old testament- good reading or pornography?

Question

boyf is die hard christian, im christian spiritualist. started reading the bible in my older years to gain knowledge, found its like reading porn and find it disturbing at times due to personal experiences. Seems god will be angry and put u to death if u spill ur seed, but you can have children with your old man to continue your clan??? I just dont get it in view of todays beliefs and its giving me the willies ( no pun intended!) any views?

Answer 1

There's an old saying: people in Biblical times committed the same sins we do today; only now, we have electronic gadgets to help us!

Passages such as Lot's daughters getting him drunk and raping him so they can have children are troubling. And how about the woman who was gang raped all night, killed, then cut into 12 pieces (Judges 19)? Or David having Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, killed in battle so his adulterous affair with her wouldn't be found out (2 Samuel 11)?

You make reference to God killing a person who spills his seed; I assume you refer to Onan. Understand that, in those days, at least one son had to be born in order to continue the man's name. If a man died with no son, his name also died. To prevent this, the man's brother was expected to impregnate the widow; a son born of this union was considered the dead man's son and sole heir. More importantly, if the dead man was the oldest son in a family, he (or his son) was entitled to a "double portion" of the patriarch's property when he died. Onan didn't want this to happen, so he refused to impregnate Tamar. Eventually, Tamar had to resort to trickery in order to conceive a son through the patriarch (Judah) himself.

There's a very good reason why God chose to include such graphic descriptions in His Word. God recognizes the need to inform us what happens when we become sexually immoral: death, disease, heartbreak, and -- worst of all -- further separation from Him. So, when you read passages such as these, look for these things: 1) what action(s) violate God's will? 2) what happened as a result of this sin? 3) did the sinner repent? 4) if repentance was or was not evidenced, what happened next?

On the other hand, we can contrast these graphic passages with "Song of Solomon." It's very explicit, yet, from the first to the last page, the romantic love of a husband and wife is stressed again and again. Without this Book, I wonder how many people would conclude God thinks sex is only for procreation! So again, God teaches us an important lesson. He blesses the sexual union of husband and wife: not only with physical pleasure, but with a deepened sense of love and respect one can only get through an intimate relationship.

I hope this helps. Peace and love in Jesus.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

You feel this way because what you are reading is simple nonsense. I am not saying that your belief in God is nonsense. I'm just saying that most of the things that you find in the Christian bible are.

Any ideas of a judgmental punishing God are absurd.

These writings that we call the Old Testament are borrowed from ancient Jewish scripture. The Jewish faith does not see them as being the word of God at all. It is only the Christians that have this fantasy about them. Jews see them as more of an ancient history/mythology about the roots of Judaism.

One needs to wonder how it is that the Christians find these meanings in borrowed scripture. Meanings that are nowhere to be found in the faith that they were borrowed from.

The ancient Jews were judgmental and somewhat vindictive, and wanted revenge for some of the things that had happened to them. So they created a judgmental, vindictive punishing God who judged as they judged, hated as they hated, and sought revenge just as they did.

All of this makes for some interesting reading if these ideas of judgment, punishment and revenge appeal to you, and of course as you pointed out porn has some attraction for you.

Still none of these things have anything to do with the real unconditionally loving God who is a part of each and every one of us. You are better off if you stick to the truth and skip the judgmental fantasy called the Old Testament completely.

I suggest you get a copy of the course in miracles. It disects the biblical nonsense, and points of the imposibility of a judgmental God.
It is considered by those who have actually read it to be the true bible of the christian spiritualists.

Love and blessings
don

Answer 4

hey that clan thing...you're talkin abt Lot, isn't it? even i was surprised when i read it. ....ben-ammi and moab. when the OT starts there's really a lot of sleeping done, abraham sleeps wid his maidservant hagai, and so does jacob
well, all i can say is that the bible has kind of stuff written on varied topics. some things might be disturbing...in Numbers or Duetronomy it is written tht if a man dies his wife shoud marry no stranger but his brother.................such things n many more seem impractical
some things might be contradictory, for eg, in proverbs it is written that WINE IS A MOCKER but jesus' first miracle was CHANGING OF WATER INTO WINE
i dunno abt the true nature of the book, it may vary from person to person, but after all i think it contains many things.
after all, in the bible, fornication is strictly condemned, so there is no question of pornography.
concentrate on things such as the 10 commandments, proverbs.....where a lot abt wisdom is given, also the parables are really gud.
many stories in the bible mite not be perfect, but ultimately the bible is all abt moralities.
good read

Answer 5

You can read the Old Testament, with out living it. You must think as how were things 6000 years ago.
To a woman be deprive of children, was the worst nightmare, that is why is consider bad in those time, it was dishonourable for a woman no to bear children's. And what bad is to talk about sex? Didn't God make us with sex? Sex was made a ta bu by men no by God. God allow sex, between man and woman. Its a sex education. I have read those passages and can find anything pornographic...

Answer 6

Because today's beliefs may be different than those in the Bible, does not mean that the Bible is Wrong. Any reading taken literally may be different than it's meaning. Porn? The Bible? Think of where it originated.

Answer 7

The Bible you have is not the word of GOD not even of Jesus (peace be upon him). There are many versions of Bible how can Word of GOD have versions.

If you have heard about "Red Lettered Bible", in this Bible the words spoken by Jesus are in Red color which are any way very few. Rest of Bible is in black. Whose words are those which are in Black surely not of God (neither of Jesus).

Please read Book "Is the Bible Gods Word" on http://www.irf.net/irf/download/index.htm

We also believe in Bible but actual Bible has been tempered with by the people.

Please read last testament (Al-Quran) which is by same Alimighty GOD who had sent old testament (Torah) and the new testament (Bible).

I really apologize if you felt hurt.

Answer 8

Your BF might be a die hard fanatic, but he for sure does not know the word enough to explain it to you it a simple manner. If you don't understand something in the bible, then ask God about it and somewhere you will be answered. Works every time.

Answer 9

Oh the bible only talks about that guy spilling his seed, because he was supposed to get his brothers wife pregnant (because his brother wasn't able to ) so he had sex with her, but then decided to pull out and not help his brother.

It has nothing to do with condemning "Master B" as so many, many Christians believe!

Answer 10

LOL Yes, the Old Testament is full of action and horror and all the popular stories of that era. But don't miss the point behind the stories, an of course, not all stories are like that.