BIBLE BASED MORALITY
“There
are few among us who have not suffered
from too early
familiarity with the Bible
and the
conceptions of religion.”
There are those who say that even if the Bible
is errant, indeed, even if it is not inspired and does not possess absolute
authority, it is still an excellent source of inspiration and moral guidance. I
disagree. That idea stems from a lack of knowledge about what the Bible
actually says. Most people are familiar with verses about loving your neighbor,
honoring your parents and helping the needy. But what most don’t hear from the
pulpit is what the Bible says about the role of women, the handicapped,
slavery, acts of war, human sacrifice, racism and “family values.”
THE BIBLE
Occasionally you will hear about it in the
news; someone has applied for a permit to operate an adult business in the city
and “community values” groups are up in arms. These Judeo Christian watchdog
groups will circulate petitions, hold news conferences, demand zoning changes
and draft proposed ordinances to fight these establishments. Why? One of the
reasons commonly cited is that they degrade women. I find it ironic that any
group that espouses a Biblical perception of women would call anything else
degrading to women.
Women have historically had to fight to
obtain every liberty that they now possess in this country, indeed, just to be
seen as equals to men. In other cultures they are still considered inferior to
men. One of the reasons that women have held such a lowly status in society is
that the Bible teaches that they are, in fact, inferior to men.
The Bible says that the woman was created
as man’s helper; “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him
an help meet for him” (Gen 2:18). The idea that God created the woman from the
rib of the man seems to have indicated to the Biblical writers an automatically
subordinate status. In Gen 2:22-23, God makes the woman and presents her to
Adam, just as he had presented the animals, and Adam calls her woman. The fact
that Adam named her woman carries with it the same idea of dominion that naming
the animals carried. I Corinthians 11:8-9 carries the same idea. “For the man
is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for
the woman; but the woman for the man.”
With the idea of female subordination in
place from the creation story on, the Bible proceeds to detail man’s authority
over women. Ephesians 5:23-24 says “For the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour
of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands in every thing.”
All right, just because women were to be
subject to their husbands, does that mean that they were necessarily considered
inferior? Couldn’t the idea here be that women were placed in the care of their
husbands as children are cared for by their parents? Couldn’t this carry the
idea of a special, pampered status rather than a position of inferiority and
incompetence? I don’t think so. Consider some of the directives given to the
church and to Israel concerning women.
I Corinthians 14:34-35 says “Let your
women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak;
but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith
the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home:
for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
I Timothy 2:11-14 carries the same thought
and even points out, despite the fact that they both sinned, that it was the
woman who was deceived. “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to
be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived,
but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
Numbers chapter 30 outlines the law of
vows. The chapter basically says that a daughter’s vow could be voided by her
father and wives vows could be voided by their husbands. Verse 13 says “Every
vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it,
or her husband may make it void.” Basically, this law was established because
women were not considered competent enough to make a vow or a contract, just as
minor children are not legally bound to contracts in the United States today.
Numbers chapter 5 describes a ritual used
when a man was suspicious of his wife to see if she had been unfaithful. The
jealous husband brought his wife before the priest with a specially prepared
offering. The priest made her drink a mixture called “the bitter water that causeth the curse” (verse 18), which contained, among other
things, dust from the tabernacle floor. If she was innocent the drink would
cause no harm, but “if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her
husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall
enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh
shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people” (verse 27).So much
for trust in a marriage. If you think she may be unfaithful, make her drink the
bitter water that causes the curse. What else could you do, take a woman’s word
for it? Incidentally, this didn’t work the other way around. Women with
cheating husbands had no redress.
Just how low was a woman’s position in the
culture from which the Bible was born? Judges chapter 9 gives us some
indication. In verse 52-54 we read about the dying request of Abimelech. “And Abimelech came
unto the tower, and fought hard against it, and went hard unto the door of the
tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelechs head, and all to brake (sic) his skull. Then he
called hastily unto the young man his armourbearer,
and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men may not say of me, A
woman slew him. And his young man thrust him through and he died.”
Genesis 19:7-8 describes how Lot, who is
called by the Bible a just man, offered his two virgin daughters to an angry
mob saying “do ye to them as is good in your eyes” to protect two male
strangers whom the mob of men outside wanted for sex. These passages leave no doubt
that women are considered second class citizens by the Bible, not more than
chattel, created for men, subject to men, and inferior to men. Shouldn’t we be
glad that few men today base their morals concerning women on the principles
defined by the Bible?
RACISM
There is no doubt that the Bible fosters
racial discrimination. Take a look at the Ku Klux Klan, whose members claim to
be Christians doing the will of God and erecting their symbol, the cross. Where
do groups like the Klan get the idea that racial segregation is an ordinance of
God? The Bible.
Genesis chapter 11 says that it was God
who separated men by language and scattered them abroad on the face of all the
earth (verse 9). Prior to that, it says that the whole earth was of one language
and of one speech (verse 1), living and working together in peace. It was God,
concerned about their ambition and ability as a unified people, who decided to
segregate them by language and geography. Is it therefore surprising when a
racial separatist declares that blacks should go back to Africa and points to
the Bible as his source of authority? Is he not right, if the Bible has any
authority, to claim that people of different races and different languages
should remain separated as God wanted? He’s only wrong if the Bible is wrong.
We must also ask the question; how can a
just God have a chosen people? Could it be the will of a just God that one race
of people should utterly destroy another race of people and their culture in
order to possess their land (Joshua chapters 7-8)? Was it not the same act
against the Jews that vilified Hitler?
SLAVERY
The Bible speaks often of slavery. Joseph
was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. The Israelites were in bondage
to the Egyptians for over 400 years. Judah was later enslaved in Babylon. The
Bible gives many instructions to both servants and their masters on how they
should treat one another. It gives different punishments for sins involving
free persons and slaves. Leviticus 20:10 says that if a man commits adultery
with his neighbors wife, both the man and the woman should be put to death. But
Leviticus 19:20-21 says that if a man commits adultery with a married bondmaid,
then they shall not be put to death because she is not free. She was to be
scourged and the man had to sacrifice a ram.
The striking thing about all the mentions
of slavery in the Bible is, among all of the precepts in the Bible concerning
slavery, who was enslaved, how slaves should act, how masters should act, and
how punishments differed, not once is
slavery condemned. The Bible never takes a stand against one human being owning
another human being.
HUMAN SACRIFICE
In Genesis chapter 22, God tells Abraham
in verse 2, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one
of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Anyone who is familiar with the
story knows that God did not let Abraham go through with it. Just as Abraham
raised his knife to kill his son, who was already bound and laid on the altar,
God intervened and supplied a ram for the sacrifice.
This story is supposed to illustrate
Abraham’s incredible faith in God. Abraham carried out the instructions he was
given fully believing that God would supply an alternative to burning his son
as a sacrifice. What is amazing is that God would demand such a thing of
Abraham in the first place. Can the same God who says “thou shalt
not kill” order a man to burn his son’s body in an act of worship to him? Some
would say that God never intended for Abraham to go through with it, but was
only testing his faith. If God tells people to do things contrary to his own
commandments, then how are you to know that the voice you are hearing is God’s.
Just to be safe, if you hear a voice claiming to be God and it’s telling you to
kill your children, consider getting professional help.
The most disturbing aspect of this story
is the problem that appears when we compare it to another story of human
sacrifice to God found in Judges. In chapter 11, verses 30-31, Jephthah vowed that if God would deliver his enemies into
his hand then he would sacrifice as a burnt offering whatever came forth first
from his home upon his safe return. To his dismay, he returned home victorious
and saw his daughter coming out to greet him. Jephthah
sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering to God rather than to break his
vow.
Where was God’s intervention in the second
account? The similarities are striking. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his
only son rather than to disobey God or question his authority. Jephthah was willing to sacrifice his only daughter to
avoid breaking his vow to God. But in one case the Bible says God kept the father
from performing this awful deed and in the other he allowed a father to kill
and burn his daughter as an act of worship to him. This was still in the “time
of miracles” and divine intervention was common according to the Bible. Gideon,
another judge, was given signs and spoken to directly by God. Samson, also a
judge, was provided with miraculous strength despite his iniquitous lifestyle.
Yet here was a man with such convictions that he would rather lose his daughter
than break his word to God, who was probably aware of the story of Abraham and
Isaac, and God, according to the Bible, allowed him to do this terrible thing.
In Genesis chapter 4, God did not accept
Cain’s burnt offering of the fruit of the ground. It doesn’t say how he
rejected it. But God made it clear to Cain that his offering was not
acceptable. But there is no mention in Judges of God rejecting Jephthah’s burnt offering of a human girl, his own
daughter.
Let’s not forget the most prominent
example of human sacrifice in the Bible, the death of Jesus. It is not
portrayed as merely an execution by civil authorities, but as a sacrificial
offering for the atonement of sin. Jesus is called in Revelations the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. His death is symbolic of the Passover
lamb killed in Egypt, whose blood offered protection from the wrath of God when
he killed the firstborn in every house of Egypt.
THE HANDICAPPED
The Bible mentions persons with physical handicaps
quite often. In the New Testament they were often the beneficiaries of
miraculous healing. In the Old Testament God commands a sympathetic disposition
towards the handicapped, not to throw a stumbling block before the blind etc.
But the standard for the treatment of the physically handicapped is not whether
or not you pick on them or have fun at their expense, it’s whether or not you
count them as a whole person, even if they are not physically whole. God
clearly does not, according to Leviticus. It is ironic that the deity who is
credited with creating all persons would discriminate against some because of
the physical distinctions that he had allegedly given them. But that is exactly
what he commanded in Leviticus, not only a systematic discrimination against
the handicapped, but even against those who had an undesirable feature such as
being short or having a flat nose.
Leviticus 21: 17-23 says “Whosoever he be
of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to
offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he
shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any
thing superfluous, or a man that is broken footed, or broken handed, or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye,
or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; no man that hath a blemish
of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the
Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread
of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the
holy, only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come
nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish, that he profane not my
sanctuaries: for I the Lord do sanctify them.” God excluded all of these people
from service because he felt that their physical distinctions would “profane”
his sanctuaries (verse 23).
Is it not cruel to endow a person with
some physical distinction, something that has nothing to do with their capacity
for faith and worship, and then discriminate against them for it? Could it be
that a man could profane the temple because he is less than average height?
Does the shape of a man’s nose have anything at all to do with his sincerity or
his ability to serve God? No, these are clearly ordinances set forth by a petty
and discriminatory group of men who placed more significance on outward
appearances than on inward virtue. But the Bible says these are God’s
commandments to discriminate. So this kind of discrimination against the
handicapped can only be morally wrong if the Bible is wrong.
Should we derive our morality from such a
book, a book that promotes racial separatism and sexual discrimination, a book
that fails to condemn slavery and human sacrifice, a book that encourages
discrimination against the handicapped and the idea that there is no such thing
as a war crime, and that the murder of men, women, children and animals for
land gain is God’s plan? I don’t think so. We know better.
CLOTHED
IN INERRANCY I WHAT IS
INERRANCY?
FACING
THE TRUTH I BIBLICAL
CONTRADICTIONS I BIBLE
BASED MORALITY
EXCUSES USED TO EXPLAIN
ERRORS I CAN
GOD EXIST? I ATHEIST
IN A FOXHOLE
ATHEISM I THE
EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES I DOES THEIR BELIEF AFFECT ME?