Bible Story Time!

Rationalist

Rationalist

Hail Voltaire
Here are two of my favorites:

1 Chronicles 21:9–14

21 Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me a report, that I may know their number.” 3 But Joab said, “May the Lord add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them my lord's servants? Why then should my lord require this? Why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel?” 4 But the king's word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came back to Jerusalem. 5 And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to David. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword, and in Judah 470,000 who drew the sword. 6 But he did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, for the king's command was abhorrent to Joab.

7 But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel. 8 And David said to God, “I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. But now, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” 9 And the Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10 “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you; choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” 11 So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Choose what you will: 12 either three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” 13 Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

14 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell.

Though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, this story made absolutely no sense to me even when I was a fundamentalist Christian. I've heard a couple pastors say that the census was a sin because God didn't want the numbers to go to David's head, but even if counting is indeed a grievous sin, how does it justify killing 70,000 innocent people?

Also, how did they know precisely 70,000 died? It wasn't a sin to tally the dead bodies?

2 Kings 2:23–24

23 He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24 And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

I've never heard anyone even attempt to explain or justify this. By and large, yes, children are capable of being nasty little shits. They point out and laugh at the weaknesses of others. As they mature, they tend to look back on such things with regret (I know I do).

Thankfully, I wasn't mauled by a bear for cracking a joke about some fat guy, and that psychopath in the sky does not exist.
 
Thithicus said:
2 Kings 2:23–24

23 He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24 And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

I've never heard anyone even attempt to explain or justify this. By and large, yes, children are capable of being nasty little shits. They point out and laugh at the weaknesses of others. As they mature, they tend to look back on such things with regret (I know I do).

Thankfully, I wasn't mauled by a bear for cracking a joke about some fat guy, and that psychopath in the sky does not exist.
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I'm pretty sure god was C'thulhu here. That's something C'thulhu would do.
 
I believe it was a sin to try to number the people because it was directly testing God due to God's promise to make the Jews as numerous as the stars. It was assumed that this was done to prove that God hadn't yet fulfilled his promise.

Oddly, only men who could serve in the military were counted except the tribe of Benjamin who had become the "least among" the tribes. This means kids, women, old men, infirm... were not counted.

The purpose of the count was for David to know how "powerful" he was, when a previous count was taken the purpose was to collect a tax to build the tabernacle, and not for personal power or to see whether God was doing what he said, all was good...

The second story was defined by our Pastor when I was a child as a warning to those who would use the Lord's name. Sometimes there are unintended consequences, the horrible result could not be what Elisha intended. However I see it as one of the stories like Jonah, clearly written as a morality fable and not as history, most Jews (even the most orthodox) do not take it any more seriously than the Grasshopper and Ant story is taken by people of today.
 
(Genesis 1:29):Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food

Jah, rastafari
 
Professor Baxter said:
Speaking of census, the story of Christ's birth is a proven fiction thanks in large part to Luke's attempt to make it seem he was born in Bethlehem. Dawkins tears it apart in The God Delusion, which I am currently reading, and references this article.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/flynn_25_1.htm
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lol.....
Zealous chroniclers claimed virgin births and often resurrections for historical figures as well, including most of the Caesars, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and even the mathematician Pythagoras.
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atheists really aren't very bright, are they.....

Professor Baxter said:
the story of Christ's birth is a proven fiction
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/grins....I can't wait to see this one....
 
Thithicus said:
Here are two of my favorites:

1 Chronicles 21:9–14

21 Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me a report, that I may know their number.” 3 But Joab said, “May the Lord add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them my lord's servants? Why then should my lord require this? Why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel?” 4 But the king's word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came back to Jerusalem. 5 And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to David. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword, and in Judah 470,000 who drew the sword. 6 But he did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, for the king's command was abhorrent to Joab.

7 But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel. 8 And David said to God, “I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. But now, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” 9 And the Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10 “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you; choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” 11 So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Choose what you will: 12 either three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” 13 Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

14 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell.

Though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, this story made absolutely no sense to me even when I was a fundamentalist Christian. I've heard a couple pastors say that the census was a sin because God didn't want the numbers to go to David's head, but even if counting is indeed a grievous sin, how does it justify killing 70,000 innocent people?

Also, how did they know precisely 70,000 died? It wasn't a sin to tally the dead bodies?
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There's no way that an ancient Kingdom of Israel led by David had the organizational capacity to do a real census. Any ancient "Kingdom of Israel" was at best a tribe lead by "Chief David" anyway, not a real Kingdom of any signifigant power. It certainly didn't have the capacity to draw on a million goddamn men for an army, if it had that much power it would've conquered the world, that's four times the size of Rome's standing army its height over 1000 goddamn years later, we wouldn't see an army that large until Napoleons Le Grande Armée in the 19th century..
 
Damocles said:
The purpose of the count was for David to know how "powerful" he was, when a previous count was taken the purpose was to collect a tax to build the tabernacle, and not for personal power or to see whether God was doing what he said, all was good...
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So, it's not a useful thing for the King of Israel to know how many men he is capable of drawing upon in case of national crisis?
 
No Face said:
There's no way that an ancient Kingdom of Israel led by David had the organizational capacity to do a real census. Any ancient "Kingdom of Israel" was at best a tribe lead by "Chief David" anyway, not a real Kingdom of any signifigant power. It certainly didn't have the capacity to draw on a million goddamn men for an army, if it had that much power it would've conquered the world, that's four times the size of Rome's standing army its height over 1000 goddamn years later, we wouldn't see an army that large until Napoleons Le Grande Armée in the 19th century..
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I thought the Romans had around 500,000 at one time or another.
 
The old testament is kind of good if you read it like the Iliad. These days, no one takes the Iliad seriously, they don't take into account that previous generations of Ancient Greeks literally took it as a bible and used these people as moral examples to be emulated. So, you can easily just read about it, and though you know you're reading about a bunch of assholes that you'd never want to act like, you can realize that it's a pretty good story. I also think the old testament is better than the new testament, the new testament is a self-conscious invention over the course of a few generations, the old testament, like the Iliad, is oral telling's of an ancient culture, passed down in writing after God knows how much time of evolution and mythologizing, maybe some threads go back tens of thousands of years, and there's something to respectable about that.
 
No Face said:
So, it's not a useful thing for the King of Israel to know how many men he is capable of drawing upon in case of national crisis?
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Apparently it is sinful, you need to trust in God and stop questioning Him or he'll kill 70,000 then stop the Avenging Angel before he hits Jerusalem.
 
Genesis 9:3 ESV / 38 helpful votes

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

One love!
Jay live children
 
Professor Baxter said:
I'm telling you, the way you were forced to click on this thread and made to read the contents should earn someone a ban.
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good point....it's not like you were Pat Robertson and I was tied and gagged in front of the television.....did you recover from that incident yet or did it scar you for life......
 
PostmodernProphet said:
good point....it's not like you were Pat Robertson and I was tied and gagged in front of the television.....did you recover from that incident yet or did it scar you for life......
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No one is complaining because Pat Robertson speaks or speaks on religion. It's the details of what he says that are criticized. Meanwhile, you are here whining for little more reason than the fact that atheist are daring to share their opinions. If you have a problem with the content, then by all means, join in and make an actual point, pinhead.
 
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