Why does God ask to murder?

The heinous acts attributed to the god of the Old Testament do not disprove the existence of gods in general, they merely prove that the Hebrew god is the construct of a brutal and superstitious society dominated by tyrant kings.

Thanks, eleni. Your point is fair enough - it doesn’t seem a logical option for me, given my experience, but I can see that it is for you, given yours.

At judgement day,every knee shall bow - saved persons names are recorded in the Book of Life:

Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The bible teachs that murder is a sin.

The old testament taught an eye for an eye, but, the new testament teachs forgiveness of sin, thru the shed blood of Jesus.

Whenever murder was sanctioned in the old testament, it was for gross sin. God is a righteous God, and he wants a people that will seek him and trust him and obey him, he purged sin out of his people from time to time.

And if the bible is right, and I belive it is, our would is fast approaching the tribulation period, where a third of earths population is going to be destroyed. The bible tells the story from begining to end, and one day this earth is going to be purged with fire. God hates the sin, but, loves the sinner. Today is the day of salvation. He can protect us, if we seek him. WE see the strange happenings all around us, but, few are taking them as signs from God. He is speaking loud and clear, telling us that things are changing as we know them. We need to prepare now, while there is time.

He is a God of love, but, he is also a God of wrath, and one day, all sin is going to be done away with, only the redeemed of the Lord will remain. Everyone is invited, but, you must have a ticket. And that ticket comes from Christ. He paid our way. He bought us back from our fallen postition. He is our redeemer.

The Bible God is the creation of the Jews of old. He was made in their image and, like them, he was all about tribalism and warfare.

he aint real!

u tell me were in the bible it uses that word and I would be more then happy to give you a simple reason

silverwings, I believe the OP is referring to YHWH’s commands to the Hebrew to annihilate other cultures (women and children included).

because he is “god” all that is good and all that is forgiveful

These were the thoughts of people at the time. God ain’t true.

Flossheal, I really appreciate the honesty with which you’ve approached this question. I can tell you’ve given it a lot of thought and I found your response fascinating. However, I don’t think the possibility of God’s non-existence is a “cop-out,” just a logical option.

Hey, if anyone asks you to murder they are not good (god). Remember these words have 0 difference. Anything that is god (good) creates heaven. There is no murder in heaven. Where there is murder there is lack of good (god). So the bible that tells you different was written by someone that did not know this.

With reference to todaly’s comment, which I think is correct, I think we need to define different types of killing (all abhorent in my mind, as in the mind of most modern people, I guess).

lll specifies the word ‘murder’. Murder is unlawful, deliberate killing.

Todaly’s reference is to what we call genocide these days, or ethnic cleansing ( very loaded term). It’s against international law, but there was no international law in those days. Doesn’t make it any nicer, though…

Also in the Old Testament I can think of examples of ‘lawful’ killings, such as when kings ordered false prophets or deceitful courtiers to be killed, sometimes along with their families. Stoning adulterous couples was also lawful.

Then there’s the awful bit where Elisha gets teased by kids who then get eaten up by bears.

I hate it all. Every time this kind of thing comes up in a Bible Study, I try to challenge the other Christians to admit that this is vile. Mostly, they’re afraid to say, straight out, that the killings were wrong. I have encountered writers who were not afraid to look straight at these passages in the eyes of faith, though.

The challenge is, for those of us who love Jesus, to work out how our loving Father God can be matched to the God who variously advised, allowed, or appeared to condone the killings in the OT. You can take the ‘cop-out’ option which is that He doesn’t exist at all and was just an excuse for those barbaric times. But that doesn’t match with my own knowledge of Him. You could take a second ‘cop-out’ which is that God is good so these killings must have been good. I’m not comfortable with that one either.

I think, from my reading and prayer on the subject, that there are a few conclusions I am prepared to accept:

Sometimes, killings occur without any value-judgement being placed on them. The punishments by kings are just reported, seldom given an actual OK. One writer suggested that they were reported neutrally like this because God had not condoned them. Check them out and see what you think.

At other times, people bring punishments on themselves. Horrible incindences of the Israelites suffering from attack, seige and famine are explained as being because they ignored God by worshipping other gods AND (often forgotten) shamefully ignored their own poor and their own environment. They went off track and the consequences were inevitable. I believe we see the same thing in our own day with Climate Change - keep ingnoring what you do wrong and the results will come back to haunt you. I suppose the Death of the Firstborn in the Plagues of Egypt could fit in the same category??

Other incidences, though, are purely genocide. And God does seem to be telling the Israelites to do this. I can’t condone it and I can’t relate it to the God I love. But I do accept it happened. I can only assume (and you could say this was another ‘cop-out’) that things have changed permanently through Jesus’ death for us - now we are united in Him, not divided by nationailty, now we are redeemed by Him, not judged according to our sins. So what once was inevitable but terrible has now become wrong. We can’t look back to that time before Christ without seeing things through the eyes of our own time.

I don’t feel I’ve given you (lll) the answer that will make you say: ‘Yes, it all makes sense now, I can believe in God!’. But I have tried to be honest about how my own faith withstands the question you asked.