Ezekiel 9 is indeed a warning. It may be interpreted by some as a warning that if God marks you as a non-believer or otherwise unworthy, then it is perfectly ok for true believers to kill you with no mercy or remorse.
That is false. The command was clearly given to a scribe and by God Himself. We never received this command. We only have received the historical recounting of what happened when the command was given and obeyed. Now that is most evident in the text.
Both passages could and have been used as justification for historical slaughter of heretics and non-Christians.
False. The passages cannot reasonably be taken as a command to Christians because it was not given to Christians. That is why no Christian uses them as justification for murder. Even the errors of certain Christians in the past were not based on these Scriptures, and when they were based upon others, the Bible itself was used to correct them. Both references you’ve given are clearly specific, given to specific people by God Himself against specific people. In the quran we see commands, such as those in Sura 8, coming from Mohammed on behalf of his “god.” They can be reasonably taken as not mere history but as general ways of life and war. That cannot be said of the texts to which you’ve referred.
Hosea 13 indicates that sinners will cause the Lord to remove His protection. This argument was used by Falwell and Robertson as cause for the Sept 11th attacks. We were attacked because we deserved it.
This is irrelevant. Falwell and Robertson may have used the “argument,” but they did not use Hosea 13 as proof of it. They may simply have said ‘God allowed Sept. 11 just as He allowed the Assyrians to attack Samaria.’ Big deal. Though I don’t agree with them, the fact is God may do as He pleases and that is a lesson we and Falwell can reasonably take from Hosea 13. Please stay on the dang target. Falwell and Robertson did not take Hosea 13 as a command to kill anyone, unlike muslim clerics do with the quran.
The other passages are similar to the above, in that they justify the killing of men, women, and children, without mercy, if they are judged by God.
False. The other passages are clearly historical, showing what happened when God Himself (and not us) judged a group of people. Read the text. You see in every single case the commands were given specifically to certain people against certain others, and that they can by no means even begin to apply to us today.
These passages have also been used in historical times to justify crusades and wars between Christian factions.
And other Christians have ended these errors by showing how the texts have been abused. Big deal. No one here claims people who call themselves Christians act flawlessly. I am claiming, and have shown here, that the texts simply cannot support the errors when taken with a simple and logically consistent reading – the sort of reading that is likely to occur with most humans. This cannot be said of many murder-supporting passages of the quran.
You may argue that they point out that God Himself made the judgement, but that has not stopped men in history from using the language and inference to their own evil ends.
Please sir. This is no argument but fallacy. Men are corrupt. The Scriptures are not magic that they literally force people to perfection simply by a reading of them. You by implication make claims against me that I simply do not make, and it is terribly frustrating. Unlike the quran, the Scriptures yet stand as a testimony against the errors of men, even against those claiming to be Christian. That is the point here.
Your response at this point is probably "How could I interpret these passages this way." That is *exactly* how the moderate Muslims feel when they see how the Koran has been misinterpreted by 'clerics' like bin Laden (whose education, btw, was not in the seminary, but in engineering) and the rest.
Well they may say this. But it is just impossible for me to take a command to Saul to destroy Amalekites as a command given to me. Contrarwise, when the quran says flatly to muslims to“fight [unbelievers] until no mischief remains, and only Allah is worshipped; then if they desist, do not harm them, except the unjust” (Sura 9:5), one can reasonably take the text to command muslims to fight non-muslims until no mischief remains and only Allah is worshipped.
Surely the text can be twisted into a more civilized interpretation. But Islamic clerics have failed to do this throughout the ages. Islam has not been “hijacked,” as you say. It has always been a barbarous religion and is now in sore need of reform.
(tbc...) |
