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Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; I let them pollute themselves with the very gifts I had given them, and I allowed them to give their firstborn children as offerings to their gods [in that they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire]--so I might devastate them and remind them that I alone am the LORD.
When you read scripture literally by the belief that God is a separate entity to ourselves you can be forgiven for seeing that the God of the bible as being nothing other than a raving lunatic, lets face it that would be our opinion of anyone being portrayed that way on the nightly News
The very gifts that God gave us of recognition of who God is and who we are, became polluted by unbelief and in doing so we created statutes, and decreed something other than God within us to be god and that god needed to be appeased.
The "I" in "I caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire", is nothing other than our uncontrolled imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and that has not been controlled and brought unto the obedience of the mind of Christ.
That is my understanding of the Ezekiel passage you quoted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
By the way, I don't literally think that Ezekiel passage is how God feels. I think it's how some dude a couple thousand plus years ago believed God feels, so he wrote it down. My interpretation was of some other person's interpretation (because someone asked), not what I literally think to be true. The thing about not wanting to go to heaven if God is like my mother-in-law was facetious...(Although if you ever met my mother-in-law, you might just agree with me...)
Exactly.
That's what I was trying to point out in the OP---not that God is a monster (although Yahweh is) but that these thousands of years later if we are going to read such passages correctly, then we have to break away from the traditionalists' literal way of interpreting them. If you read it literally, then yes, God is monstrous for making a such a statute that flies in the face of His goodness.
The problem is not in what was happening and how God reacted. The problem is in how a scribe hundreds of years later heard the story and wrote it down as he perceived it. Human understanding is almost always wrong and those who are writing down the laws and thus making the laws will always twist the original, intentionally or unintentionally, toward their own bias. It's no wonder traditionalists get so confused when they try to interpret all this literally.
I knew I'd get some open-hearted Christian love around here, LOL.
By the way, I don't literally think that Ezekiel passage is how God feels. I think it's how some dude a couple thousand plus years ago believed God feels, so he wrote it down. My interpretation was of some other person's interpretation (because someone asked), not what I literally think to be true. The thing about not wanting to go to heaven if God is like my mother-in-law was facetious...(Although if you ever met my mother-in-law, you might just agree with me...)
A bit of humor is necessary as some on these threads have absolutely no sense of humor.
Either God told/inspired Ezekiel what to write or he didn't. He did, it is just in translating from one language to another things get lost. It is very hard to translate word for word, since rarely will something from Hebrew to English translate that way. Then we have the problem of HOW a person living in Ezekiel's day would understand it. Kinda like saying I am "gay" would mean something different today than 50 years ago. Since Adam's disobedience, God lets us reap the consequences of our acts.
Like your mother-in-law comment,I also was being facetious.
Isn't my job to make such decisions, thank goodness.
It is interesting that the one constant in history is, mother-in-laws.
Not all Bible translations are the same (here are some translations where the various editorial committees/scholars arrived at an independent translation from eachother):
"I even let them follow rules that were not good. I let them have laws they could not live by...."
" I also allowed them to follow rules that were not good and laws by which they could not live...."
" I also allowed them to follow laws that were no good and rules by which they could not live...."
"I let them adopt customs and laws which were worthless. Through the keeping of them they could not attain life...'
" I also allowed them to follow laws that were no good and rules by which they could not live...."
" I also allowed them to follow ·rules [statutes] that were not good and ·laws [judgments] by which they could not live...."
There is also an article posted in a journal that I would assume is more in the realm of academics but nevertheless is clear if rather long on the translation of Ezekiel 20:25,26:
The article does make a good point that if one assumes God gave "bad laws" to the Israelites what sense would it make to do so since they could not follow the "good laws." Additionally, when one thinks about the hardening of hearts it appears such action happens only after being patient or in Pharoah's case being patient and providing extraordinary evidence that the God of the Israelites was the true God (the plagues were not just random acts they were meant to coincide with the deities of the Egyptians that were most important to them and prove them powerless to stop). So as the article brings out it's often a persons continued intransigence that dulls their thinking ability and get on the "right path."
Is the above the "definitive" answer...no,but it does offer a different perspective rather than assume God gives evil laws.
The laws God gave Israel when Moses came down the mountain the first time is not the same laws that Moses brings the second time.
The law that Moses brought the first time had no need of an ark of a covenant, no need for the construction of a Temple.
God broke his first law, and he only gave them what they had chosen, he would have given them a battlement of silver, and instead, the law was put into a cedar box.
They chose the work of their hands, and so the law God gave was for them to try and accomplish the work of their own hands, but it was not the same law which was given at the first.
The laws God gave Israel when Moses came down the mountain the first time is not the same laws that Moses brings the second time.
The law that Moses brought the first time had no need of an ark of a covenant, no need for the construction of a Temple.
God broke his first law, and he only gave them what they had chosen, he would have given them a battlement of silver, and instead, the law was put into a cedar box.
They chose the work of their hands, and so the law God gave was for them to try and accomplish the work of their own hands, but it was not the same law which was given at the first.
The laws God gave Israel when Moses came down the mountain the first time is not the same laws that Moses brings the second time.
The law that Moses brought the first time had no need of an ark of a covenant, no need for the construction of a Temple.
God broke his first law, and he only gave them what they had chosen, he would have given them a battlement of silver, and instead, the law was put into a cedar box.
They chose the work of their hands, and so the law God gave was for them to try and accomplish the work of their own hands, but it was not the same law which was given at the first.
Says the guy that thinks a person can be good enough to earn salvation...
Who is that, not me. Can't earn it.
However a true believer will have works of faith that follow faith. The faith that has such works saves, but not works by themselves.
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