My Biblical Confusion
When I was a teenage boy in the 1960s attending a Jesuit private boys school, I found contradictions in the Bible that have never been able to reconcile. Please help if you can.
Believers
I have met many people over the years who are ardent believers in the Bible, its teachings and the God described in that book. One aspect of the biblical God has perplexed me since the 1960s.
I will use the story of Moses and the Red Sea to examplify my consfusion.
Exodus 14 NKJV—Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they…
In Religion class…
I was taught that God is almighty, creator of all things, seer & knower of everything, loves all of His creations equally, and will be the Final Judge of all souls at the end of time to decide who will spend eternity with Him or be expelled to eternal damnation. This is what the priests and Jesuit brothers taught me to believe (among other ideas) which was hard for me to reconcile in my day-to-day life and all of the hypocrisy I observed in humanity.
According to Exodus, God empowered Moses to lift his staff to provide dry passage for the Isrealites through the Red Sea, then to raise his staff again to flood that passage and drown the army of pursing the Egyptian Pharaoh’s soldiers.Why did God empower Moses to use his free will to drown so many Egyptian soldiers? There must have been a less murderous way to save the lives of all the Israelites and Egyptians with God’s help don’t you think?
Relativity
If the Bible had been written by the Egyptians, perhaps Moses would have been portrayed as the moral villain in that story. My point is, “truth” is relative and “to the victor goes the spoils” - including the writing of history from one perspective only.
Can anyone also explain this to me?
Why do so many people trust the Bible as a source of moral teachings when Exodus portrays a God that enables the destruction of His own creations?
I am not a biblical scholar.
I possess a simple understanding of the Bible that was formed in my mind as a teenager in the 1960s. I hope someone can explain these apparent moral contradictions to me.
Thanks in advance.
I am not a biblical scholar . I work more to an inner knowing. How does this feel to me ? As you have indicated the Bible has had many authors and rewrites. If the passage does not resonate with you then move on. At some time it may come around again and hold a meaning missed on previous times. Do not dismiss the amount of control religions want to have over the parish. Do not give the Creator of All human attributes. The Creator of All is Love and we are evolving to that understanding.
I have waited almost two months to comment on this post. I now feel ready to give a relevant and honest answer.
I myself have been appalled by God’s apparent lack of sympathy in biblical stories where he wipes out, not only pursuant warriors (as in the Moses account) , but whole families and their livestock. So, when you used this example to cite God’s unfairness and lack of moral consistency, I had to agree, even though these instances of apparent “meanness” never deterred my overall Faith. They were , to me , “mysteries” as the catechism priests used to say about any questions I had that they couldn’t answer.
Now …I’ve had encounters with evil (and I don’t mean when a person said something mean to someone else, or a person stole something) I am talking about systemic views and actions so contrary to benevolent human co-existence that whole groups of people are acting in a fashion that not only oppresses but morally and physically subjugates other individuals to the point of abject poverty and death.
I can now see how a Creator would think twice about His ordinance of “Free Will” and impose some instant Karma on those genocidal fools.
Another reason I am able to come to terms with many of the quandaries that used to plague me, is the knowledge that my God is bigger than Space , exists without Time and Created all Matter. My teeny tiny brain simply is not equal to the task of holding Him to account.
My parents never said this (but I have heard some who did) “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” Perhaps, that was God’s thought train atm? 🤣
Regardless of your Faith designation, we all believe in Something and serve Someone consciously, willingly, or not.
Just as the Declaration of Principals can be a Universally agreed upon tenet there must be written (Biblical) and other (oral and moral tradition) Universal Laws and Truths that elicit an eventual consequence - be it Divine intervention or “Karma”.