Subject:
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Re: One of my issues with the god of the old testament
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 14 Nov 2001 05:29:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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543 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/the_tower_of_babel/gn11_07.html
> Please! What sort of god thwarts his people out of spite? Not my sort.
Okay, this is a troll, but I'll bite, since Larry's my chum...
Spite? Hardly.
Larry, the picture is taken out of context. Presented by itself, yes, it
depicts a spiteful god. However, so would a picture depicting only the
scene of a parent disciplining a child. No, you need context.
The people of the world were prideful, and attempted to construct the tower
in their efforts to physically reach heaven. Such a plan would have
defeated the entire plan of creation, and so the Lord stopped their efforts.
The method described in Genesis was to confound their speech and scatter
them across the world.
Understanding that this is all from 9 verses in the book of Genesis; within
the same chapter more than 20 verses are dedicated to lineages. (2) It is
probably safe to assume, given that the Bible is true in as much as it is
correctly translated (1), that the whole story was not included in the book
of Genesis. The document this story is from is literally THOUSANDS of years
old. I'm willing to bet that something was lost along the way. Any takers?
Then there's the God-works-in-mysterious-ways aspect. Perhaps this was a
clever ploy to get people to populate the entire world, and engage in more
productive activity (such as not building towers of dubious purpose). By
breaking the global link of language, people would have been prone to form
smaller local communities.
So viewing the action as both a punitive and a progressive measure, I can
hardly call the actions spite. You want spite, you should probably check
out the Book of Job.
Cheers,
- jsproat
1. ...and I do personally believe that King James translation of the Bible
is MOSTLY correct...
2. FWIW: http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=37049
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