Numbers 31:1-7
“The Lord said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites … and they killed every man.”
I don’t know what to do with Numbers 31. It smells bad. I would like to put it out with the garbage. But here it is in the bible confronting me.
How are we to face this chapter (and others like it)?
My humanist friends say: “Toss your bible away”. Chapters like this, they argue, are like mouldy spots on bread. You wouldn’t eat festering bread, why would you swallow the ideas in this book. They would highlight verse 17 and a handful of others like it. I am embarrassed!
My biblicist friends say the opposite: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Yes, but … I’m still having trouble. I feel unsettled, not settled.
Bible Scholar Raymond Brown says: “Rather than begin with an adverse judgment, we must patiently try … to understand precisely what it is saying to us in the early twenty first century.” Setting my problem aside (after wrestling very fairly with the issue), he explores some wonderful deeper insights in the passage. Themes of justice, holiness, obedience, promise, protection and uniqueness spill out like perfume. BUT, none of it abates the stink of verse 1. Sorry, I’m just saying. (Brown p266)
Calvin says: “When God’s judgements surpass our understanding, we should in sober humility give glory to his secret”. He reminds me that God is big and I am small, that I can understand neither justice nor judgement. He concludes: “People who seek to know more than is fitting, elevate themselves too high”. He's not wrong. (Brown p274)
My old Sunday School teacher said: “I don’t know.” To be honest I have never gotten a better response. I have read, written and preached more complex attempts, but never a more truthful answer.
There is much good in this cacophony of opinions. But there is no satisfying conclusion and I have nothing better to add. Except the important point that God is not the one with the problem, it's me. He is not asking for a defense, I am asking for an explanation.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I love God. I can give myself a pretty good lecture on God’s holy justice, his sovereign right to rule and his higher ways which are beyond finding out. But I still reject genocide, feel sick at the thought of male infanticide and am offended by the way this chapter addresses female virginity. I can’t reconcile it. And I don't like it.
The Wart
My mother has a small growth on her gentle radiant face. Only strangers and small children ever notice it. When my daughter was just a child, sitting nose-to-nose with her Grammie, she asked the obvious question, "But why is it there?". Mum replied, with sage wisdom: “Oh it’s just a part of me”. My daughter stared at it, touched it, puzzled over it and then looking again at Grammie’s whole smiling face, she forgot about it. It is still there. It is still part of her. There are probably dermatological and genetic reasons I am sure, but Mum’s answer is best.
Numbers 31 is a blemish, a wart. I ask God, “Why is it there?” But all I get in reply is, “It’s part of me”. That will have to be enough. And as long as I look at his face, his whole face – it is!
Questions
- How do you handle bible passages you don't understand?
- What other parts of the bible put light on this chapter?
- Leave a comment.
Allan, I appreciate the way you've handled this - as I read, I was impressed by your eloquent exploration of the issue.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in my view there's a fundamental assumption at the heart of it which makes or breaks the argument. You've indicated that God doesn't have the problem, we do. I've heard this a number of times recently from Christians, and I disagree - in fact, I think that's an intellectual cop-out.
If the Bible is reliable, then there is a God who asks us to believe in him and has endeavoured apparently to convey his character through it. He allegedly gave us our intellectual capacity and doesn't expect us to ignore all reason and throw away logic at the door when we step into his presence. So how does he expect us to worship and adore him if the evidence contradicts the claims? There must be a way to reconcile all these disparate factors... and if there's not, why would he expect us to follow him?
If God is genuinely reaching out to us (imagery that is often used) and he wants to be in relationship with us, then he has a problem. For my part, I don't have an issue with it at all - it just confirms to me what I've learned through observation, that the Bible is not reliable. Now that I accept that, anything contained within it is really a non-issue to me. No problem.
Wow. Heavy and honest words from Phillip. 'The Bible is not reliable" I can't say that I disagree. Religious institutions like any organisation of power record history to improve there position and domain. Unreliable, yes - especially when you think of how many translations and versions there are. It certainly is at the least very paradoxical for me. Taking things out of their context is also dangerous. Reading and focusing on one small part and disregarding the rest is troublesome for me.
ReplyDeleteHowever, unlike Allan, I am not schooled or trained. I don't read it enough, I don't study it enough and I am not "In the Word". In the entire scheme of things I am so confused over so much of what the Bible says and Religion preaches that this is a mere and minor road bump on a very hilly, rocky narrow, confusing path.
As Oprah say in conclusion to her many years and thousands of interviews, "To God be the Glory". If there is a God he is the light, he is love. He is this no matter your belief. Everything else is BS in my unschooled, humble opinion.
Mike Miller
Hi Phil. Thanks for dropping by. You make a strong logical case. And, if you start with the premise "there must be a way to reconcile all these disparate factors" your conclusion is sound!
ReplyDeleteI guess my point is the opposite. I don't think there is a way to bring it all together. So, I share your frustration (that's why I wrote the post) but I land in a different place. I trust in God though I do not fully understand him. My experience had been much like St. Augustine who understood as he believed, not the other way around. God is Love (not logic) and you always have to trust yourself to love.
Rejecting the bible's big story doesn't make everything logical, it just gives us a new set of irreconcilable problems (bigger ones I think). And while I respect those who make that choice I take a different path - one that is very satisfying.
Hi Mike. You make a good point about "focusing on one small part and disregarding the rest" of the bible. The bible is big-history. It goes to the big questions. Its stories are ancient but it is still a best seller because its content is so contemporary. Its even bigger than Oprah ;-)
ReplyDeleteDo you not think that when Paul said 'the law is a shadow of good things to come', that it is possible the shape of a shadow is not just determined by the casting object, but also by the surface on which a shadow falls.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, is it possible that God's will has always been his Kingdom, in which we fight not against flesh and blood, but that the Children of Israel simply overlaid God's will onto their physical interpretation of it.
One reason I suggest this may be the case, is because the violence was not even effective. As a strategy that violence didn't work. And violence never does, does it? Israel was never the pure expression of shalom, welcoming aliens, and restoring property in the Jubilee year.
Thanks Phil. A really insightful thought. I like your picture of the "shadow" (Heb 10:1) exposing truth and concealing error at the same time. And I agree that violence never does achieve peace. Thanks for the helpful comment!!
ReplyDelete