SikhSpectrum.com Quarterly Issue No.22, November 2005
Can The Real Biblical God Please Stand Up
Jaspal Singh
Introduction
In reading GB Singh's Biblical God article [1] in which C. Dennis McKinsey
waxes lyrical on God and violence, I am reminded of what a teacher once
told me that the hardest people to teach are those that think they already
know. Nothing blinds us more than an attitude of "I have nothing more to
learn". Why throw seeds onto concrete?
Before getting onto the detailed rebuttal points by James P Holding,
President of Tekton Apologetics Ministries [2]**, I would like to emphasize that true knowledge of God is never just an intellectual exercise, but involves a man's spirit connecting with God's Spirit. This in essence is a revealing move from God to us, for in
ourselves, our spirit's are blind. If you take exception to this and the thought flashes through your mind that you in particular are not blind, even if others maybe, then take note that your case is double blindness, for blindness is mixed with pride.
The true living God is to be found by any sincere seeker, as it is written
in Proverbs 1, that wisdom cries daily from the street corners, to make the
simple wise. I would ask that the reader not see this as an intellectual
dual between the Biblical God and Sikhism, but as a heart search for God-
our Maker.
I was born into a Sikh family, but converted to Christianity, for I chose
to follow the truth, wherever it led, regardless of background. I realized
God is not bound by our traditions, and should not be treated like a
football club, wherein one supports the team of one's birth. We must have
the courage to step out of our bunker attitudes. The fact that we are born
into a religion does not automatically mean by default that religion is the
truth of God. If that were so then God would be a God of chaos, since you
only need to scratch the surface and you'll see the basic tenets of
different religions contradict on foundational points such as re-birth vs. one life,
karma vs. free salvation etc.
So please read humbly as one willing to learn, rather than one seeking to
score a point. The approach to our Maker should be with the attitude of the
lowly sheep, rather than the pride of the lion. With such an approach the
real Biblical God is sure to turn up.
**James Patrick Holding is President of Tekton Apologetics Ministries [3]. He has a Masters Degree in Library Science and has written articles for apologetics magazines.
Rebuttal to GB Singh on the Biblical God
Mr Singh complains of not being able to get the category “God” in Christian bookshelves and asks why are Christians being “evasive”. As a librarian I find it hard to believe that these bookstores are being “evasive” about any such thing. No bookstore or library would make “God” into a category; it is too broad and non-informational and could, practically speaking, envelop just about any Christian book. In short it is too broad to be used as a category.
Further Mr Singh argues that Jesus and the BG cannot be separated. However to say that “to separate them [Jesus and the BG] from a Christian perspective is almost impossible” reflects a rather low understanding of Trinitarianism. The classic formulation of the Trinity is that of three persons (the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit) in one being (one grounding of existence). There is no “impossibility” in separating the persons with those who are well informed in the matter.
It is accurate, however, to say that in this view to go to God, Jesus is the only way. The relationship is modeled upon the ancient Greco-Roman client-patronage relationship, in which a patron (God the Father) enters into a relationship with clients (persons) via a mediating broker (Jesus).
Mr Singh goes on “I have never come across a Christian who has opened himself to discuss with me the moral and ethical problems of BG as revealed in the Bible.”
Mr. Singh’s limited experience notwithstanding, these “problems” have been discussed repeatedly in Christian literature. Furthermore Mr Singh cites the problem of slavery defined as the modern understanding of slavery (if you’ve ever watched the film Roots you’ll know what I mean) and seeks to judge the God of the Bible according to such a moral code. He asks “Did BG condone slavery? If you think BG outlawed slavery then you are heading for a distressful surprise”.
Initially it is clear that Mr. Singh has not done a great deal of study on this subject. The following introductory material is taken from the Christian Think Tank website by Glenn Miller.
Scholars in the ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) have often abandoned the use of the general term 'slavery' in descriptions of the many diverse forms of master-servant that are manifest in the ancient world. There are very few 'true' slave societies in the world (with Rome and Greek being two of the major ones!), and ancient Israel will be seen to be outside this classification as well (in legislation, not practice).
A recent example of this comes from the discussion of the Hittite culture in [4]
"Guterbock refers to 'slaves in the strict sense,' apparently referring to chattel slaves such as those of classical antiquity. This characterization may have been valid for house slaves whose master could treat them as he wished when they were at fault, but it is less suitable when they were capable of owning property and could pay betrothal money or fines. The meaning 'servant' seems more appropriate, or perhaps the designation 'semi-free'. It comprises every person who is subject to orders or dependent on another but nonetheless has a certain independence within his own sphere of active."
Scholars in Cultural Anthropology are sensitive to this as well, and point out that New World slavery was quite unique, historically:
"Scholars do not agree on a definition of "slavery." The term has been used at various times for a wide range of institutions, including plantation slavery, forced labor, the drudgery of factories and sweatshops, child labor, semivoluntary prostitution, bride-price marriage, child adoption for payment, and paid-for surrogate motherhood. Somewhere within this range, the literal meaning of "slavery" shifts into metaphorical meaning, but it is not entirely clear at what point. A similar problem arises when we look at other cultures. The reason is that the term "Slavery" is evocative rather than analytical, calling to mind a loose bundle of diagnostic features. These features are mainly derived from the most recent direct Western experience with slavery, that of the southern United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
"The present Western image of slavery has been haphazardly constructed out of the representations of that experience in nineteenth-century abolitionist literature, and later novels, textbooks, and films...From a global cross-cultural and historical perspective, however, New World slavery was a unique conjunction of features...In brief, most varieties of slavery did not exhibit the three elements that were dominant in the New World: slaves as property and commodities; their use exclusively as labor; and their lack of freedom..." [5].
Generally, in the ANE, these 'fuzzy' boundaries obtain as well. "Slavery" is a very relative word in our time period, and we have to be very carefully in no auto-associating it with more 'vivid' New World examples. For example, in the West we would never say that the American President's Cabinet members were his 'slaves', but this term would have been applied to them in the ANE kingdoms. And, in the ANE, even though children/family could be bought and sold, they were never actually referred to as 'slaves'--the property aspect (for such transactions) did NOT define explicitly the notion of 'slavery':
"Freedom in the ancient Near East was a relative, not an absolute state, as the ambiguity of the term for "slave" in all the region's languages illustrates. "Slave" could be used to refer to a subordinate in the social ladder. Thus the subjects of a king were called his "slaves," even though they were free citizens. The king himself, if a vassal, was the "slave" of his emperor; kings, emperors, and commoners alike were "slaves" of the gods. Even a social inferior, when addressing a social superior, referred to himself out of politeness as "your slave." There were, moreover, a plethora of servile conditions that were not regarded as slavery, such as son, daughter, wife, serf, or human pledge." [6]
Accordingly, I think--to avoid the inflammatory associations that naturally occur for Westerners when something is referred to as 'slavery'--it wise to carefully set out the structure of what we consider 'slavery' today, and compare that to the OT institution of 'Hebrew slavery'. New World slavery differs substantially from most ANE institutions labeled 'slavery', which themselves differed at significant points from OT slavery. We will try to make these distinctions clear, when they are relevant to the discussion.
Glenn Miller goes on to show that the Biblical model does not define as “slavery” but as what would most properly be called “indentured servitude”. Furthermore, the author notes: The dominant (statistically) motivation was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--NOT by the owner--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects). Mr. Singh would be well advised to do some serious social and cultural study into ANE life and practice, rather than relying upon the questionable practice of simply reading the text and announcing what he thinks of it. The reader is encouraged to read the above-noted article which is heavily documented with scholarly resources.
Mr. Singh will find that there is no need to appeal to some false dichotomy between the God of the Old and New Testaments. The answer rather is to understand that what is called “slavery” in the Old Testament was actually indentured servitude, and was a positive institution that enabled the survival of those desperately in need. He will also find that the passages he finds objectionable are in fact reasonable pictures of positive measures reflecting the difficulties of living in the ancient world. For example, concerning part of a passage he cites without comment, Exodus 21:7-11, our referenced author says in summary:
1. The first thing to note is that commentators do not see this as a 'despicable', 'mercenary' act on the part of a cold-hearted father. Rather, it was an exigency taken by a dad in protection and provision for his daughter (generally thought to be under extreme duress):
2. Secondly, commentators are quick to point out that this 'selling' isn’t real slavery--its very, very different from 'regular' slavery transactions. [This case is different than the debt-slave situation, in that (1) it is done by the father for a dependent daughter, rather than an independent self-selling female; (2) it is about marriage and childbearing, instead of simple domestic service labor, and is therefore exempt from the must-wait-six-years provision--indeed release would not have to wait nearly that long at all [the 'master' would know very soon if he was not pleased with the bride-to-be]; (3) has multiple exit conditions; and (4) has additional protections and guarantees in it]:
3. The odd mixture of 'slave' words and 'marriage' words designate this individual as a 'concubine'. Concubines in the ancient world were essentially wives whose offspring were not automatically in the inheritance/succession line. They had all the legal rights of wives, but they had typically originated in a state of slavery. They were subordinate to freeborn-wives (if there were any in the household), and their offspring could be successors ONLY IF the offspring were legally 'adopted' or publicly acclaimed by the owner. They could be legally 'promoted' to full wife status (in the ANE).
4. This focus on the wife-aspect of this process leads commentators to understand this passage to be about protections for the woman, over and above the protections afforded a male slave, and there were many 'exit clauses' for the woman--to full family membership, or to freedom…
If Mr. Singh desires a challenge, perhaps he would deign to answer the referenced article in detail.
The matter of slavery in the New Testament era is also raised. While the institution in this case does properly merit the term “slavery,” Mr. Singh’s bewilderment at not finding Jesus condoning slavery is misplaced; despite Mr. Singh’s implications, slavery as such did not exist in the Jewish lands were Jesus preached, and slaves would have been a rare sight there. Mr. Singh’s objection that Paul “not only sanctions slavery but equates serving one's master with serving God” is likewise misplaced as the same author referenced above writes in [7]:
Given the complex situation, we would NOT expect blanket commands to 'free the slaves', if for no other reason than that infanticide-rescued infant slaves and aged/infirm/sick slaves would become critically destitute. [We might expect a general encouragement away from a slave system, though.]
We do find statements that 'move' the church away from general slave-system orientation:
1. Paul explicitly denounces slave-trading, which would have restricted the supply of slaves to Christian households [1 Tim 1.9-10]
2. Paul tells free people to NOT become slaves [1 Cor 7.23]
3. Paul tells slaves to become free, if they can [1 Cor 7.21]
4. Paul encourages Philemon to 'free' Onesimus in that epistle [verse 21]
But the historical situation was too complex to issue such a blanket 'free them all' statement:
o Many slaves were still in infancy or childhood, rescued from infant exposure/abandonment.
o Many slaves were acquired in infancy or childhood, with life-care being provided by owner.
o Many slaves were aged or sick, without means to live in 'freedom'.
o The social relief systems of the Empire would have been inadequate to care for these needy people. [Later, the emperor Julian will lament about this--that it is only the Christian community that provides welfare services to the needy of the world.]
o There were known legal limits to manumission (and probably others), some before an owner's death and some at death.
oThere was a growing body of legislation and intellectual support for amelioration of the slave's conditions, and the trendlines were very favorable to the slave.
Once again, perhaps Mr. Singh should confront this more able defense. His simple protests do not do any justice to the complex social and historical situations surrounding what is called “slavery” in the Bible.
Rebuttal to C. Dennis McKinsey on Violence and the Biblical God
Mr. Singh then turns the reins over to C. Dennis McKinsey, and it is well to comment upon who Mr. McKinsey is and how he does his work. He is the author of a volume titled The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, and his hatred of all things religious is quite manifest. Mr. McKinsey is extremely irrational, so much so that other atheists and skeptics have rejected him. To give an example of how irrational Mr. McKinsey is, consider his treatment of the following Bible passage:
1 Kings 9:26 And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.
In a debate with another atheist, Mr. McKinsey argued that this verse contained an error. How so? The city of Eziongeber is known to archaeologists. It rests on a site that was indeed “on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.” However, since the time is was built some 3000 years ago, the shoreline of the Red Sea has changed, so that the ruins of Eziongeber are inland, not on the shore. According to Mr. McKinsey, this makes the Bible in error because Eziongeber is no longer where 1 Kings 9:26 says it is. Therefore, according to Mr. McKinsey, this verse could not possibly ever be correct unless it read something like this:
1 Kings 9:26 And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is as of the date that will be known as 926 BC, by a culture called America, beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom, but which will be approximately 5 miles inland from the Red sea by the date that will be known as 2004 AD, due to changes in climate, and 3 miles inland as of the date that will be known as 1456 AD, 2 miles inland as of the date that will be known as 300 AD, with divisible variations according to what year (continue for 30 pages)…
This should make it clear that Mr. McKinsey is not interested in the truth but is merely an angry man looking to create problems. He also advocates the historically untenable position that Jesus did not exist as a person who walked the earth. For more on him and his work please see the entry for his name at [8].
Mr. Singh calls upon McKinsey for the subject of “Violence and the Biblical God”. The entirety of McKinsey’s presentation suffers from a fallacy that I call “argument by outrage.” The form of this argument runs more or less like this:
1. The critic finds some event in the Biblical text that they find morally offensive.
2. The critic recounts this event in such a way as to imply that by itself, the event is enough of a moral outrage that there can be no argument or counter to it.
But simply stating outrage is not a sufficient form of argument. It is merely a substitute for true argument. What must be done -- but McKinsey does not do --is an analysis proving that a given action/directive by God was indeed unfair and/or cruel. The tendency is simply to assume, "the punishment is undeserved, and can never be justified." Such naiveté amounts to all that can be gotten from McKinsey.
To illustrate the problem let us take these two statements:
· Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews.
· Blethkorp exterminated 6 million Refrons.
We are rightly filled with moral outrage at the first statement. But why? The obvious reason is that we know about Hitler and we know about his Master race schemes; we know about his attempt to seize power; we know from the data that he was morally wrong. The core of "argument by outrage" is to take something like the second item, however, and shake out the "least common denominator" so that the moral equivalency is made to seem to be the same. However, what if we start defining out the second one so that:
1. "Blekthorp" is the leader of the Harlanians, a peaceful people who only wish to be left alone.
2. The "Refrons" are a predatory and parasitical people whose only goal is to exploit and destroy others they consider inferior.
Now that we have the context, whence is the "argument by outrage"? I have chosen a clearly extreme illustration, but between these extremes of black and white lie shades of gray which are a combination of black and white. We would suppose that even McKinsey would agree that the Harlanians have a right to defend themselves, with violence if needed. If the Refrons refuse to give up -- are willing to fight to the last to achieve their goal -- is it a moral outrage that the Harlanians exterminated 6 million of them? What indeed if the total population of Refrons was somewhere around 70 billion and executing 6 million was the only way to get the Refrons to decide that the cost of conquest was too high? Lest anyone think this a fanciful idea, consider the parallels to the arguments over whether or not to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan.
To the end, then, of defusing McKinsey’s "argument by outrage" tactics we will offer for consideration the following points that any "argument by outrage" must supply before it can be taken seriously.
Point 1: A "God of love" is not a God of sentimentality. One of the leading points used to assert contradiction about the divine nature is the question, "How can a God of love order such things?" It is a point to begin that "love" as the ancients understood it was defined within their understanding as a culture that was group-centered, not individual-oriented. In such contexts what is good for the group is what is paramount. Hence when the NT speaks of love it most often refers to the "value of group attachment and group bonding" [9]. Love is a gift that puts the group first and is most closely paralleled to another known concept of today -- not love, but tough love. The best example of this known in popular American culture is the New Jersey high school principal Joe Clark who cleaned out his high school and made it a safe place for those who wanted to learn. Clark valued what was best for his students as a whole versus what the individual wanted.
Clark of course did not have Refrons or Amalekites or Canaanites to deal with. But the principle we wish to illustrate is that he did not see "love" as requiring him to coddle obstinate persons who would continue to be threats to the greater body of people. Someone could easily (as a non-objective or selfish parent of an expelled student might) say: "Mr. Clark is not exemplifying a loving spirit." He is, under the Biblical definition of love, even if not our modern one. But if inaction, or a different action -- leaving the Biblical Canaanites alone; moving the Biblical Amalekites to Southeast Asia -- had ended up in the historical view making matters worse, then we would sit here in hindsight accusing God of being immoral for allowing the worse things to happen (see point below) and it would be an example of non-love or even hatred.
Point 2: Chances Have Been Given. We may well imagine the same parent saying, "Mr. Clark needs to give my boy/girl another chance." Another chance? Here is a question. How many "chances" did the student have before? In fact, is not every second of every person's life a chance to "get right"? There is no problem here with a lack of choice or chances. In the Bible, the Canaanites saw and knew of what happened in Egypt; this is why one group of Canaanites, the Gibeonites, used deceit to forge a treaty. Egypt itself had many chances -- 400 years for the Pharaoh to stop enslaving the people, 400 years for the people of Egypt to show their own mercies on a personal basis.
There is therefore no basis for claiming that God does not show sufficient mercy or discretion in such cases. Critics like McKinsey will need to explain why not, if so.
Point 3: Understand the Times and the Values. The critic like McKinsey who complains of various “violent” judgments delivered will first need to realize that it is not acceptable, argumentatively, to assume their own values on the text and assume that the subjects of judgment would have reacted as they would have. For example, McKinsey may complain of women and children ordered killed by God in one of Israel’s wars. But the Lack of social support options, and the demeanor of the day, tells us that people in the Biblical world preferred quick deaths over slow agonizing ones or to foreign slavery. We modern people who may not share these values have little to speak of.
With that, let us now address what McKinsey says directly. In many cases McKinsey offers a very short and distorted view of Christian teaching, because of his refusal to learn what is really taught. Our own answers to even short pieces of his work may be extensive, and due to limitations of space and for the convenience of the reader, we will provide links to where I or others have written rebuttals to the ideas presented. The answers are in some cases very long. However, it is always much simpler to protest in ignorance than it is to learn in seriousness.
Mr. McKinsey states “The Old Testament claims that God damned the entire human race because of the acts of the first two people.” This is describing, in a very bigoted way, the doctrine of “original sin”. For a more clear explanation of what this means, please see [10].
Further Mr. McKinsey asserts God “caused a worldwide Flood that drowned pregnant women, innocent children, and animals.”
This is an example of what we have called “argument by outrage”. We would refer the reader to our points about how ancient people preferred a quick death as opposed to extended suffering; Mr. McKinsey’s sympathies for “pregnant women, innocent children” would be akin to the misguided person who insists that someone living in extreme pain ought not to opt for merciful euthanasia. Mr. McKinsey also seems to imply that he knows indeed that there were “innocent” people who could have been spared (how does he know this?). Yet even if we allow for the existence of innocent children, what does McKinsey suggest that God ought to have done?
Let us say that during this flood God put special “force fields” around children so that they would live through the flood. What then? After the Flood is over, McKinsey will then object that God left these many children without parents or any means to sustain themselves, thus condemning them to slow deaths by starvation. He will then demand that God send them food. And then what? Where does this argument end? God is all-powerful, so why can He not also do other things? Why not step in and manage the governments of corrupt countries? Why not personally assassinate Saddam Hussein? There can be no end to such requests: Why not ask God to help us with our homework, or do our laundry? Any reasoning McKinsey tries to use to this effect will end up in these absurdities.
Mr. McKinsey states the God of the Bible “killed Egyptian babies at the time of the Passover.”
On this subject please see [11]. The author of the Christian Think Tank summarizes his argument thusly:
So, given the huge disparity in the scale, intent, nature, and effects of these two actions (the Tenth Plague, Pharaoh's death-labor and infanticide programs), and in light of the universal principles of moral governance, delayed judgment, and reciprocal morality, I have to conclude that God was acting well within the bounds of propriety in this action, and indeed, was 'unreasonably' lenient in this judgment on Pharaoh and Egypt. No one likes judgment—especially God!--but this one occurred in a context of warning, ease of avoidance, clarity of purpose, extraordinary evidence, and exceptional delay (80 years+). God used a difficult judgment to stop a much, much larger program of atrocity. How long had His appeals to Pharaoh's and the Egyptians' sense of decency/compassion fallen on deaf/cold hearts??
McKinsey goes on “The New Testament states that God required the torture and murder of his own son.” I do not know where McKinsey gets such an idea, as it is clear from the NT that Jesus willfully gave of himself to die. In his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told his Father, “not my will, but thine be done.” Jesus embodied what an ancient person would have regarded as a noble and honorable self-sacrifice. Jesus was not forced to do what he did.
Further, Mr. McKinsey states “And it promises he will send to eternal torture all who do not accept Christianity.” This is a caricature of Christian belief. What is promised is not eternal torture, but eternal shame. Please see [12].
McKinsey’s next section is about “wartime atrocities.” I would answer most of this section with reference to these items: [13] [14] [15]. This will show that McKinsey’s claim of “millions of men, women, and children exterminated in this conquest of the Promised Land” is grossly in error. The remainder of McKinsey’s comments is simply “argument by outrage”. He offers no evidence that any particular action or order by God was unfair or unwarranted.
Mr. McKinsey then makes an issue of judgment delivered by plague. Here again we have merely “argument by outrage” with no analysis of the actual justness of the punishment. But it is worth adding another point. McKinsey takes issue with plagues that kill between 1 and 70,000 people. We would reply with the item at [16] and this specific point there:
And, in the light of ancient history and epidemiology, a three-day plague that only killed 70,000 people was incredibly 'light' in itself! Epidemics and plagues in ancient times lasted years and decades and centuries--not days. They killed major fractions of the population, and were never 'contained' like in our example. For samples,
1. In the Hittite kingdom, "Suppiluliuma I's victorious soldiers brought back a virulent epidemic from Syria, which decimated the population for twenty years as well as carrying off the Great King and his successor" [1370-1320 BC, OTANE3K:275]
2. In ancient Greece, at a pivotal point in its history, "Disaster struck in 430 B.C. The pestilence is supposed to have started in Ethiopia; from there it traveled to Egypt and was carried across the Mediterranean by ship to the Piraeus and Athens. It raged for only a short time, but caused an enormous mortality. No estimate of the number of deaths can be made; perhaps at least a third and possibly as much as two-thirds of the population died." [17]
3. The first great Roman epidemic was after Vesuvius (79 AD), and raged for a century, killing 10,000 people in Campagna alone [18]
4. The plague of Galen (second century AD) claimed between one quarter and one third of the entire Roman empire [19].
5. A century later, in the "plague of Cyprian", as many as 5,000 people died per day in the city of Rome alone. [20]. It lasted a minimum of sixteen years [21].
There is nothing trivial about any plague or epidemic; but in the context of ancient epidemics, this punishment was exceptionally light and merciful to the nation of Israel.
McKinsey’s further sections on the use of famine and fire are no less substantive, We may add that he shows a remarkably naïve literalism when he reads the book of Revelation as though it reported “horses [that] will spew fire, smoke, and sulfur from their mouths to kill a third of humankind.” Revelation is of a genre called apocalyptic in which images are used to communicate a message. In this light it is well to advise the reader of another piece of “advice” McKinsey gives readers of the Bible, which indicates that he is not a trustworthy authority. In his book The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy he tells readers:
“Read (the Bible) yourself and don't consult commentaries and other works which tell you how to view the narrative. Approaching the Bible with an uncluttered, unindoctrinated outlook devoid of pre-conceptions and expectations is of first magnitude in importance. Indeed, it's the key to effective critical analysis. Once the Book has been sufficiently mastered, commentaries and other apologistic works, which are nearly always nothing more than rationalizations, justifications, and obfuscations, can be viewed in proper perspective and effectively dealt with. It's important to observe the Bible through your own eyes, not those of others.”
I would ask readers of this article to take the word “Bible” out of the above and replace it with, for example, “Guru Granth Sahib” and ask themselves whether they would give this man any credibility.
One part of McKinsey’s section on “torture” warrants special comment. Because of his pedantic literalism, McKinsey fails to appreciate that what he thinks is “torture” is actual shaming – not physical pain. For more on this please see [22]. Likewise only one part of his section on “wild animals” deserves comment, for it gives us an example how little research he does before he comments:
“Moreover, in one of the most cruel and nonsensical stories in the Bible, God sent two bears that killed 42 children because they were making fun of the prophet Elisha's bald head.”
I wrote of this incident in reply to another atheist, Tim Callahan:
The first key question is, how old were these "youths/children"? - for it is a common sticking point for skeptics to complain that these were mere children that should have been given a lot of leeway. The answer, whatever the numerical ages involved, is actually "Old enough to recognize a prophet of God and insult him" - which means whatever the physical age of these "children" was, their cognitive functions were advanced enough so that they should indeed have known better and should be held responsible for what they did. (The Hebrew here is yeled, "something born, i.e. a lad or offspring:--boy, child, fruit, son, young man (one)." It is used to refer to Ishmael when he was 14 or 15 years old [Gen. 21], of all 11 of Jacob's sons at their varying ages [Gen. 32:22], of boys born to the Hebrews [Ex. 1:17]....in other words, it tells us nothing that validates any suggestion that these were children too young to deserve what they got...)
What's this "trivial" business? Let's approach this from two directions. First, was this sin really just a trivial case of making fun of someone's bald head? Probably not. Natural baldness was a rarity in the ANE, and when done deliberately was a sign of shame (cf. Is. 3:17) or mourning (cf. Job 1:20). If Elisha was actually bald here, he was perhaps mourning the loss of his master Elijah - and perhaps, then, the "go on up" is a reference to the idea of Elijah's ascension, a suggestion that the event is doubted and that it is a charge that Elisha actually murdered his master and that his mourning is a sham. But whatever the case, here is the other direction: There is no such thing as a "trivial" sin in the eyes and presence of an infinitely holy God. This "ha ha, no big deal" approach to sin of any kind won't change the fact one whit that even the smallest sin is an infinite distance from infinite holiness. Who would worship such a God? Who would worship a god that was anything less than 100% holy?
What was up with these yaled anyway? Finally, to tie the two points together: What were these kids up to in the first place? Callahan derisively notes Gleason Archer's explanation that this was a group akin to a modern street gang, saying, "Presumably the gangs of Elisha's day would have whipped by in hot chariots discharging arrows." [x] There is, he says, "nothing in the actual story to justify" Archer's explanation. Really? Archer knows quite a bit more about the social context of this story than Callahan does, and is indeed on the mark, although he could have done with more explanation. Chariots and arrows? No - but let's try things like robbery and banditry (remember the Good Samaritan story?) and perhaps theft of animals from farmsteads -- no mere prank, the latter, in this day and age, but a very serious offense that could lead to the starvation of a family of innocents.
The key here is the concept of corporate survival: In this day and age, every family member was required to make a contribution in order to help the family survive - for in this day, there were no social services, no welfare checks, no supermarkets to stock up from in case your pantry was raided. The question then becomes, why were these yaled banded together in such large numbers, and then, why were they not at home contributing to the corporate survival of their own families? To throw the analogy back in Callahan's teeth, is he suggesting that these were just a glee club of Beaver Cleavers walking casually back from school and having a little fun at Elisha's expense? Hardly so. That they were banded together in such large numbers suggests rather that they were indeed as Archer tells us - a gang of rovers who survived on their own, probably by robbing others of their lives and property (they certainly did not own their own farms or go hunting for game.
And another writer has commented similarly at [23].
For McKinsey’s section on “infanticide” I would refer the reader to [24] as well as note these specifics:The book of Psalms indicates that those inflicting this punishment can enjoy it. The book says about Babylon: "Happy is he who shall seize your children and dash them against the rock."
McKinsey is once again reading the text through the lens of a bigot. As I wrote of this:
…such are simply typical expressions of Oriental imprecation. Rihbany (The Syrian Christ, 92ff) gives more modern examples: "May God burn the bones of your fathers"; "May your children be orphaned and your wife widowed", and so on. Such wishes were expressed in clan fights and quarrels in Rihbany's native Syria; and yet: "...the Syrians are not so cruel and heartless as such imprecations, especially when cast in cold type, would lead one to believe."
Such petitions actually serve a purpose as a "safety-valve" through which the Oriental vents his wrath. "As a rule the Orientals quarrel much, but fight little. By the time the two antagonists have cursed and reviled each other so profusely they cool off, and thus graver consequences are averted." The Anglo-Saxon social order being more complex cannot resolve things so simply; yet the Oriental shudders at the Anglo- Saxon ready resort to fisticuffs.
For McKinsey’s section on “cannibalism” I refer the reader to [25]. His understanding of the Eucharist as “cannibalistic” is particularly absurd, a result of a pathologically over literalist reading of the New Testament.
Mr. McKinsey’s section on “executions” seems not so much to object to the use of the death penalty, but to its specific applications, “even when the seriousness of the offenses was glaringly disproportionate to the death penalty.” But this (and his section on “beatings”) is merely another example of McKinsey being one who lives in the spoiled comfort of a Western home with modern conveniences, executing his own armchair judgments against persons for whom daily survival was constantly in question. For people in the ancient world who lived in an unmercifully hostile environment, capital punishment for what we would consider “trivial” offenses was rather a way of ensuring that what there was of civilization did not slip over the fine line from order into chaos.
(As an aside, Mr. McKinsey’s argument that “[Jesus] and his followers should have protested against capital punishment to prevent others” shows a remarkable Pollyanaism: No such form of social protest would have found favor in the Roman era, and if anything, would merely have caused Jesus to be identified with radical elements of the Jewish social system that were subject to immediate and crushing military response.)
McKinsey’s section on “mutilation” criticizes the “eye for an eye” maxim, though such maxims were in fact the norm for justice systems in the Ancient Near East; and he is unaware that judicial authorities would actually read this as imposing a fine upon the offending party equal to the value of the lost limb or body part. He does badly misread this passage, which gives us yet another example of how little McKinsey understands the text and the world he criticizes:
[God] likewise required mutilation as the penalty for a woman who tries to stop a fight between her husband and another man by dragging her husband away. God said that if this peacemaking endeavor results in the wife grabbing the other man's genitals, "you shall cut off her hand and show her no mercy.”
Peacemaking endeavor indeed! The Hebrew word used in the passage here is chazaq, and it means to "fasten upon" in the same sense that is used to describe someone taking someone by the hand and leading them somewhere [26]. In other words, this is not an attempt to end a fight peaceably; this is a determined attempt to do damage above and beyond what is necessary by crushing the man’s testicles. In this light, is the punishment reasonable? The chauvinist McKinsey may not think so, but he does not live in an era when having heirs is particularly important.
Ancient people did not have social services to keep them alive, nor did they have government programs; if you wanted to survive, you needed heirs; there was no other way. It is not McKinsey, the modern chauvinist, who must live hand to mouth on a daily basis; he lives in an air-conditioned house with a comfortable salary. And so the loss of a hand is hardly to be construed as a severe punishment for someone who kept you from having descendants. It has everything to do with destroying a couple's means of support beyond a time when they could fend for themselves properly, and it is appropriate that a hand be lost -- for it matches equally the loss of ability to provide descendants to be one's "hands" in old age.
(In fact, tribal judges would probably not offer a sentence of mutilation anyway, but impose a sentence of servitude on the offender; in other words, her hand is “cut off” in the sense that it becomes not hers alone, but serves the needs of the one she offended. But if our chauvinistic skeptic still thinks this rule unreasonable, he should compare it to this Middle Assyrian parallel: "If a woman has crushed a man's testicle in an affray, one of her fingers shall be cut off." That's just for one testicle. There's a second rule if both testicles are crushed, and the punishment is that "both" of something of the woman's will be cut off -- we don't know what, since the text is damaged, but you can take a guess if you want!)
McKinsey’s reading of a Proverbs as prescribing “a type of mutilation that would silence” is also particularly absurd. Proverbs is a book of pithy sayings of wisdom, not a legal code. McKinsey sees no difference because he believes one should read the Bible “like a newspaper”. The true meaning of “the subversive tongue will be rooted out" is not a judgment of mutilation, but a political/social saying that indicates that the one who betrays trust will lose his status.
McKinsey makes much as well of the “mutilating prisoners of war” by the cutting off of thumbs and toes. Apparently McKinsey is unaware that this was a very typical action designed to prevent an opponent from ever handling weapons or being able to go to war again. This was an era before guns and missiles (I may somewhat jokingly suggest that McKinsey doesn’t even know this!); weapons were wielded by hand and battles were conducted overwhelmingly on foot. McKinsey’s complaint that this result is “brutal and irrational” comes of his ignorance of the true purpose as he supposes, apparently, that this was simply some random act of mutilation! His suggestion that the offender could “work to provide restitution for the victim” is particularly naïve; those defeated in war would have revenge on their minds first!
McKinsey likewise overliteralizes Jesus’ words: “To avoid lusting after women, he recommended that men pluck out their own eyes.” This is again no more than the sort of expressive language common to the Ancient East, as Rihbany noted. McKinsey’s claim that “To prevent masturbation, [Jesus] advocated that people cut off their hands” is equally ridiculous, for the same reason, as well as that masturbation is not mentioned in the text. Finally McKinsey says: And he endorsed castration for "the sake of the kingdom of Heaven," and said to let "those accept it who can."
This is false as well. The verse referenced, Matt. 19:12, hardly endorses castration, even on the surface -- what is made is a statement of fact and observation: some are born this way; some have made themselves this way for men; some have made themselves that way for spiritual purposes, and those who can accept this, let them do so -- it is not saying, "Go out and castrate yourself" or giving directions to the nearest medical facility. There is no opinion rendered either way.
However, looking more deeply into the context, we see that this refers not exclusively to castration, but to celibacy as well. We know that the Jews were horrified by castration [27]; though eunuchs were well respected, and trusted, in some ancient Near Eastern societies. Indeed, how could someone have been "castrated" from their mother's womb? And how would a response dealing with castration relate to a question as to whether or not it is better to marry (Matthew 19:10), said in relation to putting away one's wife in v. 9 -- which is the "it" to receive that Jesus refers back to? McKinsey’s reading of the passage is, like many of his readings, badly misinformed.
We have noted that McKinsey’s section on “beatings” is covered by what is said above, but let us add another note: The writers of the Bible didn't know, as modern science does, that beatings and floggings are counterproductive. Those methods teach the victims, and persons witnessing the punishment, to use violence in dealing with problems. And the victims become resentful, bitter, unwilling to cooperate, and eager for revenge.
As someone who has worked for a prison system for many years, I would like to comment specifically on this. “Modern science” has proven no such thing as this. In fact there continues to be a healthy debate about the effectiveness of punishment. McKinsey’s view is rooted in a selfish view of the person, one in which the so-called “victim” is treated with sympathy even if they have committed the most horrendous crimes imaginable. His type of thinking has led, for example, to drastically light punishments for those who molest children, which is turn results in these offenders victimizing even more children. McKinsey’s penal theory is an ineffective one. As an aside, it is odd that McKinsey from one side of his mouth notes that such people will be “eager for revenge” but does not think the same for persons beaten in war in the example above.
McKinsey’s section on “plundering” is simply dealt with. What he describes is in fact no different than modern nations that seek reparations for war, or else that seek to undermine an economy with sanctions. The process is different but the intent is the same.
McKinsey ends with a miscellany of what he supposes are unfair punishments, but he never explains the unfairness of them at all; or else in some cases, he mistakes predictions of what will happen (“sexual assaults” for example) for proactive activity. We would note that he is in error about Jephthah’s daughter; see [28]. He is also misguided in what he says concerning Jesus being a “human sacrifice”; see [29] and [30].
In conclusion: McKinsey’s railing about “gratuitous violence” is discredited by his utter failure to do more than merely assume – not prove -- that a given act of violence is indeed “gratuitous”. He merely lists acts of violence as though by the mere listing, they are proven gratuitous. They are not, and we have in some cases shown this directly; in other cases, provided links for further information, and is some cases, thrown the burden of proof on McKinsey. Mr. Singh would do well to find himself a more qualified source.
