Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cole@maverick.uswest.com (Cole Keirsey) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: re: Understanding the Bible Message-ID: Date: 11 Jun 91 03:40:40 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 33 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The following appeared in a dialog between John Clark and Bill Rea. >When I read passages which essentially state that the Diety has >commanded that all the inhabitants of a certain place be killed I do >not interpret this as 'an exploration of the nature of Godliness', I ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Come now, lets be reasonable, I didn't say that. >take it to be just what it is, genocide. You may explain or >rationalize such commands away but it still remains that the OT had >a vengful diety. I suspect you are deliberately misunderstanding what I said, but in case you weren't... If you take a single passage and look at it in exclusion of all others you can find a passage that would tell you just about anything. What I was attempting to suggest is that the chosen people grew in their understanding of God as time progressed. Recently, I was reading a work by an anthropologist that discussed the evolution of religion. The author said (I'm paraphrasing roughly) "Even though many modern churches emphasize a God of love who isn't explicitly male, they can't escape the fact that the Judeo-Christian God is a male warrior God." To my way of thinking, that author might as well have said "Even though modern astronomers talk about a round earth and relativistic space, they can't escape the time-honored acedemic tradition of a flat earth at the center of the universe." The fact that humanity's understanding of God has been limited by human nature doesn't imply that God's nature is limited by our understanding. C. C. Keirsey