Every few weeks, it seems, Islam makes headlines in the U.S., whether the topic is a television show like All-American Muslim, a state prohibiting Sharia law, or just a grandstanding platform statement in a primary. No less predictable are the basic arguments: Islam is evil, violent and repressive in its basic nature, and not because of the attitudes or political decisions of particular Muslims. Islam owes these evils to its fundamental scriptures, and above all in the Quran that a faithful Muslim believes to be the revealed word of God. If the founding scriptures are so vicious and so abhorrent, it literally is not possible to reform the religion founded on those sinister foundations. Although these arguments are common enough, they should be strictly off-limits to anyone who claims religious roots in the Bible, which of course has more than its fair share of extraordinarily violent texts. But in the whole catalogue of biblical horror stories, one tale in particular cries out for attention as a driving force in contemporary violence and bigotry. Before attacking Islam, Christians and Jews need to think carefully about one name in particular, which is that of Phinehas, the patron saint of hate crime.
Most modern Christians are never likely to hear his name in church, as the text containing his mighty deeds (Numbers 25) is simply not included in the cycle of readings used by virtually all mainstream congregations. But it is quite a story. The children of Israel have intermarried with Moabite women, so that the two peoples begin to share in worship. God furiously commands that the chiefs of Israel be impaled in the sun as a means of quenching his anger; Moses commands his subordinates to kill anyone who has married a pagan; a plague kills 24,000 Hebrews. Fortunately, Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, takes decisive action to preempt the worst of the catastrophe. He slaughters a mixed-Ârace couple, the Hebrew man Zimri, who had married a Midianite woman. Mollified, God ends the plague and grants Phinehas a "covenant of peace."
An obvious reading of that sacred text is that if your neighbors are doing something that egregiously violates God's law, you can and must take up arms and launch a vigilante action against them, to the point of murder, and that God will bless the crime. Such implications gave nightmares to early rabbinic commentators, who tried to adjust and soften the story. Perhaps, they suggested, Phinehas was just coming out of a special tribunal who commanded his act, so a kind of due process had been operating; or perhaps his action was so horrific that it traumatized him to the point of losing his reason? But the naked text stood, and through the centuries, it has been used in its obvious sense, as a vigilante's charter.
Some 3,000 years after the original murder, Phinehas is a deeply troubling name in the modern state of Israel. He has become a hero and exemplar to the extremist haredim, the Jewish ultra-Orthodox whose high birth rates make them a significant and growing power-bloc. The haredim engage in intimidation and mob actions against secular Jews, stoning cars being driven on the Sabbath and beating their drivers. Extremists try to force women to take their proper places of subordination in public places, and to dress in what they consider modest fashions, and they enforce their will by physical assault and spitting. Repeatedly, when they are asked how they justify these acts, they cite the example of Phinehas, who likewise intervened directly and spontaneously to suppress public sin. When Israelis organize a gay pride parade, haredim posters on the streets proclaim "This is an abomination! We are all Phinehas!" If Israel's secular or liberal Jews can read such words without feeling threatened, they are not paying attention.
Such ideas extend beyond the strict haredim. Some years ago, Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi denounced Reform Jews for their departures from orthodoxy. He cited Zimri, the victim of Phinehas's righteous wrath: "Zimri was the first Reform Jew who contended it was possible to assimilate the People of Israel through conversion [of non ÂJews]." While the rabbi denied advocating violence, he fully endorsed Phinehas's acts: "As a result of Zimri's actions, there was a plague on Israel. It is written that Phinehas understood drastic steps were needed to stop the plague."
Through history too, Phinehas has inspired Christians to fight for what they think of as God's cause, even when that means going outside the law, or defying overwhelming majority opinion. Reformation-era prophets and theologians called for modern successors to Phinehas who would assassinate Catholic monarchs. When England's Oliver Cromwell justified the execution King Charles I, an extreme act that drew international condemnation, he drew the obvious analogy: "Perhaps no other way was left. What if God accepted the zeal, as he did that of Phinehas, whose reason might have called for a jury!"
And if we think that nothing like that can happen in our own time, the experience of the American ultra-right tells a different story. In 1990, Richard Kelly Hoskins used the story as the basis for his manifesto Vigilantes of Christendom, which advocated a new order of militant white supremacists, the Phineas [sic] Priesthood. Over the next decade, a number of sects assumed this title, claiming Old Testament precedent for terrorist attacks on mixedÂrace couples and abortion clinics. Opinions vary as to whether Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh himself was a Phineas Priest, but he was close to the movement. While the Priesthood seems to be defunct today, no observer of the neo-Nazi scene would be amazed if the name reappeared in the near-future.
Like haredi vigilantes, Christian white supremacists represent only a tiny fringe of their respective religions, and we can learn nothing from their acts about the mindset of the vast majority of ordinary believers, who know nothing of Phinehas or his acts. But that ignorance is in itself an interesting comment on the role of scriptures in shaping religions. If the founding texts determine the whole later course of a faith, then it should be impossible for Christians and Jews to live their faith without the genocidal violence and racial segregation that so abounds in their holy book -- yet most believers do just that, and have done so in most eras of their history.
Yes, the bloody scriptures continue to exist, and in some circumstances, in certain conditions of social and political breakdown, extremists will cite them to provide a spiritual aura to violent and revolting acts that they were going to commit anyway. But that does not mean that we should hold the scriptures themselves responsible, or imagine that the faith as such is irrevocably tainted. Religions develop and mature over time, and it is lunatic to condemn a whole faith on the basis of its ancient horrors. That's true for Christians, Jews -- and Muslims.
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You do not need the bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate . . .
Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities . . .
History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god . . .
As for me I rather read Christopher Eric Hitchens, nicknamed "Hitch",
.......and just as much the biggest force for faith also.
"You do not need the bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate"
...the concepts that Jesus taught about love were unheard of before him. I suspect greed, jealousy and arrogance are bigger causes for hate than the Bible.
"Those who believe absurditieÂs will commit atrocities "
...you mean, like the worst murderer in histoy : the athiest - Joseph Stalin ?
I do know that the majority of cases of man helping man is based on some religious teaching.
The Salvation Army, and Catholic Charities are each bigger than even the Red Cross. and their core beliefs are : "if you love GOD, then Love your neighbor also".
"History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god"
...greed, fear, racism, and jealousy has killed more people than a belief in GOD.
....but please name ANY other cause that has produced more acts of charity than a belief in GOD.
God made me an atheist. Who are you to question his wisdom?
I just talked to god and he says he’s a gay pro-abortion Atheist! Now, prove that statement false
If god doesn't like the way I live, Let him tell me, not you.
...greed, fear, racism, and jealousy has killed more people than a belief in GOD.
That is absolutely untrue.
Science flies you to the moon Religion flies you into buildings
You are about as likely to go to heaven, as I am to go to hell.
All Gods are created equally through imagination.
Can't get away from Joshua and Deuteronomy though. God commands the slaughter of women and children, and approves of the rape of conquered women.
DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves."
Different time, sure? But there is no difference to a character that is portrayed as omniscient. If God is omniscient, he's a rapacious jerk. If he's not omniscient, he's not much of a God and the Bible is false. Or...what am I missing here...?
Who had the right of life or death but GOD ?
...if you feel he was unjust - then you go and create life.
This is why the coming of Jesus (the very human incarnation of GOD) is important to bring about a new relationship with GOD.
This is the point of Christianity.
Sure, God gave man free will and all that. Well, either he is omniscient or he's not.
I'm just saying that if I had a father like God, who tortured Job, allowed his son to be killed and told Abraham to slit his son's throat--I would call Child Protective Services, and if the Bible is accurate, they would take his kids away. Period.
The point of true Christianity was to purify the temple from corrupt influence and to free the Holy City from Roman oppression. Christ failed in that task as he was set up and executed, and since then there is not a speck of evidence that he's done anything but turn to bones somewhere secret.
Having a relationship with 2499 of the major Gods invented by men will land you in a loony bin, and talking to dead people will usually do the same.
I prefer not to have a Lord, as I am an adult living out of the Middle Ages and can exist, thrive, love and do acts of kindness without the help of mythological characters.
Just in case they didn't teach you in Church, you CAN create life.
All you need is wedding tackle and a willing and fertile friend. Cheers!
So now I created some life with my wife, I would like to claim my 'right of life or death'. By virtue of my functioning manhood and my wife's womb, I call for the Faithful to attack Liechtenstein. The fine automobiles and gold belong to your Lord. As for the women, children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves.
I just plagiarized the Bible in a rainstorm. No lightning. Lol.
I guess this was the first instance of "Do as I say, not as I do."
...GOD , as the creater has a right over life and death of his creation, he decided that he wished to restart his creation.
"killing all the first born of Egypt"
Every Egyptian lived of the enslavement of the Hebrew people for over 400 years, the hardness of the Egyptian Pharoh caused that.
a bad chef, just can't make anything right.
2) Sure an infant or toddler in Egypt knew that they were benefiting from the "enslaved" Hebrews. By the way, you do know that one of the most current hypotheses is that the Hebrews were not enslaved, but were more migrant workers who were let go during the economic downturn in Egypt. Doesn't quite make the Cecil B DeMille version, but makes a lot more sense.
You notice in the NT how different things are when Jesus is on earth when it comes to violent acts by God. Jesus was God on earth as opposed to just God communicating through prophets like in the OT. I think the OT had such a history of violent imagery written in words because it was coming from mortals who may have overstated God's wrath to suit their own needs. Even though this may be true the Bible needs to be kept intact and the wording left unchanged.
HERETIC! WE HAVE A HERETIC HERE!
If you study more and pray more often.. And do some reasearch you will undertsand HIS WORD.... all it boils down to is prayer and supplications... Things that some how people don't do.. But they read the bible... Hello