For anyone suffering from hypotension, this is a guaranteed cure!

This is one of the most ridiculous Goldstein essays that the Review has seen fit to print. This is one of the many reasons the Review hits the circular file after a brief scan.

I'd like to invite anyone who believes this sloppy stuff to act on their presumption. At some point, mature - not scared faith starts to separate the dangerous pre-scientific cultural forms from religion.

But not Cliff here. Clinging to a six-day literalism now has him advocating the same faith-based wacky anti-witch tests of the 17th century.

"Hey Mather, throw her in a swift-moving river, if God helps her survive, our bad."

God is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow so if God wants you to believe this, drink a vial of arsenic and leave a comment for us.

It wasn't presumption back when people had no conception that germs cause infection, not God. The Bible writers literally believed that anything physical that happened to their bodies or nature was directly caused by God. This may sound like scary liberal theology, but it is just a plain fact.

I'll be honest, I have questions about how God worked 4000 years ago vs. today, but I'm not going to ask women to drink up slaughter-house floor dust to test their faithfulness to God or man. Do we really need to import this witch test theology - "it's inexplicable, therefore God" - into the church that runs Loma Linda University?

Aren't you all mad at the wrong person?

Goldstein didn't write Numbers 5.

Isn't it the author of this test- Moses? (forgive me, Elaine)as some believe, with Jesus ascribing to that traditional authorship. And even more pointedly-God was in some way the source or allowed this test to be policy for Israel, if you believe Moses was writing under inspiration.

Liberals hate literalism. Fine. It's still in the cannon. How do you wrestle with this text?

Is it better to be mad at God or Moses? Whether Moses or God made the rule, I agree with Alex, it smacks too much of pagan beliefs. I refuse to worship or acknowledge a god who would order such asinine rules.

Either Moses (or whoever wrote it) gave God as the author and it was probably believed at that time. If we haven't advanced since then, what in the world are we doing operating a medical school, and taking our legal matters to the courts instead of consulting the book of Moses?

Do you have any idea how the firm belief in such mumbo-jumbo produces atheists and agnostics and puts Christians in a cultic class (well, it would if it were practiced).

BTW, Arlyn, do you believe we should test for adultery the way the Bible suggests in Numbers 5? If so, why? Or why not?

Goldstein is right on, as usual.

Christian Skeptic

I guess that I'm looking for some consistency from the "right on" crowd. As Ellen asks,

Why don't you practice this faith vs. death stuff as the Bible commands?

Arlyn, good question. There aren't simple, comment answers when discussing textual scholarship, redaction criticism, and the realities of faith and its foundation. Alden's Inspiration: Hard Questions, Honest Answers is great on this stuff.

I'll be straight up. It takes some serious work to reframe ones whole foundation for God and scripture once one finds the history and usual pat "the Bible says it, I believe" answers no longer intellectually tenable. Everyone has to make this journey on their own, but I've found it to increase my faith, because I'm interpreting through a present God in Jesus; not just me and a couple of 4000 year-old, never autographed, very variant, re-translated, always culturally conditioned verses.

I like what Jesus did with the dust on the floor. He wrote the sins of the men!!!!! If I were Cliff I'd get right on that one! Tom

Folks--

Sounds like your problem isn't with me, folks; it's with the Bible. I just commented on what was there, in the text, plain and simple to read. Your liberals' problem is with the Bible; gripe to God, not to me.

And as far as Andrew being so mad . . .you'll get over it.

I knew it. When one asks critics to come up with a better solution- all they can do is reiterate their criticisms and throw it back on the ones trying to solve it and say do better!

Elaine,
you are mistaking an attempt to make some positive sense from an ancient practice for a proscriptive call to continue the practice now. No one is close to even saying we ought to do the latter.

Alex,
Exactly, please interpret this text through your "present God in Jesus." Please share with all of us how it reads for you- that's my challenge. Be a contributor on this topic.

Cliff

It is there all right. But what gave you the insight to attempt to explain it? To many of us your commentary seems to show bias on your part. There are large parts of the Bible I don't understand. The parts that I do, compell me to declare Jesus Christ as my Redeemer and coming King. I am willing to let the puzzles remain until that time. Why not give the trumpet that certain sound and leave the puzzles to eternity.
Tom

P.S. on the whole, I think you are improving in your style--less Cliff and more Christ--keep it up.

Tom,
Yes, I love Jesus' handling of the adulterous woman better than the method described in Numbers 5 too. However, if I believe the same Jesus was behind both- that's the rub. So how does one reconcile such vastly different approaches coming from the same tender loving divine heart?

Perhaps Jesus' handling of the "flippant" divorce laws from the same author gives us some hints. And perhaps a similiar technique from Hammurabi's Code (1728-1686 BCE) even though involving water and sorcery accusations gives cultural background...

Hi all,

In defense of Cliff, he seems to trying to understand this text in its cultural context (as most of us seem to advocate) and explain the reason for it being there.

I don't think the main issue here is literal vs. liberal. (The issue is not did Moses write it, or JDEP, or even if God "inspired" the passage or not.)

I have not read the article, but from what Andy quotes, Cliff seems to concede that the OT was written in a patriarchal culture. Perhaps by the standards of that time, this "method" of testing for adultery is a "progressive" one.

It'd be interesting to compare the Jewish way of dealing with the issue with other Near Eastern cultures.

It is overly simplistic to brush of the laws of the Torah, judging them by our contemporary standards, without seeking to understand them in their original context.

One common misunderstood/misapplied principle, for example, is the principle of "eye for eye." This principle originally sought to limit the human propensity for amplified retributive vengeance, and keep the "punishment" commensurate with the crime committed.

Cliff
The greatest enemy of biblical literalism is literalism itself. People who argue that the Bible is inerrant (with allowances for minor copying-related errors), usually do so based on principle and not on specifics. Few people that I know are able to go through the minutiae of the Torah and conclude like you do that, yes indeed, this is what I would have expected an all-wise and just God to enact. Somehow the lesson you elucidate from your obscure text seems more like something the Taliban would advance to show how progressive they are than a gem of spiritual wisdom.

And Cliff, am I wrong in suspecting that you chose this text with premeditation so as to provoke precicely the reaction you got? Your posting above has GLOAT written all over it.

Andy
Your reactions are justified. Thank you for articulating them so well!
Dave

I was unsuccessful in locating the article through the link even with the words, Numbers 5, adultery trial, april 24 etc. However, Cliff's conclusions were actually predated by a column by A. Rodriguez on the same passage in a question and answer column in the R&H 2001.

I agree with Zane. And I am disappointed in my spectrum friends, if anyone in the church is excellent in dealing with cultural norms, projecting gospel trajectory, progressive understandings- it is the progressive branch of our church. You make such a valiant attempt in dealing with homosexuality and taking seriously it's condemnation in the same Pentateuch while explaining how it's scope was limited- and here, you act like it is anathema to try to explain harsh practices. I just don't get it.

Andy,

"It is absurd to argue that women were "protected".."

Protected is a relative term. And compared to contemporary societies in that part of the world...could it have been true?
Would a woman prefer to be part of the Israelite theocracy (if they could marry in) rather than the surrounding nations precisely because of such legal protocols?

All,
still wondering if those who are sickened by this attempt to put the trial in context- have any better understandings,

or is personal antagonism blinding you to how well this argument would play if a Spectrum author were to submit it?

Arlyn
There is no good way to spin parts of the Torah, be it slavery legislation, death penalty for homosexual acts or its discrimination against women and girls. All we can do is to explain that that's how 7th and 6th BC Hebrews thought a just God would legislate. It's quite something else to argue that they were right, that God actually would like us to execute gays and adulterers and discriminate against women.

One thing is to understand where people come from and what culture shaped their thinking. We need to make allowances for that but without condoning what's antiquated and unethical. Unfortunately, the Bible has its share of that.

Arlyn, here is the problem as I see it.

Yes it is certainly possible that Israeli women had it slightly better than other middle eastern women. Maybe worse, who knows. There is no doubt that the culture back then was not just unfair to women but went out of its way to set up petty and nasty rules to ensure men's dominance. We aren't talking about rules that "protect" women, we're talking about things that reinforce, over and over, the idea that women are less than. And I do think there were early cultures, maybe not middle eastern cultures, that did treat women better.

OK that is the way the culture was. But to then connect God to those rules is not ok. Saying God set up the rule that women were unclean for longer if they had a daughter than a son just doesn't fly any way you look at it. There are many, MANY other examples of this. One can understand it in a cultural context but saying it was God's idea to make sure woman were less than in both large and petty ways flies in the face of Jesus' message.

And so I don't wrestle with the text. I have come to the conclusion that there are parts of the Bible that do not accurately reflect God. Just because it is in there doesn't mean there is a big spiritual lesson to be learned. I doubt that God is too thrilled being blamed for such nastiness.

In fact, trying to glean something positive from it bothers me because it obscures the real lesson which is that people, through the ages including now, have a real need to seek power over others. Jesus tried to teach us that this is not ok. There are things that have to be seen for what they are, bad, and trying to get something positive from them lessens the wrongness.

Aage, looks like we had the similar thoughts at the same time :)

Passages like this seem to emphasise the prejudices we all bring to texts when interpreting them. ‘No observation is independent of the observer’ is a principle that becomes more relevant the older I get. To disregard or to uphold, to spiritualise or analyse…. unless it promotes misogynistic tendencies does it matter?

Tom, where did you read this in the Bible?

"I like what Jesus did with the dust on the floor. He wrote the sins of the men!!!!!

John's Gospel (the only one of the four who reports this story, and not originally in any of them), said that Jesus wrote in the sand, period.
While it may have been that he wrote their sins, or even the names of her paramours, the text doesn't say that. Maybe from EGW?

The only way that many of us to begin to understand such rules made to dominate and "lord over" women, was for the writers to attribute their rules as God-given. This has been used throughout the ages, even before the Hebrew god was known: pagans gave inordinate power and control to their various gods, and made people tremble for making him angry; an anger that should have been more properly directed at the man-made rulers who took God's name in vain by passing the buck instead of making laws that they wished.

Such primitive rules simply give us a window into how people thought about the human mind and body. To give it any other recognition is to practice bibliolatry--the plague of fundamentalism.

That is the curse of literalism: the prime example of the many problems encountered when the Bible is promoted as "Holy," "God's Word," inerrant, and everything therein was directly inspired by God so it has to be the TRUTH. It wasn't then, and it isn't today. If only we used our same studious abilities to read all ancient writings the same, and not exclude the Bible as above such flippant analyses, we would be far better off and these questions would never arise in the first place. It is not a requirement of Christianity to literally interpret the Bible. Each reader must do his own interpreting, and with more and better education into how to read ancient literature, we would exempt ourselves from such a quandry.

Elaine

You are correct in letting sleeping dogs lie. To made the Bible walk on all fours is a fools errand. Tom

P.S. I used a little poetic license.

I read Cliff's column on this subject and enjoyed the reading (without any feelings of anger...). I tend to agree with Zane on this one.

I actually thought it was quite interesting how this "test" was made. Usually when we think about the "testing" in the old days we see witches "thrown into a swift-moving river" (quoting Alex) and if God helped them to survive the ordeal (whatever it was), then she/he was proved innocent. Or, like Ángel Rodriquez says in his answer (as Arlyn mentioned) "It included a physical test whose results only the gods could control; e.g., a person had to carry in the hands a very hot object for a specific distance" (http://www.adventistreview.org/2001-1524/story3.html). In these examples the gods had to perform a miracle to save the persons in question.

Here however, it is interesting to observe that this "test" is different from those. I mean, really, how would it hurt us to drink water with a little dust in it? So, instead of God having to help the person to survive the ordeal to prove her innocence (as in the drowning or in carrying very hot object), here instead God actually has to make a miracle to be able to convict her of the sin (by making the woman infertile and blowing up her abdomen).

Sure, it is something that we don't use in our time, but it was the culture of this time, so perhaps it was indeed a "progressive" one for that time.

Sandra.

Cliff's argument is his own... but if the Bible must always answer to our intellectual understanding of how a "law was just or unjust" by the given "process of determination" of that time...which of us can intellectually explain the "virgin birth" and the "really dead" man Lazarus being raised from the dead.

Are those "myths" or unexplainable "miracles" to our intellectual palates. Are "miracles" of this type allowed to exist?

pat

Sandra, your comment:

"it is something that we don't use in our time, but it was the culture of this time, so perhaps it was indeed a "progressive" one for that time.

makes ultimate sense. It is when we try to treat it as the "word of the Lord" with special divine inspiration, that we've rushed in where angels fear to tread.

Agee--

I didn't write it expecting it to be commented on here at all, so I wasn't gloating. I was, though, surprised at the strong hostile reponse from Andrew, though I guess I shouldn't be.

I'm right now reading Christopher Hitchen's The Portable Atheist, a compliation of atheist writings and I was struck this morning, when I first read these posts, how there really is IMHO only a quantitative differnce between some of you folks here and these atheists. I mean, you pick and choose the parts of the Bible you bleieve in, that fit your world-view, and the rest you just chuck. Atheists just chuck the whole thing.

I agree with Tom; there's a lot I don't understand, but I just accept them on faith, realizing that one day much of what is in darkness now will be revealed. I'm just not in the practice of dissing the parts of the Bible I don't like or that bother me, that's all. That ritual raised a lot of questions; I said so in the article. But becuase it doesn't fit with my view of a "present God in Jesus" or whatever other final criteria I used, I throw it out. Talk about circular reasoning! After all, how can we have any kind of view of Jesus, without getting it from the Bible? Or is that just the parts of the Bible some of you accept?

Cliff, you're giving more cogent reasons for atheism all the time.

You are 100% correct that the only picture we have of Jesus is from the Bible; ignoring that for every believer he chooses a Jesus that is not like the next person's choice. Easy to do when there are so many various descriptions found within the Bible. Another reason for atheists and agnostics to dump them all. They are a pastiche of different writers over long periods of time, all portraying their own particular view. We shouldn't be surprised to find so many contradictory views; we should worry if they all agreed in entirety.

Your views are Cliff's. However, as an official spokesperson and editor, they should always be prefaced with "This is the personal opinion of the writer and in no way reflects the official Adventist position." Failure to do that gives the false impression that everything written comes with the imprimatur of the church. It should be labeled as an op-ed article.

While we "worldly Spectrum bloggers" "pick and choose" from the Bible, you must also, in deciding what is descriptive or prescriptive. You surely do not adhere to all the regulations found in the Torah. What is your position on those? To be read and understand their times, or to be followed by the faithful today? We, including you, also pick and choose which are to be obeyed and which are no longer relevant and to be obeyed.

Elaine,

I still believe these words in Numbers were the words of God, and I do believe that the Bible, in its whole, is the inspired word of God. Sure, there are things in the Bible that we have trouble understanding, but to disregard them, just because we don't understand them here and now, I don't think is the way to go.

Sandra.

Oooh! I love it! Finally folks are talking about the real issue! Just like the previous discussion on Christian ethics or homosexuality or ordination of women or whatever else divides thinking within the church the bottom line always comes back to the topic of Inspiration. How is one to view and interpret the Scriptures? This in may mind is the most critical issue facing the Christian church today.

Those who look at the violence supposedly ordered by God in the Old Testament and rationalize that these actions were but emergency measures necessary to preserve freedom give God carte blanc to inflict horrible cruelties befitting the worse despots. Justifying such atrocities in the name of God does not enhance faith but creates monsters who in turn perpetuate such behaviors.

Sadly our church had the opportunity to be at the cutting edge of Biblical Studies. The past 100 years has seen knowledge regarding the history and culture of the near East grow exponentially. The literature of these ancient societies and their languages is understood today to a degree un believed possible by previous generations of biblical scholars. With our church's gift of a real live prophet to study and observe the nature of inspiration, we should have been at the forefront of biblical interpretation and been able to place this increased knowledge of the Bible in perspective for the current generation. But Ellen White was relegated the same status as the biblical prophets and locked into their same paradigm of infallibility.

Those who take the bible literally and interpret it as did their forefathers before them seem to have difficulty believing that there can be thoughtful individuals who choose to remain in the Christian faith without holding to a literal interpretation of Scripture. That there could even be Sabbath keeping Adventists who love their church and who even respect and honor Ellen White while not holding to the church's traditional interpretations of prophecy or a 6,000 year old earth is incomprehensible.

So don't be too hard on our friend, Cliff. If he were to acknowledge that the Bible is not the literal words or actions of God from beginning to end he would have to re-think his whole eschatology and interpretations of prophecy. That exercise could be devastating to his faith.

I can't be too mad at Cliff for this article. How many times have we heard anyone try to explain one of the strangest practices found in the Bible. That his explanation does not work at all serves to show that are presuppositions about the Old Testament are not well created. The material is filled with a much mythology as any other culture. If God was going to be involved in this personally as Cliff assumes why not just present the answer immediately, He could have used the Urim or Tumin or have some other yes or no answer. Then again why does the Old testament stories not use the Urim and the Tumin more often, why did it fade from use, or why does Abraham cut up animals to divine the will of God. Beliefs of the people at the time no doubt just as this ritual of wasting in Numbers 5 but that does not mean that it was God's actual method versus a belief that it was God's method.

Until we can view the Old Testament as something written by human beings with human foibles and misunderstanding and mythologies we are doomed to create doctrines based upon nothing more then human confusion. It is why reason must trump faith, faith has to be based upon reason rather then reason being demissed because of faith. Unless we all want to be backwoods snake handlers behaving foolishly because we have faith.

I care deeply about being a good person though I fail way to much. I want, more than anything, to be God's hands and heart here on earth. I think about ethics a lot and while I'm not well versed in all the philosophical tenants, I do my best to make conscious and meaningful decisions about how to live my life.

The Bible is, of course, helpful in this but I have found that there are plenty of things in the Bible that, if I really thought they were the words of God, would lead me to act in ways that I believe are not good. I'm not just talking about the more obvious and easy ways like stoning adulterers, but the more subtle, overall view often shown in the OT, that God plays favorites and the favorites can act in ways that would be immoral if other people did it. That it is perfectly fine to have an "in" and an "out" group and those who don't believe like you are out. That God encourages those He favors to oppress others. That we are special and others are not. To me, it is just clear as day that some of these passages were written by people who thought they understood God but were actually acting in very human ways to promote their own self-interest.

If it is true, that God really did act this way and encourages such behavior, than I would have to seriously question what God stands for. I worry that if one believes that the entire Bible accurately reflects God, then we have encouragement to behave in some really destructive ways. And so, I have to try and figure out what to do with it. Convince myself that these unethical things really aren't unethical? Say they were fine then but not now (and why?) Say the entire Bible is useless because it contradicts itself so much? It isn't easy to wrestle with these things but there are implications for believing that it is all the word of God. One could easily come up with some appalling ethics and this passage is a prime example.

To say that the passages that reflect a loving God are clear and the ones that don't we "just don't understand," is already making a judgement. Why can't we say that the ones that portray God as loving are too hard to understand while the ones that portray Him as supporting imperialism, sexism and dominion are the clear ones? I could argue that it is very clear from the Bible that God loves Jews/Christians and hates everyone else and so we have a right to wipe out everyone else. Those passages that say stuff about loving your neighbor are confusing and hard to understand but someday God will make it clear to us.

Should we believe literally that Mary gave birth to Christ as a results of the activity of the HS rather than a human father. How practical is that question for "literalism?"

pat

Donna is right on that our views of inspiration ultimately impact every conversation--not just on this site, but in how we life our lives and view the world around us. I think it actually was Arlyn who told me on another thread that there is no such thing as a literalist--just selective literalists who think they're being literalists. But if that wasn't you, Arlyn, I apologize! It's quite true though--none of us take all 613 (or was it more) laws of the Torah literally, and we've decided as Adventists that more are meant to be taken literally today than even the rest of Christianity has decided. We don't even take all of the NT literally (or why aren't we giving up all we own and donating to the poor? That one must be more metaphorical or context-specific, right?).

Cliff--you never cease to amaze me with your willingness to toss out those who don't agree with your interpretations (and of course they are that otherwise you'd just reprint passages of scripture, assuming you have a translation that is somehow more accurate than the others). At first it was that Adventists who don't believe in a literal six-day creation 6,000 years ago should join another church, but now it's that those who don't like your application of this difficult text should just become atheists! Wow. That said, I actually thought that you might have been trying to make some sort of progress in your comments on this passage, but you didn't go nearly far enough and acknowledge what a patriarchal society the OT was written in and why we need to keep that in mind when we interpret these strange, cult-like practices. I of course always wonder what happens the the men? Nothing, naturally--they're the ones with the power and property rights.

Beth--thanks for joining this conversation. Your comments always bring a level of clarity and authenticity to the topic for me. I especially appreciated you comment about why this whole exercise (not necessarily just the conclusion) was problematic: "In fact, trying to glean something positive from it bothers me because it obscures the real lesson which is that people, through the ages including now, have a real need to seek power over others. Jesus tried to teach us that this is not ok. There are things that have to be seen for what they are, bad, and trying to get something positive from them lessens the wrongness."

The law of jealousy for suspicions of infidelity is an interesting one. I have pondered the story many times, but I must admit I am not sure why the ceremony is in the Bible. Only a few chapters further (7), to my mind, an even stranger ceremony, of twelve dedications for the altar that the writer repeats twelve times; there are the visions of Ezekiel’s wheels and in chapters 40-44, 318 measurements of some temple Ezekiel is shown, what is their purpose? There are difficult problems in the Bible but that is to be expected if God speaks to wise men and they try to explain what He said. Furthermore, there is no book big enough to convey the ideas of the God the writers of the Bible describe. A wise man and a fool never see eye to eye because a fool cannot understand a wise man and will not sit still long enough to learn from him.

The Bible is a tool that is supposed to put is in touch with the living God. This is the person we a looking for, if we can find Him we can ask Him why these things are in the Bible. We want to know Him by experience in our lives today. If we never locate Him the Bible is a worthless book. We search for God because He has power; power to keep us alive, power to provide food and shelter particularly in times of trouble and disaster. Once we have these we can sit down for ever and debate issues, without this power our short little life will be as meaningless as a meteor that flashes across the sky for a second is gone.

I'm often puzzled by the tenor of the debate here in Spectrum Village. However, this comment caught my attention, all the more so when someone else ratified it:

"In fact, trying to glean something positive from it bothers me because it obscures the real lesson which is that people, through the ages including now, have a real need to seek power over others."

I'm wondering just how one comes to the conclusion that "the real lesson is that people, through the ages, including now, have a real need to seek power over others."

That conclusion simply cannot be arrived at from viewing this text. Is there any indication that the original author had the idea that "people seek power over others" in mind? That he intended his audience to understand it in that light?

Now, if the text were Matt 20:25-28, it would at least be plausible as "the real lesson." "25Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

But Numbers 5? Granted, deriving "the real lesson" from such a passage can be challenging, and simply superimposing one's conclusion on the text--as has been done--is easier.

But it violates every hermenuetical principal I've ever learned.

If "the real lesson" doesn't derive from the text itself, it gives credence to the "your truth, my truth" notion of postmodernism.

But such notions make real discussion impossible, since every interpreter has an equal claim to determining and declaring whatever "real lesson" they choose.

Do you have any idea how the firm belief in such mumbo-jumbo produces atheists and agnostics and puts Christians in a cultic class (well, it would if it were practiced).

-Elaine Nelson

So true. In fact, it was verses like these that eventually drove me to atheism. I was raised with much exposure to excuses such as Cliff's here (not always by him, though I read enough of his books to be familiar with his explanations themselves) justifying genocide, slavery, discrimination, and more.

These justifications (and the verses that generated them) grated so strongly against my conscience and understanding of right and wrong that eventually I was forced to directly confront the problem of evil-- not in the world, for Adventist mythology effectively, if convolutely resolves the existence of evil even in the presence of a good God through the idea of Great Controversy-- but evil IN the bible ITSELF. The book of which it is said that God miraculously created in this world in order to communicate God's character to those of us living here.

I eventually came to the conclusion that if God was not even present enough to control the content of the Bible, purportedly inspired and directed by God, God as I understood the term could not be real. Or at least, the Bible had no more intrinsic authority in spiritual matters or insight to right living than any other source I found. I would henceforth have to make my own decisions instead of blaming them on a deity.

I was surprised to find that while this transition was traumatic and difficult, I am now just as happy, or perhaps even happier, now than before "deconverting." However, it was a very scary idea to contemplate from the "other side"-- your side, when one still believes in an external power to save and restore. It was incredibly frightening at that time to imagine a world alone, a world without the comforting idea of God directing and controlling events. But I have found that wonder, joy, and beauty apparently do not depend on worldview; that life is worth living for its own sake.

And I acknowledge that I am still young and have not experienced enough of reality to say for certain that there is no possibility of some kind of God worthy of worship that I may encounter sometime, though I am not actively looking. All I know is that I cannot return to biblical literalism without destroying my conscience and self-identity.

Why don't some of you good folk take your premises to their logical conclusion and throw out the literal resurrection of Jesus, or his raising of Lazarus, or even his literal second coming, an event that will leave millions, perhaps, billons dead?

Wouldn't that be a logical end to the path you're already clearly on?

Just a question

Cliff,

I did. You happy now?

I am. Thank you so much.

Sorry Cliff

Some of us good folk are not as impressed with you as you are.

I've been assigned to hell by men in higher ecclsiastical positions than yours. I just wish you could write in a winsome fashion--you obviously have the talent, just try to think of us as your grandchildren and gently lead. More often than not you are right, you just have to stop trying to force feed us. Tom

Cliff
Whoever wants to hold on to the Bible as a spiritual guide faces a cunundrum, whether they go your route or that of "liberals." Their problem is to separate the wheat from the chaff, aided only by culturally shaped values. Your problem is to argue that the chaff is wheat, even when it's quite inedible and even you don't know any recipes that could redeem it.

Conservatives remove all the difficult texts from the Bible and put it up on their proverbial high shelf, hoping that God will explain it all in his good time. This is, in principle, no different from doing what your Spectrum friends do: setting aside certain parts of the Bible. "Liberals", in my mind, are more honest about this process by labeling these parts of Scripture "antiquated" or "unacceptable." Conservatives refuse to do so in word, but in actual fact, that's what they do to.

"It is why reason must trump faith, faith has to be based upon reason rather then reason being demissed because of faith. Unless we all want to be backwoods snake handlers behaving foolishly because we have faith." - rc.

My take on this passage being discussed is that, it is faith based on reason. Why?

We are commenting on the lives of people who actually had the physical presence of God. HE was there as a pillar of fire and a comforting cloud. HE spoke to them out of lightning and thunder. HE provided food to fall from the sky everyday and water to come out of rocks when commanded to. The Red Sea parted ways to provide a dry path and then swallowed their enemy. Those who tempted GOD by going into the most holy parts of the tabernacle died instantly. I dare say their faith was based on reason. They subjected themselves to such a law because they believed in the justice of the GOD that lived with them. The Israelites also regularly forgot that GOD and had to spend 40 years wandering in the desert. Many times, they questioned the working of this God who demonstrated visible miracles for the whole camp to see and experience together and had to learn very bitter lessons in this walk of faith. Something for us to think about?

I wonder what any (or most) of you would think if I said that I saw God working powerful miracles in my life, enough for me to have "faith" for things unseen of the future. In a skeptical crowd like this, I probably would be stoned.

By the way Cliff, wonder where I could get the full article. Bold commentary.

For those of you who wanted to read Cliff’s article from the April 24, 2008 Review called: Justice from the Dust here it is.

An adulteress? The jealous husband of an adulteress? Or an innocent wife accused 
of behaving adulterously? However it’s depicted, Numbers 5:12-31 portrays a fascinating manifestation of biblical justice.

If suspected of infidelity, a woman is brought by her husband to the priest at the sanctuary, who will “make her stand before the Lord” (Num. 5:16).* The priest takes “holy water” (perhaps from the laver?) and mixes it in a jar with “dust from the tabernacle floor” and it becomes “the bitter waters that bring the curse” (verses 17, 18). He uncovers the woman’s head, and with an offering that the husband brought “for her” (verse 15) now placed in the woman’s hand, the priest places her under oath before God. If faithful, he tells her, you will be “free from this bitter water that brings the curse” (verse 19); but if “you have turned aside with one other than your husband, and are defiled . . . the Lord will make you a curse and an oath in the midst of your people” (verses 20, 21).

After explaining the stakes, the priest writes the curses on a scroll and washes them away with the “bitter water that brings the curse.” He takes the offering from her, and part of it he waves before the Lord, and part he burns on the altar. Next, the woman drinks the water; the water that washed away the curses now enters her body.

“And she drinks the water, and if she has been defiled and has been unfaithful to her husband, then the waters which bring the curse will go into her and become bitter, and her belly will swell and her loins will rot, and the woman will be a curse among her people. But if the woman has not been defiled, and she is pure, then she shall be acquitted and bear seed” (verses 27, 28).

Of course, a litany of questions instantly arises; among them, Why water and dust? Couldn’t the Lord have simply meted out justice without those accoutrements? Of course. Perhaps it was done like this for the same reason that Jesus—when healing the blind man—“spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes” (John 9:6). These were earthly symbols, tangibles to help folk better understand the great things God was doing among them.

And in a case of suspected adultery, why only the woman, why not the man also? We aren’t told. What we are told, however, is more important: In an overtly patriarchal society, where men can be cruel, harsh, and oppressive, a woman, a wife, isn’t allowed to be victimized by a duplicitous husband who, for whatever reason, decides to get rid of her by hurling false charges of adultery (or maybe, and with no malice, he truly fears her guilt).

Whatever the reason for the accusation, this ancient ritual shows that the woman is protected by God Himself. In something so serious she was not left to the mercy, or lack thereof, of testosterone-laden good ol’ boys, or of false witnesses, or of those who could be bribed or in cahoots with the husband.

No, the deciding judge was the Lord of Israel, the God who created the heavens and the earth, and who redeemed Israel from the Egyptians. He Himself guaranteed that her fate would not be trifled with. Whether innocent or guilty, the woman was assured a divine verdict from the One who knows and sees it all.

Besides showing how seriously the Lord takes adultery, this ritual shows how seriously the Lord regards justice, too. In the vast camp of Israel, the Creator made it a point to ensure fairness for women who, if left to the discretion of sinful men, might be falsely condemned instead.

Whatever other lessons may be in them, these verses declare to us how much God cares about fairness and honesty in dealing with those at our mercy. What we could learn, too, is that people who mete out justice better do so with fear and trembling, because one day they themselves will be judged (Matt. 7:2) by the One who, with this ritual, showed that justice matters.

Thank you JB. Cliff hardly deserves the criticism. He has tried to raise the questions that are probably asked the world over. We are missing the whole point. tsk, tsk!

After reading JB's post...Good and reasonable comments to me Cliff.

pat

Most Adventists believe that God is allowing sin to run its course in our world in order to show the inhabitants of the universe that His government is just, while Satan's is not.

God has given each of us a conscience that helps us discern right from wrong. We are not more just than God. So when we read this story, or about OT genocide, polygamy, slavery, and subjugation of women and recognize that these things are not fair and do not reveal God's character, we must either say that these things originated with man, not God - or that the God they reveal is not loving and just.

I find so much in the Bible that is of value and inspiration, but if I can't recognize that some parts of it are of human origin, I would have to believe in an unjust, unloving, vindictive God.

RC said;
"It is why reason must trump faith, faith has to be based upon reason rather then reason being demissed because of faith. Unless we all want to be backwoods snake handlers behaving foolishly because we have faith."

I'm sure your realize that every miracle Jesus did was completely anti rational. Feeding 5k with one little basket. Healing an ear by simply sticking it back on. Telling the storm to be quiet. AND through his prophets the same ie, when Elisha sent a messenger to tell Naaman to go and bathe in the river Jordan.
Everything was done in a matter that would make no medical sense even thousands of years later.
Is it possible that God/Jesus always chose do the unimagineable as a solution so that after thousands of years no one could say, Of course those Hebrew hicks thought (xxxxx)wouldnt work but we know now how modern science has shown it wasnt really a miracle at all it was just "advanced" knowledge?

By doing miracles/tests in the way God does he confounds the liberals today as much as the hicks back then.

Reason trumping faith/willingness to do as asked will leave a person with leprosy. Even Naaman realized that doing as asked cost him nothing but his pride and reliance on himself and if the treatment sounded "worthy" to him.

Tom said,
"Sorry Cliff

Some of us good folk are not as impressed with you as you are.

I've been assigned to hell by men in higher ecclsiastical positions than yours. I just wish you could write in a winsome fashion--you obviously have the talent, just try to think of us as your grandchildren and gently lead. More often than not you are right, you just have to stop trying to force feed us. Tom"

I would just remind you of a post you made not long ago where you aknowledged spectrums tenor.
I believe you said something like, "this (adjective I cant remember)of negativeism of which I am unfortunately a part."
Do you remember?
I dont know why Cliff cant be given as much slack as Elaine. Certainly he doesnt discribe a viewpoint any further afield than her personal philosophy of religion.

I like Arlyn's observations best.
"... I am disappointed in my spectrum friends, if anyone in the church is excellent in dealing with cultural norms, projecting gospel trajectory, progressive understandings- it is the progressive branch of our church. You make such a valiant attempt in dealing with homosexuality and taking seriously it's condemnation in the same Pentateuch while explaining how it's scope was limited- and here, you act like it is anathema to try to explain harsh practices. I just don't get it."

An example of Classic liberalism where one can be miles away from the written word and DEMAND others acceptance of there viewpoint as a valid one and yet be the most critical of others having their own viewpoint too? Sounds like it to me.

Ed I'm the one who originally stated the "this is the real lesson" and after sending it, I regretted my hubris. So I think you are correct to call me on it. I should have couched that much more tentatively. It is the lesson I draw from it but calling it "the real lesson" was a bit grandiose :)

However, I stand by my assertion that, by assuming that every text is divinely inspired, one can end up in some serious ethical pretzels. Of course, one can still end up in ethical pretzels without that assumption too.

There are those who think there is some sort of divinely inspired lesson that all the authors of the Bible are communicating in all texts and, if we can just "understand" the text well enough, the lesson will be apparent. And there are some, like me, who don't see it that way. And think, in fact, that trying to get some sort of divine message out of some texts is counterproductive because it lessens the wrongness of the original text. And so we are going to approach some texts differently.

No one here seems to believe that Cliff hasn't been given plenty of slack (were it rope it would been sufficient to hang himself :-)

Anyone who posts here must be able to take it when he or she dishes it out. That is part of the blogging scene. "If you don't like the heat, stay out of the kitchen."

I don't believe Cliff has protested because so many disagree with his positions. After all, Spectrum is NOT an official church publication, as the Review is.

Thanks, Beth. I feel a little less disoriented. One of the things that continues to amaze me here is the binary thinking that goes on among individuals who purport to deal with "nuance" and "complexity." (Don't know if that includes you or not, this is a general statement).

For example, the general proposition that if a text offends our 21st century sensibilities, it cannot be divinely inspired, because "God is better than that." That's the same sort of thinking that says "God knows the earth moves around the sun, and not vice versa, so saying 'the sun stood still' demonstrates the Bible is not from an all-knowing God." Of course, it shows no such thing. Neither Joshua nor God were concerned with celestial mechanics. Joshua wanted more daylight to pursue his enemies.

We use language all the time. If I go to a service station and ask for a rest room, no one inquires about how tired I am, or explains that very little 'resting' takes place in a rest room.

Similarly, this whole Numbers 5 discussion is taking place, for the most part, in a 21st century context. We see the ritual as ridiculous and repulsive. But this instruction was not given to a 21st century western culture.

In the old Disney film, "Greyfriars Bobby," a group of Scottish street urchins are given a formal meal at the vicarage. ONe of the boys says grace, but it's inaudible at the other end of the table. A boy from the other end complains, "I couldna' hear ya." To which the one who said the prayer replies, "I wasna' talkin' to you!"

That's the problem with these reactions to Numbers 5. God "wasna' talkin'" directly to us. So the question is not how do we react to this passage, but "How did the original audience understand it?" We compare it to our mores. But they compared it to-- well, what exactly was the alternative in surrounding cultures?

As a teacher, I know that no one, child or adult, learns until they're ready, nor do they learn more than they are ready for. People and cultures are simply not infinitely malleable. God knows that better than we do. Or does He? Maybe that's the real question.

Jesus didn't negate parts of the Pentateuch when rules portrayed a picture of God that was inaccurate. He acknowledged the divorce laws that Moses gave without saying it was a divine mistake or that Moses was wrong in giving it at that time, or excusing it as uninspired.

Instead, Jesus seemed to take the Pentateuch seriously- all of it and elevate the ethics to a higher level. If the OT should be interpreted through Him, let's follow his lead--- Cannot this incredibly intellectually adept progressive community of Spectrum bloggers do something along those lines? Incorporate and raise the principle/principles behind the Numbers 5 protocol to a higher rational, ethical injunction that does have application to us today?

Or am I wrong in believing in the potential of this group of "cooks in the kitchen" of doing better than Goldstein? Don't discard just because you don't understand. Try.

perhaps a poor attempt on my part will spur the better thinkers to come up with deeper offerings.

Is there anything in the Numbers 5 ritual that gives us psychological direction or therapy for marital jealousy- founded or unfounded? How about suspicions in general? Was there legal and social pressure implied by creating this public protocol to relinquish suspicion and reaffirm the marriage bond if after leaving the results with God (a "fleece test") nothing happens to the accused? (imagine what the in-laws of the wife would say to the husband after all that!) What medical condition was referred to, back then that would make the belly swell and sexual organs shrivel? Would this match with peritonitis or gastrointestinal infection from the dirty dust of the tabernacle or was that a distraction from the actual causative agent being a STD? If, (and I am going out on a limb- so feel free to cut me off) the woman was guilty and was uncaught yet repentent, and somehow she went through this and didn't receive the negative effects- is a second chance to rebuild her marriage a gift from God? Would Jesus hide such sin from the husband by not punishing the guilty in order to redeem a marriage? (any hints of the future handling of His handling of the adulterous woman here?)

come on, the water's warm!

Arlyn

The problem is the chavinistic nature of the presentation. Why is it always the woman charged with infidelity? Why is she the only one "brought to the test". There would be no prostitution if there were not a ready market! Another story out of WWII. While not activity engaged in combat, our unit would be pulled back into a rest area. The enlisted men were housed in six man tents. Of course, as soon as our camp was settled brothels would spring up. One of my tent mates announced to the rest of us he was "going out to find some 'young meat'. He returned in about an hour cursing. We inquired as to his disgust. He said, "Some dumb old farmer tried to "sell" me his 11 year old daughter. I asked, well did you take her? He replied, "Of course!"

I said, "shame on you. The farmer and his family were likely starving and you only had an itch!"

From an Old Testament point of view, there is no mention of this ritual in Hosea. Hosea took Gomer back without any mention of any ritual cleansing.

Of all the redemptive metaphors in the Old Testment why choose to write on one that evokes a caste society? It seems it started with Adam: "The woman that thou gavest me!"

The story we should be telling is the story found in the Gospel of John of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus. Tom

Ah yes, Tom, Hosea didn't go through this ritual. He didn't need to, he had proof in the children. And this ritual was not mandated for every adultery or suspicion- it was an optional route for those who couldn't go on living with their suspicions. So, Hosea shows us a higher way, one that was actually mandated by God and shows His preferred methods.
Laws are usually given for the unresolved issues and are moot if the issues can be handled redemptively without law.

Also, Mary did anoint the feet of Jesus. And why? if we believe she was the adulterous woman who was unpunished by Jesus- think of the gratitude she had for the Savior. Would a woman who escapes the belly swelling and thighs wasting- if she fully deserved it and was repentent- not also have the same grateful attitude toward God? It is the grace that leads to repentence.

Is Grace hidden in the Numbers 5 ritual somewhere? I know, I share with you the modern anger that men and women were not treated equally in this ritual or in most places in the Pentateuch. That the man is held guiltless after putting his wife through this is completely unfair! Even in the Hammurabi Code for river testing a suspected person of sorcery- if the accused survives and is seemingly innocent, his accuser is killed and his property becomes the accused. So, I would be happier if they both drank that bitter water-for perhaps the husband was also having an affair and projected this excuse to dissolve the marriage. But one step at a time, justice seems to be a progressive phenomenon even when God guides it through human hands.

I'm still surprised by the negativity on this particular piece. I guess, in my naivete, I didn't realize just how narrow-minded many liberals are: whatever doesn't fit into their very narrow view of reality--rationalistic, naturalistic, scientific, ethical [as they understand ethics]--must be discarded. What a limited world you inhabit (You ought to read Goethe's The Sorrow's of Young Werther). Reality's much greater and deeper than what the confines of modernism has imposed on it. We're a few hundred years beyond the Enlightenment. Move on!

Jemand, who said he now rejects the resurrection stories, was being simply logical, and I can appreciate that.

Cliff

So God seeks to intervene in a chauvinistic society by making the woman baron or miscarry in the event of adultery.

Why wouldn't God have invented rules, which gave equality to women in all matters?

How long was this all supposed to last? One year? Two? A lifetime? What if an innocent woman was already baron? Would God make her fertile? A good reason to cause her husband to be suspicious.

What if the woman was beyond menopause? Would they have understood this?

To miscarry????? God would cause a woman to miscarry???? So God would allow life to form and then cause an abortion - up to what age? One week? 40 weeks?

I am impressed however.

The bible throws up all kinds of horrors and injustices. The extent of these pale into insignificance with the sheer creativity you apply by inventing an illusion to turn this story into something more in keeping with your world view. Unfortunately your story only throws up more horrors and injustices.

sad that we enjoy too much the arguing at each other and too little the chance to collaboratively bring out something new from the "treasure house".

I'm done trying here.

Arlyn,

Yes, I agree. Let's use this as an opportunity to see "something new". How about looking at the way Jesus used Scripture - how he deliberately would leave out a negative phrase when quoting a Scripture passage.

Or how the synoptics were really, really good literature, written by people who picked and chose their materials carefully and wove the various stories together for a reason, more concerned with theology than historical accuracy. And how they used and referred to OT passages.

There there is Paul - the most eclectic of all - who in one sentence would mix and match two or three atonement metaphors together in a way that that confused poor (in the sense of pity not learning) biblical scholars to this day.

Or how the writer of Hebrew - picked and chose his OT quotes among the various translations available at the time when explaining his/her theology.

The guidance of the NT writers alone can give us a starting point. It was not for naught that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be our guide when reading and studying.

I must agree with Ed. Many of us seem to be super-imposing our own moral and cultural sensibilities onto this text with no regard for its original context. And because we find it so strange and offensive, we conclude that God could never work this way. But why can't God work with people within the realm of their understanding, even if it seems so patriarchal and discriminatory to us?

I'm reminded of the discussion of Jeremiah Wright's preaching. Many people found it to be nothing short of hate speech. However, others brought the idea to the table of the African-American experience intertwined with the history of African-American preaching as context. A translation from one experience to another was needed, in order to make what he was saying more understandable for some.

All I'm trying to say, is that context matters. In biblical studies, this is just part of sound hermeneutics...drawing out the cultural, historical, linguistic and theological context from the text itself, no matter how offensive ot may seem to our own sensibilities, before coming to our own theological conclusions and applications.

And now I wait for the pile on...

Thanks...

Frank

Christianity (as opposed to the Messianic Judaism that James, the brother of Jesus represented), developed outside Palestine, and its charter members were the so-called "God-fearers", non-Jews who were fascinated by the Old Testament story but who rejected the Torah. They were very much like the Spectrum crowd. They were attracted to the universal elements in the Jewish scriptures while rejecting what was ethnically Jewish.

The reason Christianity rejected the Torah was that it was ethnically too Jewish. They had no scriptures to base it on. In fact, Jesus' own brother all but accused him of apostasy for preaching against it, and he had to seek refuge among the Roman occupation forces in Jerusalem to escape a mob of enraged Jews, most likely Christian Jews, who were the mostly likely to know who he was.

In other words, the issue being discussed on this thread was the very one which eventually freed the Jesus-faith from its Jewish roots.

Correction:
James all but accused PAUL (not Jesus)of apostasy.

Cliff

What is the difference between a focused mind and a narrow mind? My mind is broad enough to accept you even when you are off base yet you would say to me: "My way or the highway!"

Who then is the bigot?

My point was and remains? Why highlight a Scripture that treats women in one fashion and men in an entirely different fashion. That was the question of Jesus when they brought to Him only the woman caught in adultry not the man. Seems to me monogymy is a two way street.

Clff generally, I find you columns in the review pertinent and provocative--It is just your insistence on being 100 % right and all others being 100% wrong if they challenge you at any level. Please try sharing instead of "telling". Tom

Cliff is a sincere guy and a brilliant writer. He just needs to be reminded occasionally that name-calling isn't argument.

"the woman was guilty and was uncaught yet repentent, and somehow she went through this and didn't receive the negative effects- is a second chance to rebuild her marriage a gift from God."

Wow! Would any woman you know even want to rebuild a marriage with such an accusatory man?
If so, it was because she had no other means of support; a position given her through the generosity of the patriarchal system, and condoned by its priests.

The mistake, IMO, is to take all the rules given by the priests and, just as they did, claim it was God who ordered them. Too bad the people believed their priests; too bad that today they are still being believed. Pre-literate people had no other choice; if we are truly literate today, we can reject such contrived explanations and realize that ancient literature was never intended to be taken literally: that is our worst mistake in failing to understand ancient literature and its purpose.

Bible writers claimed inspiration; their contemporaries claimed they relied on the muses for inspiration. Semantics? Which is more powerful in a God-fearing system?

"Cliff is a sincere guy and a brilliant writer. He just needs to be reminded occasionally that name-calling isn't argument."

If he is as brilliant as you assert, he would surely know that ad hominem arguments are thrown out of any debate. He should take a course in effective argumentation and debate if he wishes to wade into that pool. Otherwise, it's too deep for his ability to swim--especially with the sharks!

I'm still surprised by the negativity on this particular piece.

You are not. You knew full well that you were reaching into the depths of bronze age ignorance, and baptizing it in a rather liberal-sounding set of apologetics.

You just didn't expect Spectrum to bother with it, that's all.

I guess, in my naivete, I didn't realize just how narrow-minded many liberals are:

Might be believable, if you didn't say essentially the same thing in every one of these discussions with "the liberals".

whatever doesn't fit into their very narrow view of reality--rationalistic, naturalistic, scientific, ethical [as they understand ethics]--must be discarded.

So narrow as to pay attention to reality. Note that I'm saying that of the rationalistic and scientific aspects ("naturalism" is a dependent term), for I don't actually doubt the lack of real questioning of liberal ethics by liberals.

We know very well that you don't accept the "ethics" or magic claims of other religions. So unless you actually have some evidence for the magic of yours, you're far from broad-minded, you're only narrow-mindedly making ethical, rational, and scientific exceptions for your own beliefs. That's not "liberal" in any sense of the word.

What a limited world you inhabit (You ought to read Goethe's The Sorrow's of Young Werther). Reality's much greater and deeper than what the confines of modernism has imposed on it.

And this has what to do with accepting bronze-age prejudices into post-modern life?

Reality may or may not be greater than we understand it to be, which has absolutely nothing to do with explaining why we should be accepting of the codes of ignorant sheepherders. When do we get the column marveling at the wisdom of the genocide of the Amelekites? Hey, it's you who are most concerned about picking and choosing, might as well go whole hog and tell us why killing babies in the flood was a sacred deed (once again, modern science would actually relieve God of the evils he is accused of doing in the Bible).

We're a few hundred years beyond the Enlightenment. Move on!

We are still the beneficiaries of the Enlightenment, which has given us our modern world, and not incidentally, disparaged many ancient prejudices such as anti-Semitism.

Jemand, who said he now rejects the resurrection stories, was being simply logical, and I can appreciate that.

Um, no, he was being empirical, an Enlightenment ideal. Without empirical knowledge, there is nothing logical about rejecting the resurrection stories as unbelievable.

See, it's one thing to really accept the Bible without question and to reject subsequent increases in knowledge, and it's another to claim to do so while demanding that Enlightenment ideals be adopted by your opponents. After all, suppose that they do not? They're at least as reasonable as someone picking and choosing from the Bible at the present time, for one cannot even imagine Goldstein trying such nonsense with his own wife today.

Glen Davidson

Look, I just presented the texts and gave, what I thought, was a reasonable intepretation of them, basically accepting them for what they said, no matter how contrary to almost all that I know today. Again, it just seems to me that the problem some of you folks have here isn't with me but with the Bible and the stories in there. I just am not one to pick and choose the stories I believe; believing them true, however, isn't the same as saying that they are applicable today.

How much of the OT do you folks throw out? How much of the New as well? I find this all rather fascinating. I really didn't expect anyone to have an issue with that article, I really didn't. But, again, it seems that the issue is with the Bible and what you accept or reject in it.

Glad some of you are confident enough in your own judgments to do that. I accept it all, even the parts that really bother me.

This is a very interesting thread to follow. I don't know that I have more to add, but I wanted to respond to a few comments.

Tom--I appreciate you keep coming back to the point about monogamy being a two-way street and the fact that these ancient guidelines were very slanted against women. Where's the cursed water and test for a woman who suspects her husband? Would his "lions" shrivel and dry up if he was guilty of infidelity? You really have to wonder what would be the lot for a woman who was barren (or her husband was but back then they didn't know that men could be infertile). It does seem difficult to think that God would actually cause a miscarriage. Maybe I'm especially sensitive to that right now because I'm pregnant, but that doesn't seem to fit the God we know in Jesus.

Arlyn--Maybe I'm a bit dense, but I can't get a what you keep having a problem with. What issues aren't we engaging in that seems to so offend?

Aage--Thanks for the great wheat/chaff metaphor.

Cliff--guess you posted right when I did. I actually believe that you didn't expect this to be a problematic article. I think you meant to show that even in the midst of what seems like a barbaric practice--something I'm sure you wouldn't want tried on the women in your life--we can find broad principles of justice and mercy. I actually think you were trying to do what I try to do: find the trajectory of God's plan and value system in the midst of a cultural tradition that we no longer find remotely acceptable. We might label it differently, but given what I read of your interpretation of this thorny chapter, the actual practice is quite similar.

Given that, do you find any of the other implications that have been discussed here to be of value? If you were to rewrite that piece, would anything that's been discussed here get factored in?

Arlyn, I appreciate your questions.

They triggered - in me - an essay on some hermeneutical principles that I would actually apply. You know. . .something actually constructive, because the fact is that we do have to define what we mean by faithful acceptance.

If anyone else wants to write up a short essay on what you would do with Numbers 5 and the broader issues of interpretation, send it to:

alexander[at]spectrummagazine[dooooooot]org

I just am not one to pick and choose the stories I believe; believing them true, however, isn't the same as saying that they are applicable today.

Why not? Is truth constant, or does it change?

How about slaves? Are you going to tell them to obey their masters, as Paul did?

That's what Chris Hitchens is on about, this picking and choosing in the Bible, not merely by liberal Christians, but by all Christians. How can anyone not do so?

How much of the OT do you folks throw out? How much of the New as well?

For me that's altogether easy. I throw both out.

I can even understand the point about picking and choosing, but in the end I tend to side with the "liberals" more with their picks from the Bible because I do not find any US Christians to hold to, say, Paul's teachings today.

I find this all rather fascinating. I really didn't expect anyone to have an issue with that article, I really didn't. But, again, it seems that the issue is with the Bible and what you accept or reject in it.

Oh come on, these are texts that both "liberals" and "conservatives" almost always avoid. That's because they're contentious and troublesome for the "inspired Bible" notion, and "liberal Adventists" don't have any really good explanation for them either. You should have known that if you brought it up that it would stir a hornet's nest, though perhaps the "liberal journals" in Adventism wouldn't bother with it.

And yes, I have problems with all of the Bible. But I don't see Cliff sticking up for the geocentric and flat models of the earth that are presented in the Bible (like the dome over the flat earth in Genesis--which account Cliff claims to believe), so I can only conclude that he picks and chooses what science to believe and what science to reject due to selective adherence to the Bible.

Glad some of you are confident enough in your own judgments to do that. I accept it all, even the parts that really bother me.

I think that some don't so much follow the Bible, as try to follow Jesus. Kierkegaard has it that nothing more than the fact that Jesus lived and died on the cross would have had to have been written. The rest is up to God--to provide the infinite leap from our condition to the condition of faith (of course he points up the Abraham sacrificing Isaac problem as well, for he knew that modern Christians would not accept Abraham's attempted deed there, not if they went through it).

If faith is something beyond the Bible, then the logocentric problems of following the words written by unknown people and in unknown conditions with an unknown level of knowledge and truthfulness, becomes moot. Not that there aren't problems in the Kierkegaardian viewpoint as well, my only point is that, to many, Christianity is a condition and the following of a putative entity, and not of believing unverifiable bronze age myths and misunderstandings of the causes of miscarriages.

Glen Davidson

Cliff

Just one final thought on literalism. I believe in Creation. I believe in a Creator Redeemer God. I don't believe that Gen. 1 is a literal record of the creative work of God.

Take just one example: The text reads that the earth was without form and void. Then on the third day the God created the Sun and the Stars. The story more than suggests that the God suspended the earth in space for at least three days before he created the Solar System. Then He created the Milky Way our Galaxy. Now, of course, that may be the way it appeared to one standing on the shore of a river running through the Garden of Eden. But it is about as acurrate as the "Big Bang".

The problem, I have with your propositional truths are the libeling by labeling you tar everyone who disagrees with you.

Take just one prime example: there are many born again Christians of impeccable virtue who do not believe in the Investigative Judgment. I have found none who would dare descrate the Holy of Holies. I also know solid Christians who believe that God is from everlasting to everlasting and that He well could have taken a long time in His creative work. Some even believe that the Hubble demonstrates that that work continues to this day. Never-the-less, their hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Blood and Righteousness.

Why not simply state your beliefs and love your readers whether they agree or not? It is possible both the writer and the reader are wrong.

Just a story out of my youth. Gus was a Polish farmer married to Rose also Polish. The Standard Oil Station in Pound, Wisc had a air compressor that had a bell that would ring when the tire had the correct pressure of air. Gus and his wife went to the county seat. Gus noticed that one tire was a bit low.
He stopped at the Standard Oil Station to fill the tire.

He started adding air, and adding air, and adding air. Rose kept saying Gus, I think you have enough air in that tire. Gus said, Rose you don't understand about these things. When there is enough air the bell will ring. So Gus kept on adding air and Rose kept on telling Gus to stop. Finally the tire blew. Gus put on the spare and returned to Pound and told everyone he was going to sue Standard Oil because the bell didn't ring.

Cliff let us ring the bell on this one. Tom

Alex,

You are right, this is a hermeneutical issue. And there probably are many approaches that are valid, some more than others. Thank you for inviting others to try their spiritual gifts on this troublesome passage as well.

Daneen,
No, you are not dense, I have been blessed many a time by your insights. So, I must have been unclear despite my many words. I take the "yale" approach to the Bible- that as a whole it is a given relevation from God- and therefore ALL of it ( not just some parts) are worthy of spiritual examination for our benefit.

So, instead of only saying Numbers 5 is pure garbage and clear evidence that the Jews projected their hatred of women onto God (which is a possibility, I grant), are there ANY other possibilities why God chose to leave it in the canon for us in the 2008 to ponder? I think that is a more fruitful task and one that progressive Adventists should tackle- ESPECIALLY if they despise the attempt of a fellow christian to do so.

Just musing:

Cultural context, legal options before marriage dissolution on grounds of suspicion, relinquishing to God marital poison, possibilities for public re-instatement of a woman's reputation, room for God to forgive and not punish adultery, belly swelling is a common symptom of infection but wasting of female sexual organs? (who would know? even in STDs one may become infertile but that wouldn't commonly shrivel the outside appearance...)and if the woman did commit adultery and her belly swelled with a resulting pregnancy with natural engorgement (opposite of shriveling) of her sexual organs - how would this play out? Would the husband feel legally obligated to see this as vindication of her innocence and love the child? Sorry- strayed from hermeneutics to case scenarios of Numbers 5.

Do you think God sometimes set up an algorithm but had the gospel revealed not in the algorithmn itself but the actual practice of it- leaving more room for forgiveness of sins vs exacting consequences?

I think we could all agree that people in the OT times saw the world as being completely controlled by God. Everything, EVERYTHING that happened to you or any one else was a direct result of God being either happy with you or unhappy with you. Happy with you, good things happened, unhappy, bad. And so this is how the OT authors wrote because they had no other mindset to write from. There was no sense of things happening according to scientific laws or principles etc.

The question is, do we believe they were correct? Do we believe that everything that the Biblical authors say came from God, really did? Do we see the world back then as consisting of God doling out rewards like a good harvest, and punishments like barrenness and illnesses based on the recipients' behavior?

When the OT says that God didn't want men with physical blemishes to be priests, it makes sense in that mindset. God had punished them already and it would be a slap in the face to God to have someone serve Him who God had already singled out as displeasing. BUT, do we really think that God punished people with physical defects back then and that was why someone was born with, say, an extra finger? And that God really didn't want them to serve as priests? Do we really think God DID smite female adulterers with barrenness?

Cliff it seems to me that part of the reason you support this test is because you think God really was in there doling out barrenness on the basis of her behavior. Those of us who think that women, even back then, were barren or not barren based on scientific laws are going to be more appalled at the ritual for all sorts of reasons.

And I'm not trying to argue that one should think God never intervened either. It's just that adapting the prescientific mindset that God intervened with everything all the time, and that everything biblical attributed to God should be accepted as such, is troublesome.

I would argue that Jesus himself directly challenged this mindset by pointing out that neither the blind man nor his parents had sinned to cause it. This was contrary to the Torah but I think we could agree was a step in the right direction.

Arlyn,

I'm with you (and the Yale school) on this. =)

Alex,

I don't know about an essay, but I really like Gadamer on this and the idea that there is a hermeneutic circle (our interpretation is guided by our preconceptions/prejudices, but our preconceptions/prejudices are also shaped and called into question by the text/phenomena we seek to interpret) involved in all our interpretations.

Our horizons, i.e. preconceptions are shaped and given to us by our traditions.

In other words, there is no neutral, or purely objective stance from which we interpret things. We are all shaped by our traditions, and the respective texts and events from that tradition.

When applied to the question of the Bible and the Christian tradition, we come back to the question of if the originary even (given to in a specific historical/cultural context) is

1. an actual revelation from God or
2. if it is human reflection on their experience, or in this case,
3. humans positing to God their own whims and desires in order to justify themselves and oppress others.

I don't deny 2 and 3 happen, but I usually side with option 1 when it comes to stuff in Scripture.

Oh, and congratulations Daneen! I found the times when I was pregnant to be the most powerful and deeply spiritual of my life. Maybe in part because the couple of years following them were kind of a blur :) Enjoy every second of that beautiful experience if you aren't too nauseous.

For the husband the test was "justice from the dust- God damn her if she did it!" For the wife it was "possible grace from the dust- God be my Judge and Redeemer." (for if she didn't have this test- what were her options? a miserable marriage without trust or divorce and no chance of proving her innocence since there was NEVER any proof from the beginning!)

I like to think... from the tender-hearted Aaron it may have been- "where's the cleanest spot on this floor?"

Am I still "spinning"? Look at it from a woman of those times- yes, they were economically and reputationally dependent on a marriage for the most part. And if the husband was that suspicious- without hard evidence- the marriage is emotionally destroyed anyway. "Guilty" is how she is being treated already by her husband. How can a woman prove innocence where the absence of evidence of adultery is not proof enough? It is a no-win situation. Come on! Is there no solution God can offer to this?

Thanks Beth! The nausea is getting better daily now.

Thanks for clarifying, Arlyn. If one did take the "Yale" approach, I think Cliff's commentary actually might be some of the better reasons we could imagine for God keeping that test-for-adultery-curse/ritual in the Bible. Your point about giving up marital poison to God is also one of the better principles we could try to elicit, although that still leaves women with precious few options.

As Zane points out, our preconceived notions are key--what hermeneutic principle do we approach this test with? Is it the Yale approach you find helpful? Or is it the separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff model Aage speaks of?, The more I learn about how we got the canon in the form that we have it now, the more I find myself unable to answer this particular question unequivocally right now. With your perspective, does it bother you that this test for adultery is so patriarchal? Does that mean that God didn't care about male adultery?

I like Beth's point about Jesus making it clear that the blind man's condition had nothing to do with his sins or the sins of his parents. That seems like a pretty clear example of where this type of OT test can lead to--a physical problem results from that person's bad behavior. Jesus essentially said--No, that's an old, flawed model. Sometimes bad things just happen, and when I have the chance, I want to bring healing. I see Jesus' example as redeeming God's reputation in many ways.

(and it is flippant to say that as a woman one wouldn't want to live with a husband who was suspicious so redeeming a marriage is a poor result. Nowadays, we have options. Back then, unmarried, divorced women were beggars - if they survived.)

Arlyn,

The idea of God establishing law as an opportunity for grace to be practiced is something that is intriguing. By law, Joseph could have had Mary publicly humiliated, or even stoned according to the OT letter (although, as far as I know, by NT times there is no record of this being practiced, Jn.8 notwithstanding). However, it says that because he was a "righteous man," he looked to divorce her quietly. Compared to what his legal recourse could have been, Joseph practiced grace, and was commended for it. It seems this is the actual practice that God was looking for. It is certainly the actual practice of Jesus himself in relation to the Law.

Beth,

"Do we see the world back then as God doling out rewards like a good harvest, and punishments like barrenness and illnesses based on the recipients' behavior?" Obviously, we don't see this today...well maybe some still do. And we certainly don't endorse this view of God, nor does the NT...but neither does the OT fully support this. The entire book of Job, likely the earliest written, revolves around this very question. And it is his "comforters," the ones holding this view, that are actually rebuked most strongly in the end. They must go to Job, so he can sacrifice for them.

I don't think that the OT authors' mindset was necessarily so one sided.

Thanks...

Frank

Daneen,

Yes, it is lopsided and unequal in the treatment and it does bother me. Even worse, the text does say the guy is held "guiltless" for putting his wife through all this without evidence. What???!!! That is sooo unfair! All he paid was a cereal offering for the test- at least he ought to pay with a guilt offering of his own!

In adultery, actually both the man and the woman caught were punished with death-egalitarian punishment. Fornication was not adultery exactly, and was dealt with differently.

When Jesus comes- the fullness of God- He chooses ALSO to reside within the social norms of His day in choosing his disciples- Not a Single one was a woman!

Despite being followed by believing faithful women who gave of their resources and services to Him freely and followed him to the grave and were the first to greet him at the resurrection. Jesus also chose purposefully to exclude any minorities- not a single believing Greek or Samaritan was included in the twelve, though they sought him out too. So on gender and race (actually also on geographical distribution, age, economic status, educational background) Jesus did not use our modern egalitarian ideals in selecting those most favored with access to Himself. He was clearly unfair- according to our value system.

Well, I just made the discrimination problem even more problematic rather than giving a good spiritual reason why men and women were not treated equally in Numbers 5. No solution, just cultural context is all I have to offer on this one. Or is that a semblance of a solution?

(for nausea, ginger helps, it comes in a candy form in health stores. Blessings, blessings to you!)

Just a tangent: If omissions (as in why is there no adultery trial for men in Numbers 5) are purposeful- I have two puzzles from the Pentateuch that need resolving also.

Sabbath commandment to rest injunctions the man, daughter, son, and everybody else including the stranger within thy gates- except the wife.

Incest rules forbid sleeping with every woman relative except the direct daughter- the most common victim.

help.

Cliff is surprised at the vehemence with which his views have been received. I think that has something to do with the fact that the world right now is at "war" with people espousing the same value system as we find in the Torah, only these people are fundamentalist muslims. When he tries to give misogynism a positive spin, you begin to think of spokespersons for the Taliban giving a similar spin to their anti-feminist ideology.

There is very little daylight between the ideology of the Taliban and that of the Torah. Even in today's world, it's difficult to see a significant