Hebrews: Good or Evil?

Replying to your article on Who Wrote the Bible you stated “The famous legal code of Hammurabi, often cited as a source for the laws of the Torah, declared that chopping off a man’s hand was suitable punishment for stealing a loaf of bread. The Torah says the punishment must be proportionate to the crime.” You seem to be saying the Hebrews were fairer and more ‘godly’ men. Have you ever read the laws on the torah?
The following verses should prove to an imbecile what a vicious and savage group the so-called chosen were. Any grown man who could rape a child or rip up the stomach of a pregnant woman is a total devil! Also, they slaughtered innocent animals along with humans.

The OT god was nothing more than a ‘tribal’ god concocted by evil men to control a very ignorant and superstitious group of savages in order to gain land, possessions and women. The leaders and their so-called priests never had to work or do battle. Yahweh always had the leaders command the simple underlings to do all the dirty work. Not much has changed. Anyone who can read the following verses and still call Yahweh a holy ‘god’ needs to have their head examined. Yahweh was the Hebrew version of Pol Pot or Hitler.

(Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)

They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.

Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. “Why have you let all the women live?” he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD’s people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.

Clearly Moses and God approves of rape of virgins. The KJV clearly reads they are to keep the women children for themselves and it would take a fool not to understand what that means. Women children could be as young as 2 or 3!!! It gives no restriction of age! Try to visualize what these towns looked like after these gruesome barbaric attacks. Read on, it only gets worse.
(Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NAB)

“When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive’s garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife. However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion.”

I can’t begin to imagine how it would feel to watch all those you love being butchered before your eyes and then being taken as a sex slave by the thugs who did it! This is nothing more than forcible RAPE of the most disgusting kind. What this clearly is saying if one of the ‘chosen’ sees an attractive female he lusts after, he may take her and rape her repeatedly until he grows tired of her. This is NO marriage!
Judges 5:30 NAB)

They must be dividing the spoils they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man, Spoils of dyed cloth as Sisera’s spoil, an ornate shawl or two for me in the spoil.

Do you find it strange that they kill everyone except those they want to rape? God commands these killing claiming the people are evil. What could be more evil than rape? Why would a god want his precious holy people having sex with ‘evil’ women? Just like a flock of buzzards, they are picking over the spoils. That is the bottom line anyway. This entire group was too lazy to work, so they took by violence from those who did work and build. They were nothing but a band of robbers, liars and butchers. They were a more brutal version of the Benny Hinns and John Hagees of this day who use the name of the same god to mass fortunes and deceive millions.

We are at war in Iraq. How would we feel if our armies were doing such things? There are laws against this and any who commit such crimes would be tried in a court of law for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

This book was written by evil men and used the name of a god they created as an excuse to do as they wished. Women are not treated as well as cattle. They can be taken by force or sold and it is up to them to PLEASE the monster who is raping them.

Lo, a day shall come for the Lord when the spoils shall be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle: the city shall be taken, houses plundered, women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be removed from the city. (Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB)

Stealing, killing and raping of women!!!
Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

What kind of God approves of murder, rape, and slavery? THINK ABOUT IT!
(Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT)
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.

What kind of lunatic would make a rape victim marry her attacker?

(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)

If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.

The victim is being blamed. Perhaps the thug was holding a knife to her throat, holding his hand over her mouth or threatening to kill her or her loved ones is she screams.
It is clear that God doesn’t give a damn about the rape victim. He is only concerned about the violation of another mans “property”.
There is no way to clean this up and make it anything other than what it is. It is pure filth. These are tales of kidnapping, rape, theft, murder and enslavement ordered by a god, we are told. These are crimes against human beings and innocent animals. This is NOT the Creator of this world. This god is the invention of the sick minds of very evil greedy barbaric men. All through history man has done violence to his fellowman and justified in the name of his gods. It still goes on today as it did back then. Why can’t people see this for what it is?!
History is indeed written by the winners!!!

News flash!

Ancient people appear barbarous to modern westerners! News at Eleven.

Have you ever read the Illiad?

Neo-Manichaeism. Who knew?

It looks like someone has been reading Evilbible.com.

That’s not what Dex and company are saying at all. I am also reasonably sure that he and probably some of the other contributors have read the Torah. The ancient Hebrews may not have been better than anybody else, but I have to agree with the conclusion the authors were really drawing: ‘an eye for an eye’ beats ‘you kill my brother, my family burns down your entire village.’ Doesn’t make them more fair or godly. Arguably it makes them more practical.

Very funny and yes, I have read Illiad. I find it repulsive that people can make such excuses for a book that has caused hate and bloodshed for thousands of years. It makes no difference how people were in ancient times we should know better by now. The fact is this horrid book has been inflicted on millions as the word of a holy god. I was raised in fundamental christianity and understand fully just what bible religions are all about. It is used to this day to justify wars and the slaughter of the ‘heathen’ or ‘unbelievers’. Nice to see you can find humor in such god ordained butchery. If you saw the CNN specail a few months ago regarding jews, muslims and christians as the titled Gods Warriors, you might not think this is such an amusing topic. Innocent women and children are being blown to bits as I type this reply all in the name of fighting terrorist and heathens. Listen to John Hagee preach something if you want to see bible driven hate.

Ummmm…yeah.

I’m not exactly sure what the point of this thread is. That some parts of ancient religious texts seem appalling to us today, with our modern sensibilities? Well, sure as hell they do. That’s why you won’t see a whole lot of 100% pure Biblical or Torahnic (is that the right word?) fundamentalists. The world has changed a fair amount in the past 2000 years, and for the most part, religion has been tweaked countless times to meet those changes.

Look, I’m a descendant of those “evil” Hebrews. The vast majority of modern Jews don’t sit around in temple on Shabbat cherry-picking the juiciest bits out of Deuteronomy and thinking of ways to obtain the spoils of war and the woman-slaves we are so duly accorded.

Drawing comparisons between the Hebrew god and Hitler are probably not going to score you a lot of cool points on this thread. IMO, of course.

I am quoting from the bible and I put the books and versus for referrence. Read it for yourself. Those verses should disgust anyone with one shred of common sense or human compassion, especially for a child! Don’t you realize that many pedophiles have used bible verses to justify their abuse of children?

Ooooh, I love it! Red Meat!

But the difference is that the Biblical Tradition remains a powerful influence in our culture. Just look at the lengths that fundamentalists go to in order to stave off teachings that contradict certain other passages in the Bible.

I am not here to score points. Yahweh was a tribal god just as all the other nations had their own tribal gods. When you can’t get ignorant people to do your bidding on your own words, invent a god that will kill them if they refuse. How many times did this god lament that the people despised him and when after other gods? Can’t say that I blame them. I see only one opinion is welcomed here and freethought and speech are not tolerated.

Sweetheart, I’m a pagan. It really doesn’t affect my life one way or the other if the hebrew bible says its ok to rape people or not.

I mentioned that website because I found it amusing that you used the same verses from the same versions as they did. Unless you were taking it from there I would find it odd that you quoted from multiple translations.

So basically people are the problem. Well I’m glad we cleared that up.

Heh, the point you appear to be missing is a little thing called “historical context”. :smiley:

Fact is, most if not all ancient peoples had a rather harsh approach to conflict management; if anything, the situation as portrayed in the OT is rather an improvement over what peoples like the Romans used to do to their enemies.

Well said and if you haven’t been raised on this insanity, you have no idea how dangerous it is. All three major religions all claim the same god, under different names, and all hate one another and would like nothing more than to destroyed each other. That day may come and the rest of the world will be caught in the midst whether they want it or not.

::Snort:: Yeah, I hear they really hate that. It’s also a goofy comparison because Becky01 presumably thinks - as do I - that that god doesn’t exist anyway. So there’s the small matter of comparing a mythological character to the crimes of actual human beings.

The bottom line is this, Becky: the older I get, the harder it is for me to believe that the Bible somehow makes bad things happen. Hatred and greed and oppression all predate the Bible, I’m pretty sure. It’s been used as an excuse in many instances, but an excuse is not the problem.

Well, that’s true.

But the writings of the Greeks and Romans are also pretty big influences on our culture in terms of law, philosophy and politics. Think of concepts like “democracy”, the philosophy of Plato, etc. etc.

Yet the Greeks and Romans did stuff that makes the horrors reported in the OT look like child’s play.

Oh spare me your revelation. Besides what you want to be bitching about is the Torah: Good or Evil since the people that “follow” it are likely both.

Or you could go up market with your outrage to Religion: Good or Evil but to really catch some fire here I say you shoot for Rigid Adherence to Orthodoxy: Good or Evil.

The Irish Celts had a similar law. Celtic laws recognized ten kinds of marriage, and one was “Marriage by force or stealth”. As odd as we find it today, it does make a kind of sense. If If the woman’s been raped, and her virginity taken, it’s not likely that anyone will be willing to marry her, so why shouldn’t her rapist have the obligation to support her? Why should her father have to support her all her life.

Maybe, but the assumption is that since the woman didn’t resist in a place where she could get help, that it was consentual. It’s a way to prevent women who commit adultery from claiming it was rape to avoid punishment.

Sorry I disturbed your forum. I will go elsewhere.

What do you want to debate? No one is arguing that the old testament doesn’t say those things, but several people have explained (at least for some of the items) reasons why it says what it does.

Or are you going for a more general concept of “religion is bad”?