People in Biblical times were revolting, why do Christians look back to this era as a kind of golden age?

Question

phlada64: Gee, I guess some of us think for ourselves after reading up on all kinds of stuff, we then form out own opinions and then put them out in the public arena to see if what we thought was worthy at all.

Answer 1

Perhaps they long for the good ol' days...

When you could have the community stone your kids to death for being disobedient...

Where you could sell your daughter into slavery...

Where the punishment for rape was that the rapist was forced to marry his victim...

When an angry (and horny) mob shows up at your doorstep, and you offer them your daughters for the night in order to save your own @ss (both literally and figuratively)...

Where you could kill people by the thousands just because they disagreed with you...

Answer 2

Everything was revolting in ancient times,as least by contemporary standards of human rights,and also with reference to scientific advances such as medicine and sanitation,what to speak of education. Perhaps Cecil B. Demille found ancient Egypt exotic,but any normal person of today would find it horrifying,what with slavery,pestilence and war,war,war. Genocide was entirely acceptable,except to the victims. If you are referring to Jews,Christians and to a lesser extent Muslims,I think it is inevitable that they would venerate an area associated with the genesis of their religous dispensations (Moses and Christ,later Mohammad). I must also note that your reference to "Biblical times" is imprecise - there is a 3000 year range involved - what to speak of ignoring the geographical inadequacies of the term. Imagine what life was like among the Incas concurrent to what you call Biblical times. However,your point is still clear and I hope my answer is somewhat helpful. Christians would inevitably regard the dawn of their faith as a golden era - just as Americans tend to regard Revolutionary times as a golden era.

Answer 3

What Christians look back on is the age of the early church when they lived communally and were actually focused on loving others, feeding the poor, healing the sick, and helping the needy. I think what you're referring to is the age of the Israelites, and I'm not quite such which Christian would see that as a kind of golden age.

Answer 4

Maybe they yearn for a life free from insecurity and internal doubts, a life where their ignorance can go unquestioned and unchallenged as anybody who disagreed with their holy books was burned at the stake as the "good book" commands.

I'm sure that living in a time when people believed illness/insanity came from witches/demons as the bible says, and that the world was flat and immovable as the bible claims, life was easier for christians.

Now we have all these facts and historical information that really mucks up the whole faith thing. We've found the bible to be wrong on almost everything scientifically, which makes it harder for christians to believe, so they have to cling harder and shut out the world and its observable, testable realities.

Also they are finally starting to be questioned and challenged about their silly beliefs and without the recourse of burning or killing the challengers, that also makes life a bit more stressful...

Answer 5

Big Bang, people in Biblical times were much less revolting than humans now. And humans now are supposed to be so sophisticated and learned. The only thing they have learned is to be more revolting than their forefathers. And they are very sophisticated in it.

That being said, I am a Christian and I do not look upon the Biblical era as a kind of golden age.

Hannah J Paul

Answer 6

They don`t.What they are looking back on is the word and doing`s of God.They know that at that time (as now)men were revolting creature`s.The Golden age you refer to is the first coming of Christ and his teaching`s and miracle`s later on in his life.

Answer 7

It's not the times that we look back to, but the teachings.

*begin sarcasm*
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to eat camel meat and flat bread baked on a rock in the burning sun, drink wine because it's safer than the water, and die of leprosy and malnutrition at the old age of 31. Moreover, how much fun would it be to fight in an army where a wound means death by festering, stinking gangrene! And don't forget about all the invasions - and the fact that, just as I'm being stabbed to death, I get to watch my wife raped before me and my children thrown off the city walls to their deaths. Sign me up!
**End sarcasm**

The times depicted in Scripture were nasty, unimaginable by the standards of modern industrialized nations, but still lived daily by billions. Life was nasty, brutish and short. And yet people were able to put their faith in a loving God who promised to protect them and make them prosperous. Today we don't have that violence, and it's not that we look back to it or yearn for it (indeed, I'm thanking God right now that I haven't had to face such terrible things), but that we have this example of faith and devotion, and seek it despite our comfort and material well-being.

Answer 8

Maybe ask an intellegent question next time. Who was revolting about what in the Bible? If you stated that I could better anwer. Vague and ambigious questions like the one you posted could take hours to answer.

Answer 9

Yea they were the good ole days...
Women were second class people, had to cook and clean and get married to whom our parents chose for us.
ICK
No thanks.
We look back on the era as great because we believe God's son was sent to Israel at this time.
†

Answer 10

We look back on that time to learn and find out what God hates and likes. Its history and we don't have to repeat it. Some things changed in the New Testament, but not everything.

Answer 11

biblical times Span over 1000s of year which time do you mean. we can only pray that we will see peace in our life time but it is unlikely we should be great full if we live in a peace full country.