The Biblical Stone That's Shattering My Faith

I'm getting gut-honest with all of you about my struggles in this post (and in this blog). What are we as human beings if we aren't?

I'm stumped. There's no more pretending like I'm not, and there's no way I can move forward without removing this tree remnant from my path.

It's a stump called Numbers chapter 31; undoubtedly the worst passage in the Good Book. In fact, it just might make you forever question whether the terms "good" and "book" really apply to the Bible at all. If this passage were to be found in a book published next week rather than the Bible, most Christians would surely be pushing on Fox News for the book to be banned. And - in my view - rightly so.

Basically, what is going on in this passage is that God has told the Israelites, through Moses, to defeat the Midianites in battle. Now, the Midianites worshiped other gods, and - thinking that they had the right dudes/ladies as gods - viewed the Israelites and their God as dangerous. Like pretty much the rest of the Old Testament, disagreement with the Israelites = ix-nay of the ulture-cay. So, junk hits the fan and the Hebrew army ends up killing all of the grown men of the Midianite culture. Victory, right? Apparently not enough of one. Moses (and God) get very "wroth" that the Israelites spared the Midianite women and children from the slaughter. That's when these bombs of commands drop:

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

There are so many things that are repugnant in this passage, even at first glance. You only discover more when you start to think deeper about it. Here are a few of the things I got from it that really make me sick:

1. God condones abortion.
Yep. The very God we invoke as the reason that abortion should be banned from the face of the earth for all eternity told his own people to abort untold numbers of fetuses. How else do women get pregnant without "know[ing] man by lying with him"? Ouch.

2. Not only that. He also encourages infanticide.
Pretty self-explanatory if you read the passage.

3. There's more. God also supports rape/forced marriage.

'Dem Israelite soldiers really enjoyed those virgins "for themselves", just like they were told to by God and Moses. The passage fairly obviously implies rape, but even if you consider that God wanted the virgins to be married into the culture, it's still sickening. Picture yourself as a young girl. Your entire family - little brother and all - are killed before your eyes. Then, out of "grace" you're kept alive and married to one of the dudes who ended the lives of the people you loved. Both situations are equally awful.

I don't really need to expound much more. If you open your mind to even the morals that you were taught in Sunday School, you'll be able to see the frightening implications of Numbers 31 for yourself.

Is that the God you learned about as a child? Me neither. 

Can this possibly be the same God who said "let the little children come unto me"? Don't see how it could be. After all, "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever".

Now, there are doubtless many ways with which Christians will justify the content of this chapter. None of them are sufficient or - frankly - even logical. One of them is that God needed to eliminate these folks to prepare the world for the birth of Jesus through the Israelite nation. Doesn't fly. Remember that it's God will that none should perish? These peeps look pretty perished to me. And it was clearly God's will.

Why would we even try to rationalize something like this? As I pointed out earlier, if the events of this chapter were a movie or something, we'd be screaming out that it degrades the image of God that we as human beings are all created with. We'd be arguing that it tramples on the "sanctity of human life".  We can't honestly justify this passage.

So here's what I'm left with. I want to believe that Jesus was the same dude as the God of the Old Testament, but I can't. And the less I do believe it, the more I really, really like Jesus. So, I kind of don't want to believe it at the same time.

My simple solution to this mess? Just follow Jesus. I believe he was the savior of the world. But, even if he wasn't, walking in his footsteps will at the very least make this world a better place. And - once again - what are we as human beings if we aren't doing that?

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I'd really love to discuss this with all of you who read it. Let's be honest with ourselves and each other and not gloss over horrible things just because they are "in the Bible" or "divinely inspired".