How do Christians deal with the violence in the Bible?

Two things.One, some of the recorded incidents are not all that unbelieveable, slaughtering whole towns as an example, but reflect the actual culture at the time. Such acts, ones that we would call wanton violence, unfortunately did actually happen and are not much different than those found in other mythos.Second, extreme violence is not at all unusual in most morality tales. If you read the Pied Piper you find all the kids in the town being killed because the piper didn't get paid. Such tales were meant to impress and to hold the attention of the audience. It's not much different today if one watches much tv or movies.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I hesitate to put words in someone elses mouth, but I don't believe any of the events outlined in Exodus really happened. If you read the story it's classic Max Sennett. Lot's of cliff hangers to bring them back next week for the new installment. The character of Pharoah is certainly contrived. He gives in and says "Let them go" almost immediately. But that won't do for the story teller. So the storyteller contrives to have God harden Pharoah's heart. No free will there.But it's a fable, and in fables the author is free to play with the plotline to continue the story.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

First, these tales were written by men and reflect the idiom of the time. Many things we would consider horrific were not seen as such when these stories were first told. It was reasonable at that time to wipe out all of an enemy, particularly children and women of child bearing age, to prevent future retribution in a blood feud. It was also a good practice to kill all of the older folk since they were the repository of the history.Send, these are mostly fiction. In them both good and bad are exagerated to make the myth clear and memorable. It's just like the Pied Piper, exageration for effect. It's unlikely, if many of the events even happened, that the hearers considered them anymore likely than the audience of Predator considering the alien creature being real.They were great yarns told around the campfire.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

God in the Dock is a collection of some of his essays. One of them was also called God in the Dock.

And most likely long after Abraham lived, if he was one real individual and not a composite of several heros.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

According to the Bible God can and does make mistakes. The Flood was one.This message has been edited by jar, 08-06-2005 02:01 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well Genesis 8 certainly gives that impression. That why God decides not to ever do it again. If you read the Bible literally, that's pretty much the only possible conclusion. God says "Whoops, screwed the pooch that time, went too far big time, I promise not to do it again."Personally, that's one of the many, many reasons that so the Bible was never meant to be read literally.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yup, begins there and continues on into 9. If you don't see the tone of regret and mistake then fine. But reading it literally would carry yet another example of GOD once again simply not being too smart, to having once again failed to realize what he was doing.Which is pretty much the early story of God, God simply doesn't know what's going on. It was the same way back in the earlier chapters of Genesis, if you read them literally, God is clueless.That's why I don't have a problem with the violence in the Bible. Most of it simply never happened. The rest can be attributed to common human practices during the period or to exageration as is done in many morality plays. It's only a literal reading that portrays God as a clueless dolt.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, it's not me, it's the Bible that builds that portrait. And I agree to a great extent with you, the God of the Bible, if it's read literally, does not inspire worship.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Actually, according to the Bible there was no Human Morality until Adam & Eve ate the fruit, there was only blind obedience under threat of punishment. Actually, it wasn't the serpent that said they had become like God, but God Herself.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

A literal reading of Genesis 3 also supports the position that the serpent was truthful in everyway, but perhaps only selctively. The said their eyes would be opened and they would have knowedge like God ... Their eyes were opened and God confirms things just as the serpent said. The story is an allegory about the responsibility to do good instead of bad. It's a charge on all humans to try to do what's right, another morality play where punishments are used to make a point.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Because it's a whole lot easier to just say "I can't help it, I'm fallen". The Fall has been used as a cop-out for thousands of years. It's a handy excuse to move the blame from the current individual to Adam & Eve.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

He's not saying God matured but that their understanding of what God wanted had matured.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion