter how infelicitous, can be rendered compatible with religious faith.
Of course, people of all faiths regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? This is the age old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. You may now be tempted to execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by human standards of morality. But we have seen that human standards of morality are precisely what you use to establish God’s goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern Himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which He is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that.
There is another possibility, of course, and it is both the most reasonable and least odious: the biblical God is a fiction, like Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods who most sane human beings now ignore. Can you prove that Zeus does not exist? Of course not. And yet, just imagine if we lived in a society where people spent tens of billions of dollars of their personal income each year propitiating the gods of Mount Olympus, where the government spent billions more in tax subsidies were given to pagan temples, where elected officials did their best to impede medical research (stem cell) out of deference to The Iliad and The Odyssey, and where every debate about public policy was subverted to the whims of ancient authors who wrote well, but who didn’t know enough about the nature of reality to keep their excrement out of their food. This would be a horrific misappropriation of our material, moral, and intellectual resources. And yet that is exactly the society we are living in. This is the woefully irrational world that you and your fellow Christians are working so tirelessly to create.
D.,
I get it.
The world doesn’t appear like one that a loving, omnipotent, omniscient God would create or sustain. So either we misunderstand the nature of God, or God doesn’t exist.
It’s a pretty simple classic argument.
Before we engage on that, I’d like to learn a little more about you.
Of the choices that you’d laid out, it seems like you prefer the choice that God doesn’t exist which is interesting in and of itself. You mentioned this was the most reasonable and least odious choice. Please share some more detail with me about why this makes more sense and is preferable to a capricious self-centered being that cares little for his creation.
Also, if God doesn’t exist, what does that mean about you? What is your purpose? What do you use to guide your choices? What do you think happens to the consciousness that animates you when your heart stops beating?
Jeff
D, Bryant
My 2.5 cents if you don’t mind
Your have fallen into the new age vanilla pudding theology. Where God is a fuzzy kitten and he loves everybody, This of course is wrong, You can ask the hundreds of thousands of people God killed in the Old Testament.
While God loves us, cause we are his, just like your dog is yours.
He loves us enough to
1. Give us free will so that we can come to him on our own volition.
2. He sent his son to die for us on the cross, not as a sacrifice for God but to show us a way to live, even to give our lives for our neighbor.
3. let each of us decide weather to live for God or to jump freely into the fires of Hell.
4. God does not want to micro manage us, He don’t want stepford children, HE WANTS us to come to him.
5. Never heard God weigh in on Gay marriage, His Prophets did which dealt with well being issues in that time. i.e. Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed not because of gay issues but because of wickedness. It never says what that wickedness is, also because of disobedience.
6 can’t understand why God would pick a name to be prayed to, He said “I AM”, and Jesus said “Father” every thing else is a construct on man.
Calamity’s, God made an order to the Universe, No good with out bad….No Love without Hate… Nature is a force that has a life of it’s own. i.e. storms. volcano’s, tornados, tsunamis. These are actions of a living planet. Did God tell Idiots to live in flood plains, Did God tell Idiots to live in Tornado Alley? or at the base of a volcano? or how about those geniuses that live in mud slide zones in California?
People die cause they live where THEY CHOSE TO. Free will. People die cause THEY make stupid decisions.
So what of Gods Goodness, Didn’t he make this lovely earth? did he not make woman or man beautifully? Did he not give us laws so that we might prosper? Did not he give us his son to graft us onto the branch of Jesse?
Your confusing secular things with what God gives or wants. God don’t want you to have a Mercedes.
A. He wants you to be in relationship with him even if you keep sinning. ( which we all will)
B. He wants you to multiply and live his law, and have experiences so you can bring then to heaven.
C. He wants you to die so you can be with him forever.
Here is a true quote:
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for.” Charles Spurgeon
People chose damnation, People run Gleefully into hell, Don’t believe me? thing Brittany Spears is Happy?
God is there for them even after they turn there backs on him. God is always there.
Its not rocket science. Love God, Love your neighbor, try not to sin, and rejoice for death, no one can go to him unless you die.
Yooper Rick
Yooper Rick,
I agree with you 100%. You’re not a rocket scientist. Your misinformed comments clearly illustrate that. They also illustrate that you haven’t read or understood my posts above or the Bible.
How vast a catastrophe would have to be to shake the worlds faith?
Your kidding me right?
Your narrow Midwestern American world view only bolsters your ignorance. The Holocaust Shook the faith of Jews, Do you know the percentage in Israel of practicing Jews? its like 34%
You don’t think in Darfur right now people are cursing God?
When a parent loses there child do you not think that they back away from God? Guess again.
Theodicy is a bad place to tread, Morons who say that God can do no bad nor evil I guess weren’t at Jericho. They were not there during Passover, Im sure the people, the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the Old testament times sure thought God was not being fair.
God is God, And God made all, But all laws of the universe have to follow law. And so No good happens without Evil. It is natural, and physical law, and Gods Law.
Seriously D. Bryant your ending is weak and insipid. We Christians Hold to simple truths. Not to Dogma of certain churches.
Rick and D.,
If you guys are done yelling at each other, perhaps we can continue this discussion for a few more posts.
As far as the God of the old testament is concerned, I think that you have to view it in the context of the authors. They were asking exactly the same questions that D. has asked without nearly the same perspective of history and science. Everything was frightening and life seemed random, fragile, and often violent. Their neighbors worshiped primitive vengeful violent gods who demanded tribute in the form of sacrifice. It’s not surprising that a lot of this leaked into their consciousness too. They couldn’t explain famine, war, disease, or death either. Yet their concept of God was different. It changed, and grew deeper and more sophisticated. They had a sense that there was just one God and this God was different from those worshiped by their neighbors. This God was infinite (I AM), and yet it talked with them. It offered guidance as well as protection. It lead them out of slavery to found a new nation. This God had a special covenant with them, a promise of salvation that each generation faithfully shared with the next.
We are more sophisticated today. We have a better, though not complete, grasp of infinity. We know that the Earth is not the center of the Universe, though only a very few (astronauts and world travelers) have personally seen enough of the earth to testify that it isn’t flat. Yet we continue to struggle with some of the same concepts of God that plagued those who wrote the Bible.
So here’s another idea for both of you to think about.
What if God IS really omnipotent, omniscient, infinite, and eternal? What if God really IS the definition of love and goodness? What does that really mean for all that we see around us that seems at odds with what a God like that would create or sustain?
There is another answer besides the possibilities than D. raised or the explanation that Rick offered. If either of you are familiar with scientific methods from high school or college, you’re on the right track. Before I share the rest of this thought with you, I’m interested to see if you can come up with it on your own.
Jeff